Is there shade at Martin Stadium?

Martin Stadium in the sun: what to know before a Pullman day game

The Palouse runs hotter and drier in late summer than most visitors expect from Washington. Afternoon highs around Pullman hit about 85°F in high summer and August and hold at 82°F in September, real heat, arriving with cloudless skies right as the Cougars' season begins. Martin Stadium is an open bowl aligned nearly east-west, so the sidelines face north and south, and the south-facing seats spend the afternoon looking straight at the sun's arc. At an early-afternoon kickoff the sun stands 65 degrees high, due south, and the shade is thin almost everywhere.

Reading the bowl

Across a full early-afternoon game, roughly 36 percent of Martin Stadium is shaded. The club level fares best: sections 201 through 204 plus 208 and 209 are shaded about half the game, sitting under overhead structure with the sun's track at their backs. The sunniest seats cluster in the lower bowl, sections 124 through 126 at around 28 percent shade, and section 107 the single sunniest spot at 23 percent, which works out to more than three quarters of the game in direct light. On an 85°F September afternoon in Pullman, that difference between a club seat and section 107 is the difference between watching a game and enduring one.

Timing your Saturday

The exposure starts long before kickoff. Tailgating on the Washington State campus is a full-sun activity in August and September, so a noon game means five or six hours outside at the day's peak, water and sunscreen are as much a part of the plan as the seat itself. The dry Palouse air helps once the sun weakens: from 6 PM on, 68 percent of the stadium is in shade, and in high summer the sun sets around 8:38 PM. By 7 PM it is down to 14 degrees above the west-northwest horizon, low enough for the stands to shade most of the bowl, and dry-climate evenings cool off fast. A late kickoff at Martin Stadium is a two-jacket proposition by the fourth quarter even in September.

Then the season turns hard. October afternoons in Pullman average 58°F and November 50°F, and the sun goes from adversary to amenity, late in the year, the south-facing seats that roasted in September are the ones people want.

Seat strategy in brief

• Day games: club sections 201–204, 208–209 for the most shade; steer clear of lower 107 and 124–126 if the sun wears on you.
• Night games: shade solves itself; bring layers instead.
• Either way, plan sun protection for the tailgate hours.

Kickoff times move throughout the season, and the shade line moves with them. Check the interactive shade map for your exact game before you commit to a section.