New York school sports heat policy
NYSPHSAA’s procedures call for a heat check before games and practices on hot days, by heat index or WBGT, and print no single statewide WBGT table. How to read these labels
- Association
- NYSPHSAA (New York State Public High School Athletic Association)
- Label
- Policy on file: no single statewide table
- Reading it uses
- WBGT or heat index
- Statewide table
- No single statewide table
- Last checked
- October 1, 2026
What NYSPHSAA’s document says
NYSPHSAA’s Heat Index Procedures call for a heat check before each contest or practice when the air temperature is 80 degrees or higher: “Feels Like Temperature (Heat index) or THI using a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Indicator … on the field will be checked 1 hour before the contest/practice”. The heat index is the default reading, and “Schools may also use a Wet Bulb Globe Temperature Indicator”, so WBGT is one of two permitted readings. Its WBGT chart prints three category columns and sends schools to a map to find theirs, so no New York table is shown here. NYSPHSAA labels only its top range required, where “the contest will be suspended”; the ranges below it are labeled recommended.
We don’t have a single sourced threshold table for New York, and we won’t put another state’s numbers in its place: regional tables differ by several degrees. Follow the policy your school, district or league has adopted. For general heat guidance at your field, open the map.
NYSPHSAA Heat Index Procedures (updated 3 May 2023)This is a plain-language summary to help you plan. It is not legal advice, and it is not the association’s document. Associations revise these policies often. Confirm what currently applies with your school, district or association.
What else to know
- NYSPHSAA’s procedures have an athletic trainer, athletic director or school designee make the check. When the reading is in one of its recommended ranges, that person checks again at halftime or the midway point of the contest.
- At the top of NYSPHSAA’s heat-index chart, no outside activity, practice or contest “should be held”, and indoor activity only “if air conditioned”.
- NYSPHSAA’s procedures were first approved in 2010, and the edition we cite, updated May 3, 2023, carries the WBGT chart.
How to read this
NYSPHSAA’s document does not give one WBGT table for the whole state, so none is shown here. The summary above says why. Open the document to find the table or chart that applies to your school.
Before you rely on this
- This page summarizes NYSPHSAA’s document. It does not replace it. If they differ, go by the document and by the policy your school or league has adopted.
- Confirm what currently applies with your school, district or association. Many schools adopt their own version.
- Any WBGT number WetBulbTracker shows is a modeled estimate for planning, not an official reading. Where a policy calls for an on-site reading, that reading governs.
- This page does not replace an athletic trainer’s judgment.
Live heat readings in New York
Suggest a correction
Associations update these documents, often before the fall season. If something here is wrong or out of date, send us a link to the current document and we will re-check it.
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