High winds forecast for Saturday caused Downtown South Bend organizers Thursday to announce they’re postponing their St. Patrick’s Day parade until the following weekend.
But they say there’s still lots of fun to be had this weekend.
Saturday is forecast to be sunny with a high of 71, but with a sharp drop in temperatures coming in the evening, wind gusts could hit 40 to 50 mph. Because of all the work people have put in, Downtown South Bend Inc.’s Kylie Carter says the postponement was a tough call, but high winds are not good for parades.
"Things could blow off the floats into the crowd, lots of people marching carrying banners, any hope of having any sort of vendor tents, or even people eating food, I can't even imagine anybody wanting to sit down and eat a burrito or anything with 50 MPH wind gusts," Carter said.
St. Patrick’s Day falls on Monday, and the parade is now set for 11 a.m. next Saturday, March 22.
Carter says there’s still lots of windproof celebrations planned for this weekend, including their first St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl since the Covid pandemic.
"We have 15 downtown pubs participating, we have a shuttle service that's running from 5 p.m. to midnight, and that's going to be a lot of fun."
And since they’ve already prepared the food, St. Patrick and St. Hedwig parish will still serve their corned beef and cabbage meal, with live Irish music, at 4 p.m. this Saturday, as they had planned for after the parade.
