By Doug Schneider The St. Pete street course is partially located at the Albert Whitted Airport (KSPG), so getting accurate observed data for the track is really convenient. Overall, I think the forecast worked out okay. Thursday and Friday were sunny and dry, and the temperature forecast both days was pretty accurate. There was a good breeze through the event, which was accurately forecast. The big question through the week was whether rain would arrive over the weekend. There was a lot of uncertainty about this, and the timing of the potential rain shifted from Saturday to Sunday. As it turned out, there wasn't any rain at the track until after the racing was over, at 9 pm Sunday night. The downside of the forecast was mentioning a chance of rain on Saturday. I should have leaned the forecast toward the slower model. But at least it was only a 40% chance, and I did trend it downward with later forecast updates. I kept the rain chances low on Sunday, which worked out well. I wasn't impressed with the potential for rain on Sunday, as it looked like the low pressure system would be lifting farther northeast and weakening on the southern end of the front. My Twitter posts on race day were downplaying the potential for rain while others on Twitter were posting radar images and getting excited about a wet race mixing things up. Radar loops showed the rain was moving northeast, and would pass north of St. Petersburg. Given all the uncertainty about the rain and the model disagreement right up to Friday, I'm mostly satisfied with how the forecasts worked out.
By Doug Schneider (@Race4caster) High pressure will be drifting across Florida from west to east to start the week, and it will be off the east coast by Wednesday. This will provide a southerly flow that will warm temperatures into the upper 80s on Wednesday and Thursday, and keep both days dry with plenty of sunshine.
Meanwhile, a cold front will be pushing toward the southeast across the southeastern United States, and will be located somewhere across northern Florida by Friday. As it continues to push south, it will become a focus for showers and thunderstorms, but it will eventually stall somewhere across central Florida. The key to rain chances at Sebring will be where exactly this front becomes positioned on Saturday. If it stalls near Sebring, there could be a lot of rain during the race. If it stalls farther to the north, there could be very little rain, but still a possibility of showers. There is still some model disagreement on its location, and it is still too early to pin down that much detail. In either case, it looks like Friday and Saturday will have at least a chance of some showers and thunderstorms, with the higher chances on Saturday. Stay tuned for forecast updates through the week on our social media channels on the right. I plan on making a video weather briefing for this race in the next few days, which will be posted on our YouTube channel. By Doug Schneider I'm an hour behind this morning thanks to the change to Daylight Savings Time (down with DST!), so I apologize for posting this a little late. The current radar (9:45 am) shows an area of rain well offshore that is moving toward the east-northeast. It will take several hours for this rain to reach St. Petersburg, if it even hold together at all. Models are indicating that it will be falling apart as it moves east. So I think the most likely scenario today is a dry IndyCar race. Here's a model-simulated radar image at 3 pm this afternoon, around the time that the Prielli World Challenge race is scheduled to start: As you can see, this model (HRRR) shows the rain will still be well offshore at this time. Other models (NAM, RAP) show a similar location of the rain. While I cannot entirely rule out a shower during the PWC race, it seems more likely that it will be a dry race.
I'd put the chance of seeing rain during the races at around 25%. High temperatures today will be around 78 degrees, with winds from the southwest around 10-15 mph. For live radar, check our St. Pete radar link that the top of the page. By Doug Schneider Not much change from the previous forecast today. There will be some high clouds providing filtered sunshine around St. Pete today, with clouds generally getting thicker through the day.
The chance of rain on Sunday still looks pretty low. I really think the track will stay dry, but I can't rule out a shower entirely, so I'm keeping a mention of isolated showers or thunderstorms. If there is a shower, I expect that it will be light and not disrupt the racing action too much. By Doug Schneider The 12 Hours of Sebring is a week from tomorrow, so it's time to start looking at what the general weather pattern will be across Florida for next weekend. Of course, this prognosis is subject to change, and I'll have a more specific forecast for the race in a few days. The pattern across Florida next weekend looks pretty wet. How wet varies by which model you look at, but they all agree that the pattern will favor a southwest feed of moist air from the tropics, along with a front moving southward across Florida. This pattern points toward a rainy race weekend. Here's an image from the GFS model that gives you an idea of what the pattern might look like next Saturday afternoon (2 pm EDT to be exact). It shows precipitable water in the image (how much rain would accumulate if all the moisture were squeezed out of a column of air), and surface pressure in the black lines. I've added the approximate position of a cold front. The winds through the midlevels of the atmosphere are from the southwest, represented by the green arrow. This southwest flow will transport moist air from the tropics into Florida. At the same time, the cold front will be moving toward the south. Notice that the front is oriented southwest to northeast, in the same direction as the midlevel winds. This means that the front will be moving very slowly, so a prolonged period of rain is possible if this pattern should occur. The amount of rain forecast by this model for Friday and Saturday at Sebring is between 0.75 and 1.25 inches.
Are we looking at another water-logged race like 2015 Petit Le Mans? It's possible, if this pattern verifies. We're still over a week from the race, so hopefully the models will change, but this is what we're looking at right now. Stay tuned. By Doug Schneider (@Race4caster) Today will be another beautiful day for qualifying, practice, and the Pirelli World Challenge GTS race. There will be plenty of sunshine with highs around 80. It will be a little breezy, with southeast winds at 10 to 15 mph.
Saturday is looking dry, but with a few more clouds than today. Highs will reach near 80 again, with winds around 10 mph. There could be a few isolated showers around central Florida, but I don't think they will impact the track while racing is going on. Sunday continues to have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, but I still think the chances of rain during the racing are low. There are some other forecasts that I've seen that have higher rain chances, but I'm not convinced that rain is a sure thing. There is still some disagreement in the models with how much moisture there will be, and the trend of all the models recently has been toward less moisture and less rain. I'm keeping a 30% chance of rain on Sunday, but that also means that there is a 70% chance that the day will stay dry. So don't let that small chance of rain keep you away from the track if you're thinking about going to the race. We have our live radar feed up and running. Just follow the link at the top of the page. We are very excited to announce a new partnership with America's National Park of Speed, Road America! We will be providing exclusive weather forecast graphics for all the public racing events that will be held at the track this year. Our forecast graphics will appear on Road America's social media channels, their website, and on the video boards around the track. Here's the 2016 Road America race schedule:
Thanks for following our forecasts as we continue to grow! By Doug Schneider The timing of rain chances continue to shift toward later in the weekend, but there's some good news too.
The models have been all over the place the past few days regarding the timing of rain in St. Petersburg this weekend, but they are finally starting to come into better agreement today. The bad news is that the rain chance has shifted into Sunday. The good news is that the lift that is driving the precipitation is getting weaker as the low pressure system over the Midwest pulls away toward the northeast. So while I do have a chance of showers mentioned Saturday and Sunday, the chances are low, and it is entirely possible that there won't be any rain at all. |
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