Doug Schneider - @Race4caster

Unsurprisingly, the forecast for Bahrain later this week has lots of sunshine and warm temperatures - just what you'd expect for an arid desert region. At the surface, high pressure will be centered over the western portion of Saudi Arabia on Thursday, then drift east to the Persian Gulf through Friday and Saturday. In the mid and upper levels, a ridge will be crossing the area. As this ridge moves to the east of Bahrain on Saturday, there may be an increase in high and midlevel clouds behind it, associated with an approaching jet stream and upper trough. But other than some increasing clouds on Saturday, each day will have very similar weather conditions to the day before it, with high temperatures in the mid 80s (upper 20s C) and lows around 70 (around 21 C). 

By Doug Schneider

The weather pattern hasn't changed much at all since my last forecast on Monday, so I've only needed to make a few small tweaks to my forecast.

​High pressure at the surface will be gliding east across eastern China toward Japan through the weekend. As it builds in on Friday, there will be a pretty good north wind at 10 to 20 mph (16 to 32 km//h). In the upper levels of the atmosphere, there will be a trough moving across eastern China, and the effect of this trough will be a drop in temperatures on Saturday. Highs will only reach to near 60 degrees F (16 C). The trough passage will also bring some more clouds, but no rain is expected with it. The movement of the surface high to Japan will result in an easterly flow off the ocean on Sunday, so I think with the increasing moisture in the low levels, clouds will be nearly overcast all day. But I'm fairly confident that the race will stay dry. 

By Doug Schneider

A large high pressure system is expected to be the main weather feature throughout the 6 Hours of Shanghai weekend, which should provide nice weather conditions each day. The high pressure center starts out to the northwest of Shanghai on Friday, and as it builds in behind an exiting front, it will be breezy, with a north wind at 10 to 20 mph. The high shifts east through the weekend, and as it moves toward the Korean Peninsula and Japan, it will turn winds to the east. This will bring some moisture off the ocean - enough to increase cloud cover on Saturday and Sunday, but likely not enough to produce rain as the moisture should be shallow and confined to the low levels of the atmosphere. However, I'll be keeping an eye on this to see if it changes as we get closer to the weekend. 

By Doug Schneider - @Race4caster

It has become an annual tradition at Racecast Weather to share with you the best photos that combine our two favorite things - weather and race cars. Nothing compliments the beauty of race cars like a breath-taking weather scene in the background. So here's the collection for 2017 - click to enlarge. Hope you enjoy them.

By Doug Schneider - @Race4caster

The outlook for the Six Hours of Fuji hasn't changed much in the past few days. It still looks like a very wet weekend as a front is expected to stall near the southern coastline of Japan. The one bright spot in this forecast update is that the impact of the rain on Saturday looks less than it did before. 

Today, radar shows that a solid line of showers will move across Fuji Speedway, associated with a cold front. As the front moves southeast, it will stall near the southern coast of Japan, just south of the track. Warm, moist air riding up and over the front will keep periods of rain going through Saturday and Sunday. The flow of moisture over the front appears to be weaker than it did a few days ago, so I have lowered the forecast rainfall amounts on Saturday, and dropped the Impact back to Moderate. This means that all planned on-track activity should be able to be completed, but probably not without some delays or at least the use of rain tires.

The pattern doesn't change much for Sunday, and periods of rain will continue to affect the racing action. Rainfall amounts look higher on Sunday than Saturday, with up to a half inch (13 mm) expected through the day. I think it will be a steady light to moderate rain, rather than a heavy rain that will cause the race to be stopped. Thus, I have the Impact as Moderate. With the surface front located to the south, temperatures will be cool all weekend.