Okay... everyone is expecting rain on Sunday at Auto Club Speedway for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Since last weekend, models have been consistent in bringing a Pacific storm system into southern California on Sunday. However, what causes most forecasters to miss the forecast (or bust, as meteorologists call it) is timing of these systems. Besides the obvious impact timing has on when the rain will begin, it can also cause huge temperature forecast errors on the west coast... but in this case, we'll just look at the rain.
We know that the scheduled green flag is scheduled to drop at about 3:10pm ET. I can also tell you that the average race speed over all the Sprint Cup races held at ACS is about 141mph. At that speed, the race should take approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes to complete... so a typical race started at 3:10pm ET would end at 6pm ET, and the crossed flags would fly (halfway point of the race) at about 4:30-4:45pm ET.
Now lets look at the models...
The pictures above are snapshots of three major weather models we look at on a day to day basis. These snapshots are valid at 2pm ET, or just before scheduled driver introductions. The pin shows the location of the track, and the shaded colors represent where the models think there will be measurable rain, with the rain being heavier as you go from purple to blue to green and yellow. Notice all of these models, for what its worth, show the rain just to the west.
Models spit out these snapshots in three hour intervals... so lets jump to 5pm ET. Remember, based on an average race, this would be just after the halfway point, and the race would be official. Here's what the models show at that time.
Now, by this time, all models except the "NAM" show enough rain starting to pass over the track to bring the cars onto pit road, assuming they ever made it off of pit road. Unfortunately, we can't see what the models show between 2pm and 5pm. And honestly, it may not help us anyway. Keep in mind that these are models, and they aren't going to nail the details of the forecast. And perhaps more importantly, they don't have the resolution to see small showers that may develop out ahead of the main area of rain. Think of it like your TV screen... if you have an older TV, it can be tough to see the chunks of rubber bouncing up against the wall during one of FOX's speed shots, but if you have HD TV (higher resolution), they look like you could walk up to the screen and pick them up! So the most useful weather models are the ones with the highest resolution, and of all the models above the ECMWF and the NAM have the best resolution. Notice they are the slowest to bring in the heavier rain showers. What I am sure of though is that once the rain starts and we "lose the track", we won't get it back again until Monday morning.
So what does all this mean? Well, I still expect to be watching my kids play in the backyard in this amazing Texas weather we're going to have this weekend, rather than being able to watch a race with them, but I'm not going to stop looking at the forecast for Sunday, either. Though I'm not a fan of latching on to computer forecast models (that's a dangerous practice as a meteorologist), the models available this morning and some of them from yesterday do show a small window of opportunity to get the race started, and based on these models alone, if NASCAR is able to bump up the scheduled green flag drop any earlier, it would make it that much more feasible to make it to halfway before the inevitable rain does fall on Auto Club Speedway. So make backup plans to stick around until Monday, but rest assured that NASCAR will not call off the race until the track is sufficiently wet on Sunday.
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