Well, Mother Nature gave us a gift today, as it looks like we're going to make it through most of the day's scheduled events without any weather issues. Practice for Saturday night's NASCAR K&N Series Widow Wax 150 may be threatened by a line of showers and thunderstorms currently in the Knoxville area (as of 4:30pm ET), but these storms are moving slower than I expected, so it's possible we stay dry until cars are off the track tonight.
As for the rest of the weekend, my forecast hasn't really changed much.
Saturday: Scattered thunderstorms possible, mainly during the afternoon/evening. High 76, low 54.
Sunday: Isolated thunderstorms, mainly in the afternoon. High 78, low 52.
I'd say rain chances look slightly higher both days than what we were looking at earlier this week, but in the end, it doesn't really matter- with this pattern in place, its a situation where you just have to wake up, look at things and make a call for that day, then monitor for changes.
Thunderstorms develop during the afternoon, die out at night, and leave behind miniature fronts called "outflow boundaries". It's along those boundaries that most storms will usually re-fire the next day. So, the best case scenario for racing might actually be that we get one of these thunderstorm clusters to roll through late in the evening or night and stabilize the atmosphere, so that the next day it is more difficult for storms to form. It's ridiculous that we are seeing this pattern in mid-March... it's much more May/early June-like!
Okay... enough of the science- you want to know if its going to rain or not! Well like I said, we'll have to take it one day at a time, but the process I described above just might be happening as we speak. Thunderstorms may roll in tonight, weaken, then re-fire east of Bristol tomorrow. We just might get another break from Mother Nature tomorrow if we manage to keep the atmosphere stable enough during race times. That said, we've got a full day ahead with the Nationwide Series race at 2pm, and the K&N Series race following it at 6:15, so it'll be asking a lot of her to keep it dry the whole day.
Sunday still looks like the best day, with only an isolated thunderstorm or two expected during the afternoon hours. By that day, I think a lot of these thunderstorm clusters like we're seeing today will have played themselves out, but again, we won't be sure until we wake up Sunday morning and have a chance to look at what we've got in front of us. As of right now, it appears the most favorable area for the next thunderstorm cluster to develop Sunday will be NORTH of the track in eastern Kentucky. Stay tuned.
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