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Watkins Glen International Weather Forecast: Rain Almost Certain Sunday
The forecast for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race is not improving. With each run of the models, the printout for rain is very high. Like I did with Pocono, I am going to let you see what I see when it comes to the computer weather models.
Model No. 1 prints out the worst scenario. This is for 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday (the race starts shortly after 1 p.m.). There is lots of rain being printed out for the Finger Lakes region of western New York.
Unlike last week, where we were dealing with small clusters and isolated storms, this looks like we will see a more widespread area of rain heading into the region Saturday night into Sunday as a storm system moves out of the Midwest through the Great Lakes and into the Mid-Atlantic.
In Model No. 2, the rain is only slightly delayed but still raining at 2 p.m. EDT over Watkins Glen. The Friday afternoon computer models print out a precipitation probability of 75-to-100 percent of likely rain for the area on Sunday, with a better than 80 percent probability for Monday as well.
I don’t like to call wash-outs, but every time I have seen the models look like this before a race, it usually ends up being one.
As I said last week, I can’t and won’t tell a fan who has spent money on hotels and tickets whether or not they should or shouldn’t go to a race. All I can do is give you my professional opinion on the weather and suggest you look at other sources like the local media from Rochester to Syracuse. I trust these sources over some of the main weather websites out there, as many of these forecasts are done by people interpreting the data like do versus just a computer model printout. Arm yourself with all the information you can find, then make your decision.
The only good news I can find is Saturday looks to be drier as the rain and storms seems to be slightly delayed. Once the Nationwide race starts, the threat of an isolated or scattered shower/ thunderstorm increases. I think we get the whole Nationwide race in – plus the good thing is that the Nationwide cars can run with rain tires and windshield wipers.
SATURDAY:
9:30 a.m EDT
Nationwide qualifying – Partly sunny - temp: 67
11:30 a.m EDT
Sprint Cup qualifying – Partly sunny - temp: 77
2:00 p.m EDT
Nationwide race – Partly sunny, possible scattered showers late in the race - temp: 84
SUNDAY:
1:00 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup race – Rain showers with a few thunderstorms likely - temp: 74
MONDAY (Possible):
12:00 p.m EDT
Sprint Cup race – Cloudy, slight chance of a scattered shower - temp: 73
Please follow me on Twitter @NASCAR_WXMAN for the latest Weather updates during the race. Or visit my main NASCAR WX-MAN site.
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