Weather.com article
First Kentucky Derby Rainout Saturday?by Jonathan Erdman , on Apr 30, 2010 8:17 am ET
College and pro football accept inclement weather as a fact of life, a sign of a tough team to "gut it out" and prevail. An NFL game played on a sloppy, wet Heinz Field a few years ago bears testament to football's mentality to "just play through".
In similar fashion, since 1875, the Kentucky Derby has never been postponed due to weather. With that said, weather for the 136th "Run for the Roses" Saturday may pose an extreme challenge not seen before!
IT'S RAINED BEFORE ON RACE DAY...WHAT MAKES THIS SATURDAY DIFFERENT?
According to the National Weather Service office in Louisville, 46% of race days have had some precipitation fall at some time in the day, including the last three race days. It should be noted that many of these days were either wet only in the morning, or featured showers and thunderstorms that were sufficiently scattered to not heavily impact the race.
Unfortunately, Saturday's scenario looks like a soaker potentially all day long. A frontal boundary will stall out along the Ohio Valley.
A band of thunderstorms will arrive from the Mississippi Valley early Saturday, then, as the front stalls out, so may the thunderstorm band. With Gulf moisture feeding these two stalling features, heavy rain is a major threat Saturday, even through race time.
While it's difficult to pinpoint exactly where this band of heavy rain will park, several inches of rain may soak the Louisville metro through Saturday!
2-day rainfall forecast
Churchill Downs continues to use a dirt track, while many other tracks have switched to synthetic surfaces in recent years. While a wet track favors "mudders", horses known for running well on muddy tracks, heavy rain can make the surface uneven, putting the horses in jeopardy.
The heaviest rain on "Derby Day" was a 2.31" deluge that accumulated both in the morning and evening of May 11, 1918. Therefore, it's possible Saturday could be the wettest race day on record! Perhaps the odds-on favorite isn't really "Lookin At Lucky" but rather "Heavy Rain".
Ironically, this potentially soggy Kentucky Derby is the first derby run since last August's severe flooding, which swamped Churchill Downs, among many other locations in the Louisville metro.
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