Kentucky Derby Weather History

[ukrocks]

I'm not sure how many of you guys follow the Kentucky Derby. I follow the Triple Crown pretty heavily since I live in Louisville and was born and raised here. Derby weekend is a big deal to me. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the weather has been like on Derby Day through the years since the weather does impact horse racing.

 

Our average high this time of year is about 73-75 degrees. As you can see below we've had some miserable weather for the Derby in the past but normally the weather is fairly comfortable. This year I suspect it may be quite miserable with the potential cutoff low hitting us next weekend, we may see our coldest Derby in 22 years. The last time we had a Derby where temperatures failed to hit 60 was 1989. I was one year old at the time and the high was only 51 with some sleet reported.

 

We've seen quite a few rainy Derby's over the years too. Although a lot of times, the rain is only a few sprinkles or it rains in the morning or evening. Out of the 24 Derby's I've been around for, we had rain on 17 of them, but the track was only sloppy five times.

 

LMK has a complete list of what the weather was like on each Derby right here if you want to check out the link. Below are some of the extremes.

 

Coldest temperature:  36° May 4, 1940 and May 4, 1957
Coldest high temperature:  47° May 4, 1935 and May 4, 1957
Coldest average daily temperature:  42° May 4, 1957
(The cold temperatures on May 4, 1957 were accompanied by 20 to 25 mph north winds!)

Warmest temperature:  94° May 2, 1959
Warmest low temperature:  72° May 14, 1886
Warmest average daily temperature:  79° May 14, 1886

Wettest:  2.31" of rain May 11, 1918
Frozen precipitation:  On May 6, 1989 sleet was observed from 1:01pm to 1:05pm.
Out of the 138 Derby Days, 63 (46%) experienced rain at some point during the day.
Longest stretch of consecutive wet Derby Days:  6 (1989-1994).
Longest stretch of consecutive dry Derby Days:  12 (1875-1886).