Life According to James

Anticipation mounted going into the 2020 Daytona Speedweeks. With one of the busiest silly seasons the organizations has seen in a very long time, a large group of rookies in all three touring series, the new superspeedway package in the Cup Series, the celebration of Jimmie Johnson's final season, and the start of a new decade, NASCAR was primed to have one of the best weeks it had in a long time. Unfortunately, this excitement was cut short in the final 500 feet of racing that took place in Daytona this week. ARCA Well... the ARCA race started off as you would expect. An avoidable first lap crash from the 02 car trying to find a place within the inside line of cars was almost a serious crash as drivers refused to slow down as the 02 car spun back up the track in turn 3. With that said, the drivers minded their manners for the majority of the rest of the race. Hailie Deegan, a potential future NASCAR superstar misjudged a bump draft coming out of turn 2 causing a single-car...

A look back on the day from a meteorological point-of-view, and a little bit from what I remember. Meteorological Setup On the morning of November 17, 2003, a deep, positive-tilting upper-level trough sat across the southwestern US and the Baja Peninsula. The base of the trough was the point where split flow between the polar jet and the subtropical jet merged. Also, the trough was beginning to eject across northern Mexico and southwest Texas, as the jet streak was downstream from the trough axis. This, along with difluent aloft in the exit region of the jet allowed for deep-layer ascent across southern and southeastern Texas. This upper-level support would be a major key to supporting convection in the warm sector prior to the approach of a cold front that would push through later that night. 300mb-level analysis at 12Z on November 17, 2003. At the surface, conditions were sufficient for organized convection. Shown from the surface observations at 12Z, dewpoint temperatu...