New Rain Delay Policy

Did I miss something or did the park change its rain delay policy? I just finished spending the last 4 days at the park and during 3 of the last 4 days and 4 out of my last 5 visits I have delt with rain. The funny with thing is that it seems like they are closing all of the coasters more than 20 mins before a front comes in. I can understand closing MF, PT, and Dragster a little early but to close nearly everything 20 mins. before a front comes in is insane. Unless lightning is spotted why close the medium sized rides like, Magnum, Raptor, Mantis, MS, etc.

I remember the running joke where Mantis would run in anything. For example in the past before and after a rain delay Mantis was always the last coaster to go down and the first to come back up. Remember during Millennium Mania where a few nights it totally rained the entire night and MF ran the entire night. It just seems that they used to close everything once the rain actually hit, like I said I can understand the big three rides, but why close everything at once? Maybe I'm wrong here but has anyone else noticed this?

not sure about cedar point, but i went to SFIOA and they shut down the rides when it was still semi nice outside, we were told there was a storm front that would be moving in and they couldn't take any chances.

the coasters were shut down about a half hour before any rain/lightning..

kinda stupid if you ask me.

Well, there was a change in operations management this year. Maybe that brought this about?

In all fairness, lightning was explosive this week and unpredictable. Add in the hale and we had some fairly dangerous weather events.

You "know" people, Dan. Try and get the scoop!

I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard that CP has a Thor lightning prediction system. If they do, that could very well be the reason that the rides shut down ahead of the front this week. Conditions could have been right for lightning even if the main front wasn't there yet.

Another idea on both the SFIOA and CP early ride shutdowns, what if there is a setup of the safety system right before the storm hits? I would think the safest way of operating would be to shut down early enough so that even if the last ride stops mid-course, they still have enough time to get the riders off before dangerous lightning hits.

When Thor says there's lightning coming, things go down.

You can see Thor chillin up on the water tower. The detectors are those white-ish strip-like things that are hanging on the corners of it. (Edit: I take that back. I've got myself all confused. That's not the Thor system. Let's play "spot the Thor detector" using this page as a guideline: http://www.thorguard.com/product.asp )

Advance warning saves lives. Look at all the progress that has been made and how many lives have been saved over the past decade when it comes to tornados in tornadoy alley. Warning times have increased from, at times zero minutes to as much as half an hour. If the same can be done with lightning detection and can save one life, it's worth it.

I'd rather have Magnum go down weather before the storm gets there than have it get hit by a lightning strike with a trail full of people. How about you?

*** Edited 5/20/2004 6:51:55 PM UTC by Michael Darling***

It did seem a little excessive when I was at the park on Tuesday afternoon/evening. Although a storm blew through and it poored for quite a while, they waited a decent chunk of time after the moderate rain stopped and it was just sprinkling to start any of the rides. But this probably just goes back to the possibility of lighting I guess.

I was there last weekend at it rained on and off. On Dragster they closed thiry minutes before the storm then had to wait 45 minutes after it was completely clear of rain. This made the wait long!

Lightning can hit an object when the storm is 20 miles from a particular area (thanks Discovery Channel). Even though it is unfortuante that a ride will go down a half hour before a guest will see the storm, it is just for safety.

And when it is this time of year with warm fronts traveling over the cold lake, storms will pop up at the drop of a hat.

Dan, I noticed this too, except for Friday evening. Probably around 5'ish there was a storm that came in, and we could SEE the lightening around us and rides were still open. Not coasteters, but rides such as woodstock express, monster, witches wheel, and paddlewheel. It was clearly 'local lightening' and these rides were still running until I felt the lightning was treacherously close. After that storm though, I did notice rides shutting earlier, and staying closed longer.

Must not have been any lightning in the area on the 13th. It started sprinkling before they shut Dragster down and while it was raining, Iron Dragon and Corkscrew continued to run. Couldn't tell if any others coasters closed as we didn't leave Dragster's line (rain + Dragster = rollbacks, but missed one by one train, again, sigh) and never thought to look if Millie was still running.

Well, there's yet again a storm front headed toward the Point. If you live in Toledo, you know what I'm talking about...

It doesn't seem as if this as ridiculous as my trip to SFGAdv last year. The park kept many of it's rides open during a lightning storm and operated them until closing, however the next night they shut down the entire park for an hour because they *thought* a storm was coming. Nothing came and the park opened for the last 5 minutes of operation, allowing the few guests that stuck around rerides on S:UF. It seemed as if the park plays 'prevent defense' and would only close rides if they had a prediction or if the radar saw a storm coming, not when it was right up on them. But yes, huge storm rolling through this evening.

I think another reason for the early shut downs would be the chance of getting stuck on the lift with a storm coming...that would be no fun at all.

Last season I saw a MF train sitting at the top of the lift as a storm was rolling in. They were still there when it began to pour and there was lightning dancing all around. Finally they used the manual over ride to take them the rest of the way over the lift. It would have been pretty freaky to be 300 feet up with lightning like that.

Saturday night,when we got on Magnum's platform, we saw it start lightning in distance. This was at close. They did run out the last two trains. Started to rain. When we were riding,we had a great light show!

When we got around P. Road to MF, it was still running. It looked like at least a 20 min wait yet, and the lightning was fairly consistant.

I was out on the lake Sat. night and saw the lightning. It was probably about 25 or 30 miles away from CP.