Quote:

What happened that the games are shorter? Just the rain forecast?


Excerpt from the first schedule change message sent at 9:45 AM today:

"Now for the tough news - the weather for the weekend looks terrible - deteriorating beginning this evening and getting worse through Saturday, including several times when thunderstorms are predicted. We are trying right now to put a plan together that will allow us to play all matches, but they are likely to be compressed - we need to shorten Saturday's schedule to hopefully fit matches into the window that now looks best (7am to 2pm) and also to allow for delays if we have lightning. Sunday looks bad as well - either rain or snow. As usual, we will be willing to cancel the Sunday matches if the weather is bad (fingers crossed, but not looking good - however, that is a relatively minor call and we will make that Saturday).

For now, we appear to have bad weather beginning possibly as early as 3pm today but probable bad weather and lightning later in the evening. We will be compressing the games and schedule tonight...see below.

Thunderstorms are predicted overnight, but we hope to have them through by early morning Saturday. Rain is supposed to fall Saturday, and thunderstorms are supposed to return in the early afternoon - 2pm or so. It looks like the best window will fall between 7am or so and 2pm or so. Today I will monitor the weather and after lunch I will be redoing the Saturday schedule. Bracket matchups will stay the same - only start times and length of matches will be affected. I will email these changes to everyone primarily for Thursday teams. I will have copies of the changes available at each field for Friday teams - check at the gates. We will also post the changes at www.columbiaunitedfc.com. Please notify your parents as well!!! The changes you will expect are to play earlier and to play a shorter match. Start times could be affected by two hours or more for later games. Again, this information will be available later today."

Excerpt from the second message sent at 2:10 PM:

"We have reviewed the radar (looks bad), hourly forecasts, and wind directions for tonight and the weekend. Rain and storms are essentially guaranteed (it is raining right now), and lightning appears certain late tonight and through early morning. Rainfall amounts could be several inches. Lightning appears certain again between 2 and 3pm Saturday and into the evening, with rain to follow through Sunday. Therefore, here is the schedule for the Cup, making an attempt to fit all games into a very small window of time. Brackets stay the same - only game times change!!!!"