As the F1 circus touches down in Singapore, one thing the teams can count on this weekend is a dry race.

Though it is hot and humid, not to mention the middle of monsoon season, the Singapore Grand Prix has never been held in the wet. It's a curious fact given the average rainfall in Singapore for September is nearly 200mm, about five times that of London's annual average, but when Formula One comes to town the weekend is invariably dry.

A wet race, under lights around the Marina Bay circuit is a worse-case scenario for organisers. It raises safety issues around a circuit which already generates safety cars during racing, and would have an impact on television coverage - a point almost certainly not lost on the commercial rights holder.

To circumvent that problem the Singapore government has a rather unique solution - it seeds clouds in an effort to have the rain fall before it ever reaches Singapore.

It's a common practice in some parts, with planes flown into cloud systems (or rockets launched into them) before unloading salt (or silver iodine) into the atmosphere, helping provide crystals around which the moisture can condense and therefore triggering precipitation.

Cloud seeding was first discovered in the 1940s and has been used around the world since. Last year the Singapore government confirmed it was working with the Indonesian government to seed clouds off the coast, to have the rain fall on a forest in Indonesia which was ablaze at the time.

Therefore, despite what you may read or hear this weekend, we are all but assured of a dry Grand Prix.

Check out our Thursday gallery, here.

Mat Coch

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by f1khun, 19/09/2014 2:09

"Too bad that now Singapore - while the rain is in principle under control (though rain is expected this afternoon, this rainfall is not going to be at night), now the Haze blanket coming in from Indonesia is so thick that the current health index is on the balance of "unhealthy".

See here: http://weather.nea.gov.sg/MapControl.aspx?ds=RadarMaps, click on "Air Quality".

The problem seems to be that Singapore cannot start to extinguish forest fires in Indonesia unless invited, and it's not even that easy; those fires are hundreds at the same time.

Let's hope the haze retracts a bit and the race won't be hindered by it. At this moment, with the index on 106 (unhealthy), it's still ok out there (I am here, and I have very light Asthma, but no problems so far). However, it's NOT healthy."

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Dry race guaranteed for Singapore

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