How Missouri State Fair events are being handled after heavy overnight rainfall

Overnight, a line of training thunderstorms moved through Mid-Missouri, consistently bringing high rainfall rates over the same area. For these areas, rain totals skyrocketed, with community rain reports exceeding 2 inches, most notably in Sedalia, where the Missouri State Fair is taking place.

Although those training thunderstorms have moved out of the area, they still left behind some impacts. Unfortunately, this led to some morning events, such as an antique tractor pull, being canceled.

Jason Moore, the director of the Missouri State Fair, mentioned, "The one that we had to cancel for today takes place in what we refer to as Lot 9. So it's just a grass field. It's an event that folks go to, but unfortunately, when you receive 2 to 3 inches of rain at the bottom of that field, it gets pretty soft down there." Instead of them taking the risk of tearing up those specific parts of the fairgrounds, he said that, "we canceled for today and will reassess tomorrow."

It's a mostly dry rest of the forecast for now, with any storm chances mostly staying north and south of the fairgrounds, but there are still things that need to fall into place for more events, like the garden tractor and mini rod pull tomorrow morning, to actually take place.

Jason Moore states, "A lot of tractor pulls here at our grandstands, obviously they're a higher horsepower machine, a machine that's much heavier. These were antique tractors, so you can get by with a little wetter soil with something that's lighter weight." And mentioned that, "We'll look at that facility-wide. We'll limit some of our parking if we need to certain times of the day, just so you don't come to the fair and then end up pulling you in a parking lot and getting stuck."

Even though these are things to consider, Jason was confident that they wouldn't let a little rain impact the fun at the fair, saying, "Even though we did receive the rain, it's Missouri; we'll be prepared for it."

With all of this in mind, there are a couple of things that need to happen in order for events like these to truly have the best chance of taking place.

First of all, clearer sky conditions and sunshine would be the main factor that would aid in drying up the fairgrounds. The sunshine would heat up the ground and the water molecules to the point of evaporation, and the clear sky conditions would allow for that moisture to be transported into the upper levels of the atmosphere, rather than being trapped near the surface.

Another factor that would help would be a lower percentage of humidity overall in the air surrounding the fairgrounds. With lower humidity in place, the air would in turn be able to readily hold more moisture. The result would be a higher rate of evaporation, leading to the ground becoming drier sooner.

The ground has been slowly drying up since the rainfall that was received overnight, but there's still moisture to get rid of. Updates from the Missouri State Fair will be sent out as needed, but if everything goes to plan, Thursday morning will be filled with tractor and hot rod pulls.