Rain on the 4th what do you do?

[Xtrememachines]

Any tips tricks or suggestions that you guys can offer for having a firework show with scattered thunderstorms in the forecast?

It's going to take me a few hours to get everything set up so I can't just pull it out in between showers. Last year I covered everything with the tarp and they were on plywood but there was so much rain that 90% of the cakes did not go off

[BMoore]

Any tips tricks or suggestions that you guys can offer for having a firework show with scattered thunderstorms in the forecast?

It's going to take me a few hours to get everything set up so I can't just pull it out in between showers. Last year I covered everything with the tarp and they were on plywood but there was so much rain that 90% of the cakes did not go off

Put cakes inside black plastic trash bags. For racks, cover with plastic sheet or carpet runner. Keep the plastic tight on the top to help prevent water from pooling. Just shoot through the plastic. I weather proof every show. Learned my lesson years ago when there was 0% chance of rain and sunny skies and a thunder storm managed to pop up right over my shoot site.

[Xtrememachines]

I already have the cakes glued down to the boards. how would you secure them after you wrap them in the trash bag?

[BMoore]

I already have the cakes glued down to the boards. how would you secure them after you wrap them in the trash bag?

That’s one of the reasons I don’t use boards. In your situation I’d probably get some cheap painters plastic and cover the entire board and tuck it under the board to keep water from migrating under the cakes. Black plastic works best as it prevents a greenhouse effect. Do your best to keep it tight on the tops of the cakes to prevent water pooling. You can do this by keeping it loose at first and then using a staple gun to pull it tight around the cakes. Again just shoot through the plastic.

[PyroFL]

A couple of options or both.

Cover everything with tarps and shoot when clear

Or

Use visqueen to put over it, use cardboard squires pieces to staple through to your wood to hold In place, next tuck it under the wood and cover with a tarp.

Right before the show take only the tarp off

[Jay_]

I use 6mil plastic sheeting attached with staples to the boards, and then use a tarp as secondary protection. I either tuck the tarps under the boards or weight them down with something to basically create cocoons for each board.

We get crazy pop up severe thunderstorms every single year around the 4th, and this method has never failed to keep me dry.

6997

[PYRODAN]

We set up the day before and cover the docks ( We shoot on docks in a pond) in cheap painters plastic tarps stapled to our docks. The next morning, weather permitting, we pull the tarps off to let the sun dry out any condensation. If the weather is iffy, we leave on and pull off right before we shoot. And Jay. Thank you. I forgot about you signature! LOL

[Stufotz]

I used black trash bags and sheets of plastic last year for the 1st time, guess I had always gotten lucky in past years and not had a threat of rain. No such luck this year as there's a 70% chance of scattered showers starting at 6am and possible thunderstorms. The only negative last year was that something happened with the 3-port Slices (that were in a tightly clamped rack). They went off but didn't make it airborne, maybe I was using too heavy plastic? On a different note, I was wondering if setting up on Wednesday was going to be too early and if condensation building up in the bags/under the plastic would be disastrous, but it sounds like y'all have had success with a day or so prior in the past.

[Xtrememachines]

How about for stand-alone mortar racks, can I put Saran Wrap over the tops and not have to cover them with tarps? Also if I have the racks covered with tape already and I put Saran Wrap over top can I shoot through both mediums?

[BMoore]

How about for stand-alone mortar racks, can I put Saran Wrap over the tops and not have to cover them with tarps? Also if I have the racks covered with tape already and I put Saran Wrap over top can I shoot through both mediums?

You might want to consider something a little heavier than saran wrap to make it easier to work with, but yes, once it's covered you should be fine and yes, shells will shoot right through both the tape an plastic. My favorite thing to use on racks is carpet runner. It's a plastic sheet similar to a heavy duty cling wrap and has an adhesive back.

[KDirk]

It looks like I may have to make preps this year for potential rain on the 4th. I have plastic painters drop cloths of the disposable variety, 5 mil I think. But I'm concerned about the integrity of my cakes, and I have a lot of them to set up. I don't use boards, but I'm wondering if placing plastic on the ground underneath them and keeping the edges elevated somehow will serve to keep the bottoms of them from getting soggy.

[Xtrememachines]

If you YouTube how to waterproof fireworks a lot of videos show up from England and they basically wrap them in Saran Wrap

[Stufotz]

It looks like I may have to make preps this year for potential rain on the 4th. I have plastic painters drop cloths of the disposable variety, 5 mil I think. But I'm concerned about the integrity of my cakes, and I have a lot of them to set up. I don't use boards, but I'm wondering if placing plastic on the ground underneath them and keeping the edges elevated somehow will serve to keep the bottoms of them from getting soggy.

Right now my plan, subject to change, is to place all cakes on pallets either in garbage bags if they'll fit, or wrapped in plastic for the larger compounds. My thinking is getting them up 4" - 5" off the ground should help to keep them dry.

[Jay_]

And Jay. Thank you. I forgot about you signature! LOL

Yessir!

Gotta continue to pay homage to the king of “sending it”

[KDirk]

Well, I made the call this morning to move the show to Saturday. I cleared the change with all concerned parties, and fortunately it was workable within the schedules of all involved. We are forecast for thunderstorms - possibly severe - starting around 8pm, and ending before 10. So pretty much a wash out if the forecast holds true.

I'm not risking all my product and my Cobra hardware in a standoff with mother nature, to say nothing of wasted time transporting to the shoot site and setting up all for nothing.

Besides which, Saturday is looking to be much nicer in terms of temps and humidity, with an evening low of 66°. I'll take that any day over typical St. Louis mid-summer heat and humidity. I'm not thrilled with not shooting on the 4th proper, but it's going to be a lousy day here on account of weather. And honestly, I really dislike having the 4th in the middle of the week. It always feels rushed.

[MontanaMike]

We decided a few years ago to always have our show on the "Saturday closest to the 4th," so this year we were scheduled for the 6th. The 4th here was cold, windy and rainy so we looked like geniuses for waiting till Saturday.

For the week before the show, my phone weather forecast said "0% precipitation" on Saturday, partly cloudy, perfect high 70s temps. It said that every single day up to and including the morning of the show. Then around noon, a bunch of clouds started to build and this huge black one started coming over the horizon heading directly to our shoot site. Suddenly my weather app said "100% chance" of heavy rain. So we scrambled to cover everything, and proceeded to sit through about 10 drops of rain. We could have just left everything out and had no problem.

Mother Nature just likes to fart around with us, I guess. But this is the third year in a row we've had to cover. I think next year I'm going to plan to bag everything. (That'll insure perfect weather.)

[Jay_]

The weather in Oklahoma around the 4th is always ultra unpredictable and surprise pop up thunderstorms are the norm. The forecasts are typically just about useless within the scope of what we need from them to keep our stuff dry.

After getting everything rained on several years back, wrapping everything is just part of the process for me. As I mentioned several posts back about wrapping everything with visqueen, and then tarping over the top of it…it’s also important to anchor your tarps down as the pop up thunderstorms also generally produce some pretty nasty straight line winds to go with the rain.

Case in point, again this year there was “no chance” of rain after 10am per the forecast in my area, yet we got a nice little pop up shower around an hour before dark. Just typical weather.

South of me got hammered with lots of rain and a bunch of wind. The forecast did show a slight risk for them of that kind of an event, however I’m sure several folks here got their stuff either rained on or blown away.

The moral of the story is, you just can’t be too careful when it comes to weather.

[esgrillo]

I tarp everything. We set up the day before and almost always get some rain

[Engineer Cat]

It would be great if any of our shoots didn't have a chance of scattered thunderstorms. If it's not that, It's 100 degrees and 80% humidity. ;)

[MontanaMike]

Our show (with the Cobra) started in 2015. We went every year with no rain.

In 2019 rain was predicted in the morning, so we waited till afternoon to set up. No rain fell.

We got all the way to 2022. That year there was a "small chance" of rain that turned into a downpour that we didn't expect. We were unprepared and had to scramble for tarps. We had just gotten used to it never raining!

The next year we were more prepared with covers, but no rain was predicted, so we didn't get as ready as we might have. A huge downpour happened two hours before our show and it was a scramble, but we were much more ready.

This year, no rain was predicted until about 4:00, so we covered everything, and then no rain fell except a few sprinkles.

You can see why meteorologists get cranky!

[vegassalute]

It looks like I may have to make preps this year for potential rain on the 4th. I have plastic painters drop cloths of the disposable variety, 5 mil I think. But I'm concerned about the integrity of my cakes, and I have a lot of them to set up. I don't use boards, but I'm wondering if placing plastic on the ground underneath them and keeping the edges elevated somehow will serve to keep the bottoms of them from getting soggy.

How about re-wrapping with plastic shrink wrap, then securing with rebar, since you don't use boards. This may be a consideration for you, KDirk. What did you end up doing, and how was your show?