Cup Day weather: Wet forecast means a brolly and gumboots might be in order

The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting up to 15 millimetres of rain across much of Melbourne for Cup Day, and there are no guarantees the clouds will bypass Flemington.

Senior meteorologist Angus Hines said there was potential for isolated heavy showers dumping up to 10 millimetres in a short time frame, though it wasn’t possible to say yet if this would happen over the racecourse.

Hines said there would be a much larger dose of rain for Melbourne on Monday, bringing widespread totals of 20 to 30 millimetres.

“That’s likely to hit the greater metro area – including directly over the racecourse – with a pretty solid drop of rain,” he said. “That’s a pretty wet day for Melbourne, certainly enough to soak into the ground and make things a bit soggy.”

“That leading band of rain on Monday should have moved away by sunrise on Tuesday, but it’s then a case of whether we see showers following up on that rain band, which is a pretty classic pattern.”

One of the wettest ever Cup days was 1976, when 24.8 millimetres fell across the day, much of it in a poorly timed torrent.

Those there that day reported the clouds having a menacing, almost green look to them, before heavens opened up just after 2pm.

“It was just after 2pm and hundreds of spectators who’d been gathering on the lawns started to move off in search of shelter,” race caller John Tapp later wrote.

“Others stayed where they were, hoping the storm would bypass Flemington. The clouds were low and menacing and appeared more green than black.

“And then the tempest announced its arrival. I’ve never seen rain like it. The noise on the roof was deafening, and I saw a few sheets of galvanised iron sagging under the sheer weight of water.”

In the footage from the day, you can see the crowns of water spring up as the horses’ hooves pound the grass.

Photos show the mud-caked face of winning jockey Bob Skelton, the phalanx of umbrellas trackside, and the bookies’ gates under a foot of water.

Commentators completely lost sight of the horses as they rounded the final bend, leaving one of them with no choice but to resort to brutal honesty for his audience:

“Don’t know what it is down the extreme outside – it’s completely black – it could be [the racehorse] Perhaps?”

Hines said the last three months of the year tended to be the wettest for Melbourne, so there was always “a slight risk” of rain for attendees of the spring racing carnival.

Historically speaking, weather on Melbourne Cup Day is not without a sense of irony.

In 1968, there wasn’t a drop of rain, and the following year only 0.3mm tickled the gauge at Flemington.

The horse that won the race both those years? Rain Lover.

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