Rain Is Finally Forecast In iRacing, Promises To Be ‘Unlike Anything Else’

It’s raining, it’s pouring, and you’ll be very quickly wiped out in iRacing if you’re snoring. The hardcore racing simulation is finally getting weather effects after years of anticipation, and it’s promised to be ‘unlike anything else’ in a racing game.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of having a go, iRacing is considered to be the closest sim racing gets to real motorsport. The online-only, PC-exclusive subscription service is an expensive way to go gaming but a very accurate and relatively affordable form of real motorsport. It’s been that way since its 2008 introduction, yet in that time has never had a rain effects system.

That’s going to change in March as part of the season 2024 update though, which will integrate the ‘Tempest’ system. It’s been a long, long time coming, having been announced in 2021 and been delayed in that time too.

It could prove a worthwhile wait, if tricky to get a handle on at first, though. Greg Hill, senior vice president and executive producer of iRacing, said in a blog post: “The Tempest system delivers an experience unlike anything else in simulation racing, and it may take some time for iRacers to properly acclimate to the feature. To help set expectations, it is important to understand that the rain in iRacing does not operate like what sim racers and racing gamers have experienced in racing video games and simcade racing titles.”

The blog has a full breakdown of exactly how the system will work, and it’s better explained by Hill than we could ever paraphrase, but simply put it sounds as though this promises to be the most true-to-life dynamic weather effects ever seen in a sim racing title.

It’s not yet confirmed which tracks will implement Tempest immediately, but a wet race will never be predetermined - rather with a realistic forecast showing you the chances of adverse weather. Each track’s weather probabilities will be based on real-world data too - expect Spa to be much more susceptible than Catalunya, for example.

The GT3, GTP and LMP2 classes will support the feature from day one, along with the Ray FF1600, Toyota GR86, and the FIA F4 car. More will be updated in the future.