Pretty much every coaster closed now. Flight of Fear and backlot only ones open. Chilly night but beautiful. What’s up? 

How chilly? Isn’t there a minimum operating temperature for most coasters?

Thinking wind may be an issue. Forecast from what I saw earlier is calling for 20-25mph winds. About an hour ago I saw that Duke Energy said 20k people were without power in the Greater Cincinnati area.

 

 

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I live 5 minutes from the park. We have power, but there are lots of outages... So it could be power related..

But there's also a ton of down trees and branches all over... So my guess is that would close any ride that is near a tree. I saw that a tree fell over today at Cedar Point at the antique car track... Not sure how fast word of that spreads within the chain, but certainly makes me understand why they wouldn't be running rides near trees.


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6 minutes ago, fyrfyter said:

How chilly? Isn’t there a minimum operating temperature for most coasters?

KI website says it's in the low 40s.  I was under the impression they could run the rides in the mid 40s, but I could be mistaken.  

How are crowds up there tonight?

I was up there earlier, and it was busy despite the weather. To give you an idea, Slaughter House’s line spilled out onto Beast path, passing by Beast Arcade. Also, Madame’s line was using White Water Canyon’s queue when I walked by.

1 hour ago, fyrfyter said:

How chilly? Isn’t there a minimum operating temperature for most coasters?

It’s 40 now, but they were all closed by 8 or so. Probably wind

@brent I've never experienced that much wind ever at Kings Island. WindSeeker, Drop Zone, and the Eiffel Tower were closed since I was there at 1. Then wind wasnt that bad on the ground then. Could only imagine how windy it is a couple hundred feet up.

Yea. Driving up at 7 it was pretty bad and blustery.  Didn’t figure that in. Just didn’t think the temp was low enough to shut down. Odd that back lot and racer stayed open. 

It was the wind.  I have never experienced that at KI.  I thought I was at Cedar Point for a minute

Yea. Driving up at 7 it was pretty bad and blustery.  Didn’t figure that in. Just didn’t think the temp was low enough to shut down. Odd that back lot and racer stayed open. 

Backlot and racer are not near any trees that could potentially fall.. They also aren't as tall as most of the other coasters.

 

 

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I ended up going up late last night (from 11p-1a). Invertigo, Banshee, and Vortex were all closed.  Each one had the chained sign across the entrance and no ride ops out front or inside the stations.  In fact, the area by the restrooms and Invertigo was completely empty.

 

 

 

Can't speak for Banshee or Invertigo, but all the Arrow coasters (Bat, Adventure Express, and Vortex) don't operate when it's under 45° out. So that's part of what was going on last night.

3 minutes ago, TombRaiderFTW said:

Can't speak for Banshee or Invertigo, but all the Arrow coasters (Bat, Adventure Express, and Vortex) don't operate when it's under 45° out. So that's part of what was going on last night.

Is that the min operating temp or the min startup temp?  I seem to remember a discussion last season where it was stated that the temp had to be at x degrees (I think it was 45, but not certain) to "wake up" the ride, but it could operate at lower temps once it had been woken up.

1 hour ago, Rallyomalley said:

Is that the min operating temp or the min startup temp?  I seem to remember a discussion last season where it was stated that the temp had to be at x degrees (I think it was 45, but not certain) to "wake up" the ride, but it could operate at lower temps once it had been woken up.

The manufacturers may specify 2 different temperatures (I honestly don't know) but from my experience operating rides, the operations team just goes with one temperature for everything since it's a lot easier to just know one. Plus the temperature also can affect the track and other things besides the parts that have to get "woken up" so I doubt that there would be a different temperature for that

1 hour ago, Rallyomalley said:

Is that the min operating temp or the min startup temp?  I seem to remember a discussion last season where it was stated that the temp had to be at x degrees (I think it was 45, but not certain) to "wake up" the ride, but it could operate at lower temps once it had been woken up.

Not sure--I've heard something similar, but I've never explicitly heard the rules for that situation explained. It was definitely colder than that for Banshee's media day.

Vortex and other coasters can continue to run if it drops below the minimum temp, the problem was yesterday after Vortex shut down for wind it simply got to cold to resume operation.

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From what I have been told, for Vortex (and presumably the other Arrows), it must be 45 to start up and 40 to continue operating, and on a Haunt night after running all day it can go to as low as 32.

Vortex’s closure on Saturday night was mostly due to the wind (the ride itself can handle the wind fairly well, but the trees surrounding the ride may not ) and then later the temperature (which I heard was 32-34 degrees including the wind chill). 

It was 37° when the ride started for Banshee's Media Day. That's well below its regular startup temperature, but B&M was on-site for the event and cleared it to open on schedule.

Saturday was the first time I've ever left Kings Island when it was still open due to inclement weather. I was surprised to see people still pouring into the park around 7:30pm, high winds notwithstanding.

On 10/20/2018 at 8:59 PM, brent said:

Pretty much every coaster closed now. Flight of Fear and backlot only ones open. Chilly night but beautiful. What’s up? 

I was taking a look at the weather charts for Saturday, October 20th, when you visited the park, and it appears that the temperature was in the 40's, but a wind chill in the 30's. Most roller coasters that are made of metal tend to not function as well (probably since metal contracts in cold temperatures; and metal roller coasters are usually designed to work in the hot summer and the metal expands). Wooden roller coasters, however, usually work better in the cold, but judging on your report that most of the coasters were closed, I'd say that they closed them so people wouldn't freeze while riding. I also find it interesting how Backlot was open.....

They were actually closed cause of the windy conditions. Diamondback did reopen but went down again for a maintenance reason and never came back up.

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A few of the coasters re-opened around 10pm-10:30pm, but I think that they sent a lot of the rides employees home because the winds. The rides began to shut down around 5pm-7pm when the wind really picked up.

Well, if you ever wondered how wind may slow down a coaster or affect its operation, just look at how Banshee didn’t quite cross the finish line during the windstorm today.

It is worth noting that no one was on the ride, no one was hurt, and this is a much easier “fix” than had it stopped anywhere else. 

She’ll be ready to scream for opening day next year.