Inclement Weather Option and Timer#380

An option to choose inclement weather during a match to pause all timers and an option to start a 30 minute timer to keep track of thunder and lightning delays. Timer should be able to be restarted every time thunder is heard or lightning is seen. Game should then be allowed to be restarted from the moment it was paused or abandoned due to weather.

Thanks Kyle, we do want to add a pause function in the future for sure. You mention a 30 minute timer, is that something the competition you work on mandates? How does that work?

Hassan, I officiate soccer in the U.S. for NISOA (college), United State Soccer Federation (various levels and leagues), and high school soccer. All three of these organizations require a 30 minute delay from the last time there was thunder heard or lightning seen. This timer may have to be restarted several times due to repeat thunder and lightning. It may be worth making it a button that says weather delay, then allow the user to select their own time that the delay will last for so that it is useful to all referees. The big thing would be that it would need to be able to be restarted whenever thunder or lightning occurs, all the while your game timers are paused and not lost.

Thanks Kyle. Just for my benefit, how many 30 minute delays are allowed?

Hassan, there is no real set number of these delays. You may 1 minute into a weather delay and you hear thunder and are made to restart the timer. It depends on the organization, tournament, or even individual rules of competition for the game that tell you when to abandon the match. A button to restart the weather timer, return to the match, or abandon the match is probably necessary.

The fact of the “30 minute timer” means that instead of just pausing, the function needs to also count down so we know when we can restart if the situation (like lightning) goes away.

I’ll mention that the same “delay” timing can be applied for heat index and air quality issues where we hit a certain threshhold on the pitch, wait and see, then maybe abandon after a certain time, depending on the competition. So, the “pause” or “delay” has several uses.

This just happened to me yesterday. I had to just leave the half running and mentally remember where the clock was when I stopped the match. After we restarted, I had to keep checking time which distracted me from the game since the normal timer had expired.

Locally it resets at the latest visual lighting strike or audible thunder.

30min from the latest occurrence