(COLORADO SPRINGS) — You wouldn’t know it, but deep in the Broadmoor, down the halls and inside a hidden office, is a team of meteorologists who have a big job at the 45th U.S. Senior Open: forecasting the weather for the entire event.
“In reality we are here for safety. We are here to make sure fans, players and staff working on site are in no way put in any kind of danger when it comes to electricity moving through the area,” said Bryan Conrad, Meteorologist and General Manage for Thor Guard, a weather company that forecasts for USGA events and the 2025 U.S. Senior Open at the Broadmoor.
Conrad’s job is to monitor everything the atmosphere can throw at the event.
“Our big thing here is wind, for course set up and how it is playing. Temperature is not necessarily as big of an issue because they are going to be playing through it anyway. And whether or not they are going to have rain, and the big thing of course is electricity,” said Conrad.
Conrad has been traveling with the USGA for the last 5 years covering their tournaments and making calls as to whether to suspend games or continue play. In that time, he’s seen a lot.
“With this group, [we] set the most suspensions we had in a championship, prior to match-play taking place. So over the first two days, we had 9 suspensions, and that Friday we saw 1,400 lightning strikes within 20 miles of the course in an hour and a half,” Conrad said.
With the potential for severe weather, that can be a lot for players and spectators alike, so when there are severe storms, they have their own alert system to keep everyone at the event safe.
“Because it is kind of spread out where the vans are, we are probably looking at 30 minutes of lead time, which again, pop-ups are difficult to work with, which is why we put in place our different alert warnings. Alert 2 is essentially a watch, which means in the next two hours, conditions are ripe for something to take place,” said Conrad.
The alerts are there so you can focus less on storms and more on the action at each hole. Apparently, the forecasts don’t stop when everything is in play. Players tend to also ask for personal forecasts on and off the green.
“Oh yeah they do that all the time,” Conrad said. “Especially when they are traveling at the end of the week, if they are going to places where there might be snow impacting their travel, they will come and ask for that kind of stuff. You know that’s just the way it is.”
The forecasting team will be watching the weather throughout the entire tournament 24/7 and will send alerts to the executive team at the tournament to make decisions to keep everyone safe.
