It may or may not rain - how do you decide?

[longdrive23]

btw, why is it dangerous to play in lightning?

Hold up a 1-iron! You'll be safe! ;)

(look up Lee Trevino quotes :) )

[jamo]

Lightning is much too powerful for a simple golf grip keep the charge away from your hands. Also, graphite (graphite itself a conductor) shafts are really made of carbon fiber, which conducts electricity.

Also, the lightning doesn't have to hit the club, it can hit you pretty easily.

[Uncle Peter]

I'll generally play unless it's already raining before I go out or the forecast is for continuous bad stuff (i.e., lightning and thunder). It also helps that I don't mind playing in a light rain or waiting out a passing storm.

Yup, I'd agree. Light riain isn't too bad.

[nevets88]

Yeah, to me, light rain is actually good. Fewer people play. More open tee times, faster pace of play. I'd easily put up with a little water for that.

[DaSportsGuy]

I just go play until I see lighting or hear thunder.

[clam fist]

I will play in the rain if I am walking. I hate staying on the cart path. It just makes the game take too long. I can walk it faster and its better for me.

[Zeph]

I bring rain gear, umbrella and put on my water proof shoes.

[James_Black]

I bring rain gear, umbrella and put on my water proof shoes.

exactly.

You hardly even get wet if you come prepared.

[Chief Broom]

Lee Trevino got struck by lightning once and it almost killed him. It didn't strike him directly either. It hit a pond that he was sitting near during a rain delay in a tournament. Lightning is not something you want to take any chances with, if you see any in the distance or hear thunder clear the course right away. I've always heard that golfers as a group get struck by lightning more than any other single group. Whether that is true or not I can't say but I do know it can kill you. As to conductivity have you ever seen what lightning can do to a tree? Trees don't conduct electricity, but I've seen them be literally blown to bits by it. I've also seen where lightning struck the top of the tree, ran down the tree trunk,stripping the bark off in one long piece the whole way down to the ground. That happened to a massive pine tree in my yard and I found the 150' piece of bark laying against the fence probably a hundred yards away. It killed the tree and I had to pay a tree service to come and take the tree down because it was so big. This pine tree was in my fairly heavily wooded yard, but it happended to be the tallest tree in that part of my neighborhood. That's why they tell you not to take shelter under a tree.

[jcorfive]

Check the weather out just to see if I should be prepared to get wet. Other than that; no thunder, no problem.

[rickp]

I always check with tv weather channel and accuweather on the net.

We still got caught yesterday in a rain/lightning & light hail storm that came out of new york state. We walk so it was not a pleasant walk in.

[saevel25]

www.nws.noaa.gov
type in your zip code up top, click enter
at the bottom left of the page, look for hourly weather graph

Should show a good represenation of what might happen. Given occasional is pretty much screwed, Likely i think is like 60% chance there might be rain, not that will rain 60% of the time, big misconception on weather percentages, Chance i think is 40-60%, something like that..

Or you can go to Weather.com and check out the hourly, they giver percentages.

Weather.com has a pretty decent future cast radar as well.

[Forest]

Every morning, while laying in bed, I always check the weather on my ipod touch. I usually have the golf cities around me in my favorites, and then I check the radar. If it's windy, then I usually don't feel like playing. The temperature generally tells me what to wear.