Weather alert will affect Thursday play at RBC Canadian Open.. scheduled tee times.

It's 230am on Thursday morning as rain thunder and lightning roll through the GTA and Hamilton and the forecast is for more of the same all day until Friday morning... 70-80%..

HERE IS THE WEATHER ALERT .. Weather radar at 2:00 AM indicated a line of severe thunderstorms extending from near Toronto to just north of London to near Wallaceburg. Motion is southeastwards at around 50 km/h. They are expected to reach a line from Grimsby to St Thomas to Chatham by 3:00 AM. Strong wind gusts to 90 km/h and torrential rainfall of 50 mm are the main threats with this line. Isolated large hail of 2 centimetres is also possible. They severe thunderstorms are imminent or occurring in the area. These storms may produce large hail, damaging winds or heavy rainfall. Remember that some severe thunderstorms can also produce tornadoes. Emergency management Ontario recommends taking cover immediately when threatening weather approaches.

The rain thunder and lightning are in the forecast all day Thursday... Friday and Saturday calls for showers, clear and sunny on Sunday

It must be time for the RBC Canadian Open which certainly has had it's fair share of this stuff. Extraordinary, when you consider tha absolute drought we have been suffering through for the last 2 months

I remember 2008 at the Abbey the year Chez Reavie won. How we ever got that one played in time and with the entire 72 holes is amazing. Tournament Director Bill Paul was out in the middle of the night with the grounds crew and all the volunteer groundskeepers from surrounding courses pumping out bunkers, squeegeeing greens, at one point the fairway and green at #17 were completely under water, it looked like a pond..

Rhodd Trainer, the long time superintendent at Hamilton for the last 21 years told me  his staff have been reporting at 430am for weeks in preparation and I'm sure they'll be out even earlier this morning.

While the water table is low and the course can handle the rain, it's the lightning in the area that will keep the players off the course, and the spectators if it's bad enough...

You can bet play will be affected this morning at least, there will be an official announcement around 6am with the first tee times scheduled at 710..

click here for scheduled tee times  http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r032/tee-times.html


Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles and at www.isr1050.com and www.nextsportstar.com