Concept stage · Labs origin
ConceptStorm Alert — Pro Shop
Right now, deciding when to pull golfers off the course comes down to a staff member watching the sky. Storm Alert turns that into an automatic, radius-based warning the moment lightning actually lands close enough to matter.
This is a working Concept-stage demo, not a shipped product yet — pick a course, set a radius, and watch the status change in real time.
Internal prototype — see why below before assuming this runs at a real club today. Read the FAQ first →
Problem & solution
A storm rolling in doesn’t announce itself on a schedule. Today, clearing the course is a judgment call made by whoever’s in the Pro Shop, watching the sky and listening for thunder — no radius, no timestamp, no second opinion. Get it wrong in either direction and someone’s either stuck out there too long, or the course clears for a storm that never gets close.
Storm Alert watches a public lightning network and geofences every strike against a course-specific radius. The moment one lands inside it, the status flips from a calm “All clear” to a large, unmissable alert with the distance and the time — the same signal every time, not a judgment call.
How it works
Three steps in the live demo — no login, no setup.
Pick a course
4 Indiana courses to choose from today, Chatham Hills first — with a "Don't see your course?" link to request more. Selecting one re-centers the monitor immediately.
Set your radius
1 to 100 miles. Smaller means fewer false alarms; larger means more warning before a storm actually arrives.
Watch Lightning Status
Sits right above the map. Calm and green until a strike lands in radius — then it’s impossible to miss, with distance and time.
The story
As of today, storms have hit the Midwest for six straight days running, and Indiana has taken the worst of it: parts of the state saw rainfall statistically expected once in a thousand years, rivers swelled over roads, hundreds of people were evacuated, more than 300,000 lost power, and Governor Braun declared a statewide disaster emergency and mobilized the National Guard. Flooding is the headline risk this week — but the same storm systems have been throwing lightning across courses statewide the entire time, and a Pro Shop’s only real-time tool for that risk is still a staff member looking up.
That gap is exactly what this Concept was built to close. It’s not a response to this week’s storms — the first working version went together back on August 10 — but six straight days of exactly the kind of weather it’s built for is as real a stress test of the idea as this stage gets.
Storm details: CNN Weather, Aug 14, 2026.
Recent additions
What’s landed lately, and what a real deployment would still need.
Lightning Status
A single, always-visible status just above the map — a calm “All clear” by default, popping into a large alert with distance and strike time the moment one lands in radius, with a one-tap way to clear it.
A compliant data feed
This demo connects a browser straight to the free Blitzortung community network, which is reported to prohibit exactly that kind of direct/commercial use. A real version needs its own redistribution server in front of it first — a real, scoped piece of work, not a toggle.
About the data
Being straightforward about where this stands today.
Strikes come from Blitzortung, a free, community-run lightning-detection network — the same kind of public data source a lot of weather apps quietly build on. This demo is a single-person, unshipped internal prototype: no client is running it, no course’s real operations depend on it, and the connection has no auto-reconnect yet if it drops mid-storm. Useful for proving the idea; not a substitute for the pro shop’s own judgment today.
FAQ
Is this running at Chatham Hills, or any real club, right now?
No — it’s a Concept-stage internal prototype. Nothing here feeds a real Pro Shop’s decisions yet, and no club has deployed it.
Is this an official Chatham Hills product?
No — it’s an independent tool built by Fairway Advisors, not something any club runs or endorses.
Why isn’t this live yet if the demo already works?
The demo proves the idea, but its data source (Blitzortung’s free public feed) isn’t meant for direct, ongoing client use at scale — see “About the data” above. A real deployment needs its own compliant feed first.
Does it work for courses besides Chatham Hills?
Yes — 4 Indiana courses are selectable in the demo today: Chatham Hills, Meridian Hills, Youche Country Club, and Holliday Farms. Don't see yours? There's a "Don't see your course listed here?" link right in the course picker to request it.
What happens if the live feed drops mid-storm?
Today, nothing automatic — v1 has no auto-reconnect, so the status pill would sit on “disconnected” until someone flips the feed toggle back on. That’s a known gap, not a hidden one.
Could this eventually text or call the Pro Shop directly?
That’s the natural next step past an on-screen alert, and it’s on the roadmap below — not built yet.
Roadmap
- Radius-based strike geofencing + CustomEvent wiring
- 15-course Indiana selector with a live map
- Lightning Status — ambient & alert states, distance + time
- Single on/off live-feed toggle
- A compliant redistribution server (blocks any real deployment today)
- Auto-reconnect on a dropped feed
- SMS/text alert to Pro Shop staff, not just on-screen
- A real, scoped Chatham Hills pilot
Built with
Something broken, or an idea for where this should go next? Email caleb@fairwayadvisors.ai — every note gets read.
Curious what a real deployment would take?
Try the live demo yourself, or get in touch to talk through what a compliant, club-ready version would need.
Open the live demo