How to tell if tennis courts are dry after rain

Why the usual way fails

Weather apps tell you about the next few hours, not about what already fell on a specific spot an hour ago. Rain is patchy, so one side of town can get a heavy shower while courts two miles away stay dry. Public courts have no staff to ask, and their surfaces, shade and drainage all change how fast they dry. Even the forecast for later can mislead you, because a 20 percent chance overnight can still leave the court damp the next morning. Lists of public courts are also scattered across city websites, school pages and map apps, and few of them say whether a court has lights or is actually open to the public. So even before the weather question, just finding a court you are allowed to use takes some digging.

How opencourts.us helps

OpenCourts is a free map of public tennis courts with a recent rain view built in. For the courts near you it compares NOAA radar precipitation estimates over the last one, three and six hours, adds a radar quality label, and lists the courts that got less rain. Next to that sits a seven-day planner with a play score for each daylight window, based on temperature, wind and rain chance. It does not book courts or take payments, and it says plainly that radar cannot tell you how a court surface looks right now. Court details come from OpenStreetMap, so it is worth confirming access and lighting locally the first time you visit a new court.

Step by step

1. Open OpenCourts and search by city, ZIP code or your current location.
2. Check the recent precipitation section to see which nearby courts got the least rain.
3. Look at the radar quality label before you trust the numbers.
4. Filter by surface, lighting or confirmed public access to narrow the list.
5. Use the seven-day planner to pick a time window with a high play score.

Tips

• Look at the six-hour reading as well as the last hour. A court that took heavy rain four hours ago can still be wet even if the last hour was clear.
• Hard courts in full sun dry much faster than clay or shaded courts. If the rain was recent, pick a sunny hard court first and save the shaded ones for later in the day.
• Bring a small towel or squeegee. Wiping off a thin layer of water often saves a session that would otherwise be lost.
• Plan around overnight rain too. When the forecast shows rain possible overnight, check the court's radar score again in the morning before you leave.

Questions