David Rickman rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he gazed at the laptop screen covered in zigzagging lines. Just when he thought that it could not get worse, up popped the chart that told him that it could.

Rickman is one of the R&A officials who will help to make the decision whether to suspend play at the Open Championship today if the weather does its worst. If the conditions have at times seemed terrible, with torrential rain, numbing temperatures and hair-straightening winds, Royal Birkdale has seen nothing yet.

A team of scientists from the Met Office, who are based at Royal Birkdale, are predicting winds gusting to more than 45mph when the third round should be reaching its climax today. Instead, the tournament could be blown off course by a renewed bout of weather that seems to have singled out this small stretch of the Lancashire coastline for special and appalling treatment.

Gordon McKinstry, who is in charge of the Met Office team, was giving minute-by-minute updates to the R&A yesterday, using the same pinpoint-accurate forecasting equipment that helps the RAF in Afghanistan, with two laptops blinking constantly as they displayed radar and satellite pictures. They showed that the storm will be at its height over Birkdale between 10am and 4pm today, just when the course is full of golfers already struggling with the demands of playing in one of the world's greatest tournaments.

So the news that McKinstry handed to Rickman yesterday afternoon was nothing short of depressing as the spectre looms of the temporary shutdown of one of the great sporting occasions of the English summer. “The intensity of what is coming could cause real problems,” McKinstry said. “There just is no good news on this one, but it has been a really difficult week and it is not letting up.”

Rickman said that the R&A is powerless in the teeth of a destructive weather system generated by three jet streams sweeping across the Atlantic. The system rushed in from the west in a narrow band five to ten miles wide that steamrollered straight through the smooth fairways and on through the seaside town of Southport.

There is another substantial beating on the way. “There is nothing we can do about it,” Rickman said. “We just have to get on with it and hope it is not as bad as we fear. We can't make a judgment on whether to suspend play until it hits us.”

Even though Thursday's terrible conditions were on a slightly lesser scale to those expected today, the wind gusting to about 30mph caused problems on the greens. Justin Rose was forced to ask for an official ruling as his ball oscillated in the wind just as he prepared to putt on the 3rd green. That could be a sample of what is to come today.

Rickman's discussions with McKinstry were relayed to Peter Dawson, the R&A's chief executive, who will make the final decision. The constant updating culminated in a meeting last night between Dawson and Chris Whittle, the course manager, and Richard Reed, the chairman of the greens committee, to decide whether tee boxes should be brought forward, flag placements moved to be made more accessible and what time play should start this morning.

Even as they held their meeting, though, the weather was deteriorating. By 6am today, a brief lull was due to have been followed by the onset of another intense weather system. The only good news is reserved for the final round tomorrow, when the wind should have abated and the sun may just peep through for the first time to cheer up this bedraggled piece of golfing coastline.