Word: weathermen
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Forecast on DDay. The biggest moment for military weathermen was critical Dday, when General Eisenhower's forces crossed the Channel to land on the Normandy coast. Everything depended on the weather, which could have broken up the invasion fleet as it had the Spanish Armada, sailing in the opposite direction, 356 years before. As June 1944 approached, the weather over the Channel remained impossibly bad. Each service demanded several different kinds of weather. The airborne infantry wanted cloud-cover to shelter it from enemy fighters; the bombers wanted clear skies. Ground forces wanted cloud-cover and fairly dry soil...
Selecting the kind of weather that would be best for all concerned, the High Command asked the weathermen to pick the date when the chances would be highest for getting it. June 4 or 5 was chosen tentatively, but on June 3 the weathermen said no; the weather would not be good enough. On June 4 General Eisenhower postponed the invasion. Late that night he got better news from the weathermen. A storm, they said, would pass over the Channel on June 5, leaving fairly good conditions on Tuesday. June...
Eisenhower followed the weathermen's advice and made his decision for a June 6 landing. June 5 was stormy, but on June 6 weather conditions were reasonably good. The invasion forces crossed the Channel, finding the Germans unprepared. Their airplanes were grounded; their naval vessels absent. Deceived by the storm which had just passed, they thought Eisenhower would wait at least another...
...Generals Asked Too Much. During the war, Rossby visited most of the theaters where his meteorologists were sweating out their decisions. Some of the generals and admirals, he noted, alternated between cursing the weathermen and demanding forecasting accuracy that was impossible to supply. Many of their bitterest complaints were not about the forecasting but about the weather. General Patton, despairing of meteorology, once turned to his chaplain: "Goddam it," he shouted, "get me some good weather...
...even through it. They can measure accurately a cloud's altitude -a matter of critical importance, since the highest storm clouds are usually the most violent and the most likely to produce cloudbursts and tornadoes. Through their ability to see raindrops before they fall, they will enable weathermen to predict flash floods; when clouds are observed dropping heavy rain on a mountain watershed, the people in the valley below can be warned to take to the hills...