D-Day

D-Day.  It was June 6, 1944.

Allied forces invaded France on the beaches of Normandy.  It was basically the turning point of World War II.
And it almost didn’t happen…all because of the weather.

Why?  Well, for the invasion to work, conditions had to be perfect.  The Allies needed a full moon, low tide, clear skies and little wind.

And the prediction had to come right from the forecasting team from the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Just imagine the stakes of this forecast!  But bad weather nearly brought down D-Day.  The extraordinary story of the changing June weather of 1944 and its influence on General Dwight Eisenhower revolves around the heated arguments of six weathermen.

James Stagg was a Meteorological Office man who reported to Eisenhower.  His job was to report the analyses of three two-man teams of forecasters from the Met Office, the United States military and the Royal Navy.

Two of the Navy men include Lawrence Hogben and Geoffrey Wolfe.

Dr. Hogben says, “We six never agreed about anything except that Stagg was not a good meteorologist and that he was a bit of a glory hound.“ 

The six worked for months before D-Day, perfecting forecasting techniques…many of which are still is use today.

“I don’t think people realize how close run it was,“ Dr. Hogben says.  “Not much would have to have changed for D-Day to have been a failure, and a failure caused by the weather.“

“The outcome of D-Day, perhaps the whole future of the western world rested on those forecasts, so I think you could say there was some pressure,“ Dr. Hogben says.

“Things looked very bleak.  We knew that, without a change, the invasion would have to be postponed until June 19, the next time the tides would be right.  Luckily, the next day there was a wholly unexpected break and we were able to change our forecast to favorable,“ says Dr. Hogben.

“If we had been a little less certain and said no again, it would have had to shift to the 19th,“  Dr. Hogben says.  “As it happened, on the 17th, all six of us produced a forecast for the 19th for almost perfect conditions, so they would definitely have gone ahead.“

And if D-Day had happened on the 19th, it would have been a complete disaster.  Why?  On June 19th, the biggest storm of the 20th Century came up.