大象传媒

Between 1943 and 1945, I was involved in metrological forecasting, of the sort that delayed D-Day and allowed the window of opportunity on June the 6th.

In order to get the data for the forecasts, we had to monitor the weather across the Atlantic. This was done from our base at Tiree in Scotland. We used Halifax bombers, and flew ten hour sorties which followed the following pattern.

We would start out flying at 95 millibars, about 1500 feet. Every fifty nautical miles we would take a series of readings from the nose of the plane. These readings included the type and amount of cloud, the top and base of the cloud, visibility, wind speed, and temperature. Every 200 miles, we would descent to sea level to read the sea level pressure.

At position 14, about 750 miles out, we would climb to 500 millibars, about 18000feet. We would zigzag up to this height, taking readings along the way. At the top we would turn back, and take readings along the top fro 400 miles. We would then descend, repeating the zigzag, and take readings every 50 millibars. These included readings of ice and condensation. The run ended with a descent to sea level and a sea level pressure reading.

The readings were then logged, coded on a one time code pad, and then radioed back to base, where the wireless operators decoded the readings. We had to code the transmitions to stop the Germans intercepting the data. An accurate weather forecast would benefit them too.

As a note, I met my wife while doing this work. She was one of the wireless operators

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