7 June 2019

The Weather Map on D-Day: 6 June, 1944

Posted by Dan Satterfield


The most important weather forecast ever produces was  75 years ago this week on 6 June, 1944.

You should check out the story about it on the UK Met Office website. They have videos as well about how difficult that call was and how forecasting has changed since then. You should also check out the story behind that forecast put together a few years ago by me fellow meteorologist and history lover Paul Gross at WDIV in Detroit.

I learned today that as John Kennedy and President Eisenhower drove to the Capitol on January 20,1961, Kennedy asked Eisenhower what the secret to Operation Overlord’s success  was. His reply:

“We had better meteorologists than the Germans”.

On a personal note, one of my Dad’s closest friends was among those heroes who stormed ashore at Omaha Beach on that stormy June morning. After his friends death, my Dad expressed a desire to see the spot for himself, and since he was in failing health himself, I decided we should do it right away. In October 2000, and in spite of the issues from Polio as a child and wearing a brace, my Dad walked down Omaha Beach.

He too passed away a little more than a year later.