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.
That is really wonderful that he got to go there. I have a cousin who lost his life leading his men; his wife was pregnant at the time. My 88+ year old Aunt always talks about him. While Essie talks about how she never knew her father, she also did not have to see him die. My Aunt talks about him, and how his parents never got over it; Essie is Rich and barely has anything to do with us .