With thousands of lives on the line, there is no doubt that the weather forecast made for the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France during World War II was the most important of all-time and one of the most difficult as well given the lack of sophisticated forecasting tools that we enjoy in today’s world. The first satellite image was still nearly sixteen years away (TIROS on April 1, 1960) and reliable computer forecast models were still decades away. Saturday, June 6th, marks the 76th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and the weather forecast for that historic event makes for quite an interesting story in what turned out to be a pivotal moment in world history. Years of detailed planning went into the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, but success hinged on one element that no military commander could control — the weather. Defying his colleagues, Captain James Martin Stagg advised General Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower to postpone the invasion of Normandy by one day from June 5th to June 6th because of uncertain weather conditions in a weather forecast that changed the course of World War II and altered world history.
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It has been 9 years since the US has sent its own astronauts into orbit, but that drought is expected to end on Wednesday with a Florida rocket launch…that is, if the weather permits and there is the threat of showers and thunderstorms. Should the launch take place on Wednesday, it will be a public-private partnership that returns the US to the business of human spaceflight. Not since the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet in 2011 has the US possessed the capability to send its astronauts into orbit and the success of this week’s mission known formally as SpaceX Demo-2 may shape the direction of spaceflight for a generation. If the weather prevents the launch on Wednesday, another attempt will be made on Saturday and, if needed, a third attempt is set for Sunday.
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It was during the height of the Cold War and a powerful solar storm could have led to a disastrous military conflict between the US and Soviet Union if not for the early efforts of the US Air Force to monitor solar activity. On May 23rd, 1967, a solar storm took place that was so powerful, it jammed radar and radio communications in polar regions and the US Air Force actually began to prepare aircraft for war thinking the nation’s surveillance radars were being jammed by the Soviet Union. Fortunately, space weather forecasters in the military suspected there might be another cause and they relayed information about the possibility that a solar storm could have been the reason for the disrupted radar and radio communications. As it turned out, this information was enough to keep the planes on the ground and the US avoided a potential nuclear weapon exchange with the Soviet Union.
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While weather played an important role in the 1912 Titanic disaster, it was perhaps an even more direct cause of another disaster that took place 25 years later – at least that is the prevailing belief. On May 6th, 1937, while the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg was attempting to land at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, a flame appeared on the outer cover of the rear of the ship. Within 34 seconds, the entire airship was consumed by fire and the golden age of airship travel was over.
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This Wednesday marks the 108th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic (April 15, 1912) and I thought I’d revisit the overall weather pattern that played a key role in the tragedy. By studying weather maps and written records from that time period, some definitive conclusions can be drawn about the weather during the trip across the Atlantic, and there are also some interesting relatively new theories involving atmospheric conditions and their possible effects.
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It was just a few years ago when the nation went crazy for the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse on US soil since 1918 and it provided a great opportunity for scientists and sky observers. What became known as “The Great American Solar Eclipse” took place on August 21st, 2017 when the moon passed between the sun and earth resulting in a 67-mile wide shadow that crossed the country from Oregon-to-South Carolina. If you happened to miss the last total solar eclipse or if it was cloudy in your part of the country then you’ll be happy to know there will be another opportunity exactly 4 years from today.
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March is known to feature some crazy and surprising weather and the 1958 blizzard that occurred in the Mid-Atlantic region between March 18th and 23rd was indeed rather unexpected. In general, forecasts on the morning of March 18th had no mention of snow. This was in an era before computer forecast models were being utilized by weather forecasters on a daily basis and it was even before satellite imagery existed which could aid in the forecast. By afternoon on that particular day, the light rain had changed into huge, wet snowflakes and - for the next few days - history was being made.
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The winter of 1992-1993 was not bad at all in the Mid-Atlantic region in terms of cold and snow, but one storm at the end of the season will put that particular winter in the history books forever. One of the most intense storms ever observed in the eastern US took place from March 12-14, 1993 and it will be forever known as the “Storm of the Century”. This intense storm generated tremendous snowfall totals from Alabama through Maine, high winds all along the east coast, extreme coastal flooding along the Florida west coast and incredibly low barometric pressures across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. The aftermath of the “Storm of the Century” was unseasonably cold and broke records in many spots for the middle of March. To this day, the storm also known as the “Superstorm of 1993” ranks among the deadliest and most costly weather events in US history.
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In the ocean of bad news and pessimism that we have hearing in recent days regarding the coronavirus perhaps there is a small island of hope and optimism, and, believe it or not, it is related to the weather. The weather has an important impact on all kinds of things ranging from, for example, the price of coffee to the sweetness of your wine to the distance that a baseball can travel on a summer night. The weather also has an impact on the spreadability and survivability of respiratory viruses including influenza which tends to thrive as weather conditions become colder. While there is much unknown about this particular new strain of coronavirus, there is hope that its impact will diminish as temperatures, humidity and hours of sunlight climb as the northern hemisphere transitions from late winter-to-spring-to-summer.
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It was a little past 1 AM on February 3rd, 1959 when American musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa along with pilot Roger Peterson. Weather conditions were certainly contributing factors in the plane crash as there was poor visibility on that cold night with snow blowing across the runway. Hours before, Holly and his tourmates were on the eleventh night of their “Winter Dance Party” tour through the snow-covered Midwest. It was a Monday and a school night, but 1,100 teenagers crammed into the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa for two sold out shows with the second one ending around midnight. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died” after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song “American Pie”.
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