Invisible Iceberg: A sneak peek at 'Forecasting D-Day'

AccuWeather

Join AccuWeather Founder & Executive Chairman Dr. Joel N Myers and AccuWeather Network Chief Meteorologist Bernie Rayno for a peek at the Invisible Iceberg episode "Forecasting D-Day."

Transcript

00:00Two years of planning, an army of allied troops, but what the masterminds of this massive operation

00:13otherwise known as D-Day couldn't control was the weather.

00:17How did planners change course to achieve one of the greatest military victories of

00:21all time?

00:22Joining me to help us delve deeper into the invasion of Normandy is Akiwa, the founder

00:26and executive chairman and author of the book Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather

00:31Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers.

00:34This is a fascinating story, I mean really, you can make the argument this is one of the

00:40most important weather forecasts in history, right?

00:45Certainly up to that time it was, you had 5,000 ships crossing the English Channel,

00:52you had thousands of planes involved, you had a million troops involved ultimately

00:59supporting and involved, and the element of surprise was so important.

01:06They had been planning this operation, as you said, for almost two years, and when was

01:12it going to happen?

01:13The weather was stormy in that area, and if the weather wasn't cooperative it could have

01:20been a disaster, if on the other hand the Germans knew the timing it would have been

01:25a disaster as it was, thousands of troops on the Allied side were lost that first day.

01:31Why was the weather so important for the success of D-Day?

01:34The weather tends to be stormy, I mean waves, they needed just right conditions, the weather

01:39coming in from the Atlantic Ocean tends to move from west to east, a lot of uncertainty,

01:45and the Germans didn't have many observations over there because they didn't have any from

01:49Britain or the Atlantic because the United States controlled the Atlantic Ocean, so

01:55we had the advantage of how the weather was moving, but it's still very uncertain and

02:01tended to be stormy, you had to pick just the right period, ideally with some moonlit

02:06skies with low tide, you had to commit at low tide, and you couldn't have the waves

02:13as it was, a lot of the men were seasick anyway as they were coming ashore, but they had to

02:19be very coordinated because they had all these guns pointed down, shooting as they came,

02:26you know all the Germans were entrenched, they had to hit the beach and then go up the hill,

02:30but they did take the Germans by surprise.

02:32There were some certain different techniques between the two different groups of meteorologists

02:39that were making the forecast, and they knew the importance of it, so they were well staffed.

02:44Yeah, there's three different groups, the Royal Navy, the UK Meteorological Agency,

02:49and the US Air Force. The UK meteorologists had more experience with the weather in that area.

02:57Because the weather moves in a certain direction from west to east, that gave the allies an

03:04advantage over the Germans.

03:06It did, because we controlled and had the observations to the west, although over the

03:11ocean, particularly the eastern part of the ocean, it's more complicated obviously than over land to

03:16track storms, you don't have many observations, and particularly in that area.

03:20What would have happened if the invasion would have went on the 5th instead of the 6th?

03:26If it went on the 5th, it may have failed, and if it had failed,

03:30Germany would have been strengthened, obviously.

03:33They could have focused their efforts to repel the Soviet Union coming in from the east,

03:40and American troops and the allies coming up from Italy from the south,

03:45and the war may have gone on longer, maybe six months, a year, or even longer.

03:52The allies would have suffered significant losses.

03:55Who knows what it would have done to the leadership of the allies?

03:58They were successful on the 6th, but who knows what the failure on the 5th,

04:02what that would have meant.

04:03So it would have really changed history quite a bit.

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