Forecasting D-Day

The LRB Podcast

The D-Day planners said that everything would depended the weather. They needed 'a quiet day with not more than moderate winds and seas and not too much cloud for the airmen, to be followed by three more quiet days'. But who would make the forecast? The Meteorological Office? The US Air Force? The Royal Navy? In the event, it was all three. In this diary piece published in 1994, Lawrence Hogben, a New Zealand-born meteorologist and Royal Navy officer, describes the way this forecasting by committee worked, and why they very almost chose the wrong day.

Read by Stephen Dillane

Find the article and further reading on the episode page: https://lrb.me/ddaypod

Watch the short film based on this piece: https://lrb.me/ddayyt

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