A
Storm from nowhere few days after D-Day in June 1944
The
worst storm in 40 years and meteorology is silent.
By : www.seaclimate.com, April 2010
Revised 20. June 2013
EN: http://climate-ocean.com/2013/7_4.html
Soon
after the landing of troops on the shores in the Normandy
since 06 June 1944, an unexpected storm lashed across the
English Channel on 19 June 1944 lasting for three days. From
Britain to France the operation and supply area for the
invasion was severely effected. 800 ships and floating units
were beached or lost, more
than
the German army managed to take out during the entire campaign.
It was the most severe storm in June for 
40
years has been claimed. The weather maps do not show the event.
The Met services did not foresee the event, and modern science
is still speechless; no interest, no research, no explanation.
That should not be accepted any longer, as the event is
presumably a perfect example what sudden excessive activities
at sea can do with the regional weather, in a sense that it
may have significantly increased the windy weather. During the
days before the 19 June the water body of the English Channel
had been revolved in an unprecedented manner, by transport,
naval control, gun fire, bombing, depth charging, and sinking
ships. That is just the stuff weather can be made, and
meteorology should at least be willing to learn from such
events.
D-Day
D-Day,
the landing of the Allied Troops at the shore of the Normandy
in France on the morning of the 6th of June 1944.
It was one of the most decisive turning point during WWII to
defeat Germany within the next 10 months in April 1945.
Naturally the weather forecast was crucial. US and British
weather units did it separately and often very controversial.
However on D-Day the weather ran not against the landing
operation, which initially
involved more than 150’000 men and 7’000 ships, 1’200
naval vessels, 850 merchant ships, and about 5’000 transport
units as landing or ancillary crafts. The British Met-Office
claims that its service is a major landmarks in their history
with the annotation:
Fig.
1: Surface Map, D-Day June 6, 1944;
“The
weather was crucial to the Allied Forces’s success for the
D-Day landings in June 1944. General Eisenhower’s chief
meteorologist, Group Captain John Stagg, a Met Office
forecaster, advised of a narrow ‘weather
window’
for the operation to go ahead: "probably the only day
during the month of June on which the operations could have
been launched," President Truman later said.”
Luckily
the weather did not hamper commencement of the invasion
according long-term planning, so there is no need to come up
with a judgement whether the weather men had been of a service
as claimed. But as they failed to forecast a severe storm only
two weeks later, the skill may not have been as high as they
wish others to assume.
Weather
maps and Sea activities
One
can only wonder that researchers have been so reluctant to
investigate the weather situation around the 19 June 1944 and
where the great storm came from. The weather maps indicate
nothing exceptional. The air pressure over the English Channel
is with 1020 hPa fine, and the pressure difference between
Scotland (1025)
and North Italy (1005) is hardly anything that generates
strong wind pattern. Nowhere over the North Atlantic loomed
one or two storm centers
as on D-Day (see Fig above).
|
|
source
of maps :
|
wetterzentrale
|
|
18
June 1944
|
19
June 1944
|
20
June 1944
|
|
Source:
Seewarte; 19 June 1944,
08:
|
But
what is difficult to assess are the uncountable activities
above and under the sea surface in the ocean region from
Ireland to the southern Biscayan and along the entire English
Channel to Dover. In the two weeks after D-Day the Allies
constructed two artificial harbours out of 600,000 tons of
concrete between 33 jetties within just 3 days, and had 15 km
of floating roadways for the discharge of men and vehicles.
The US troops build “Mulberry A” at Omaha Beach;
the British “Mulberry B” at Arromanches (later called Port
Winston) respectively. Before June 19 the Allies could used
the installation to land about 500’000 men, 100’000
vehicles, and 400’000 tons supplies.
|
 Source: US Federal Government,
Public Domain
|
Although
the landing operation itself was expressive the sea area from
the West of the English Channel to Dover was packed with ship
operation for transport and military actions. The Allies
employed more than 1’200 naval ships, the Germans another
200. In addition the Germans started to evacuate their naval
bases at Cherbourg, Le Havre, Brest, either to fight the enemy,
or to move ship, persons and material to safer ports in Norway
or Germany. Many thousand sea mines are dropped form ships and
bombers. Bombing missions are flown. There is ship to ship, or
ship to air bomber, or shore to ship shelling many hundred
times per day.
From D-Day to the 19th June the sea in a wider area of the
Normandy shores was churned and turned up-side-down. The sea
surface got colder. Sun warmed water was exchanged with deeper
and colder water, while the mid June sun supplied a lot of sun
ray to the surrounding land masses. That presumably build the
ingredients for the making of a devastating storm which start
on June 19 and lasted for three days
by which the “Mulberry A” port at Omaha Beach was
so completely wracked that its further use was abandoned,
while the damage at “Mulberry B” could be repaired fairly
soon.
No
concern. No interest. No lesson learned.
A
unique weather event occurs at the most crucial military
operation of all time, but science is silent. There was no
interest than, nor during the last decades to shed any light
on the event, why it had not been observed in advance, what
caused it, any why did it last for three days in a months
which is not known for its storminess. The event caused
enormous losses, and severely hampered military operation,
which Met services seem not interested to see. One should call
this ignorance and behaviours irresponsible. To ‘move on’
immediately after the Great Storm might be understandable in
June 1944, but completely unacceptable since the debate on
climate change started two decades ago. That would not only be
required for historical
reason, but to ensure that weather and climate
research does not fail to investigate well observed
events that could tell a lot of weather system.
If
the Met Office is so proud on its service with regard to the
D-Day weather forecast, it should be ashamed that the most
severe storm for 40 years in the English Channel, from June
19-21, is still not fully assessed, investigated, and
thoroughly explained.
In
DEUTSCH am 20. 06. 2013
DE:
http://seatraining.net/e/7_3.html
More
about Climate and Naval War at: http://climate-ocean.com/
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