D-Day could have ended in disaster – but one Scottish hero changed everything

As Pressure, which dramatises meteorologists’ attempts to predict the weather on D-Day, storms into cinemas, Catherine Ross charts five moments when weather forecasts (or the lack of them) changed the course of history

Illustration of a ship being tossed in a stormy sea, overlaid with weather map symbols showing a low-pressure system and isobars

Published: September 21, 2026 at 4:00 PM

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1. A national warning

A ruinous storm in 1859 gives rise to the Shipping Forecast

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On 25–26 October 1859, the most severe storm to hit the Irish Sea in the 19th century raged. “The wind screamed like a living thing,” was how one witness described a night when winds reached hurricane force 12 on the Beaufort Scale. The storm took 800 lives and 133 ships. As it progressed, twice as many people were lost at sea around the British Isles than in the whole of the previous year. Yet out of the devastation was born one of the most significant innovations in the history of meteorology.

The weather event was dubbed the Royal Charter Storm after a famous steam clipper. On the last leg of a journey from Melbourne to Liverpool, Royal Charter was driven ashore on the north coast of Anglesey with the loss of around 460 lives, including all the women and children aboard. In the era of the Australian gold rush, a cargo of gold insured for the equivalent of £35m in today’s money was also lost. There were only 40 survivors, most of whom owed their lives to the heroism of Maltese sailor Joseph Rogers, who managed to get ashore with a rope. The disaster remains the highest loss of life in any single shipwreck on the Welsh coast.

Vintage engraving of a mermaid-like allegorical figure hauling an undersea telegraph cable, with clouds labeled with country names including Germany, Russia, France, and America

In 1863 a severe gale battered the UK, but an early warning system instigated a few years before likely helped save lives. Signals were hoisted to warn ships, as illustrated in The Storm-Signal, published in Punch | Credit: Topfoto

Unsurprisingly, given the death toll, public attention soon focused on the need to prevent a similar tragedy. Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy, founder of the Meteorological Office, which had been collecting observations from around the British coastline since 1854, believed his department could provide this service.

FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle on the circumnavigation that helped shape Charles Darwin’s thinking, was an experienced mariner who understood how to forecast changes in the weather based on observations of pressure, wind speed and direction. Analysing the Royal Charter gale and others, he proved that weather observations could be obtained using the new electric telegraph and undersea cables, creating the ability to forecast poor weather. Along with new weather forecasts, he proposed a national storm warning system.

Painted portrait of a naval officer in dark dress uniform with gold epaulettes and jeweled insignia, looking to the side

A 19th-century portrait of the English navigator and meteorologist Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who founded the Meteorological Office in the UK in 1854 | Credit: Getty Images

A first warning was issued on 6 February 1861. It read: “Caution: Gale threatening from south-west and then northward. Show signal drum.” The warnings used a combination of canvas cone and drum shapes by day and lights by night, which were hoisted on a staff to warn ships of an approaching gale.

Yet not everyone took heed. On 9 February, a severe storm struck the north-east coast of England. Around 200 vessels, which had put to sea despite the warning, were lost. The Whitby lifeboat capsized with the loss of all but one of the crew during its sixth rescue.

However, further warnings were heeded and the number of lives lost around Britain fell by about a third. The reliability of FitzRoy’s methods was such that Queen Victoria requested weather forecasts before sailing to her retreat on the Isle of Wight. The warning system, believed to be the world’s oldest national forecast service, is now known as the Shipping Forecast.

2. Battlefield intelligence

Meteorologists power British advances at Passchendaele in 1917

The reply was unequivocal bordering on tetchy when the Meteorological Office offered its assistance to the military in 1914. “The Army does not go to war with umbrellas,” noted the War Office. But after disastrous losses in the air, artillery misfires and the introduction of gas warfare, attitudes changed. The Meteorological Field Service, universally known as Meteor RE, was established in 1915 and operated from the British Expeditionary Force General Headquarters at Montreuil, France.

Meteor initially provided frontline warnings when conditions were potentially suitable for the deployment of poison gas by either side, or when observations could be made from balloons to improve the accuracy of artillery. Later, aircraft of the Meteor Reconnaissance Flight improved the quality of these observations and provided forecasts for the fledgling Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

Vintage photo of two uniformed men crouched by a railway carriage, preparing small round weather balloons on a table for launch

As depicted above, balloons were used to help gauge wind direction and strength for military forecasts in the First World War | Credit: Alamy

But forecasting really came to the fore towards the end of the battle of the Somme in 1916. Engaged in a conflict of static trench warfare in waterlogged terrain and with winter approaching, commanders realised that an understanding of expected weather conditions had to play a key part in military planning.

The earliest known operational military forecast provided by the Met Office was written by the British meteorologist Major Ernest Gold on 24 October 1916. Soon the forecasts included charts and a selection of observations. At first, the charts were hand-drawn, which limited their production and distribution. However, their value became so evident that ‘clay copiers’ were introduced, enabling them to be shared far more widely.

This enhanced technology truly came into its own during the battle of Passchendaele – the opening stages of which were fought in exceptionally wet weather. In Ypres across the 31 days of August 1917, 127mm of rain tumbled from the skies, around 60mm more than average. With trenches immediately filling with water and parts of the battlefield turned to swamp, combat operations were severely compromised.

First World War photo of soldiers in helmets carrying a wounded comrade on a stretcher across a muddy battlefield

Stretcher bearers struggle through the mud in Belgium, during the opening attack of the battle of Passchendaele, in August 1917 | Credit: Getty Images

When the weather finally improved in late September and October, the British were ready to strike, thanks, in part, to the Met Office’s forecasts. The drier weather of September hardened the ground and brought early morning mists, which gave cover to advancing British infantry. When the mists cleared during the morning, German counter-attack formations were revealed to air and ground reconnaissance.

Armed with this intelligence, the British were able to launch offensives at the Menin Road Ridge (20–25 September), Polygon Wood (26 September–3 October) and Broodseinde (4 October). Together, these engagements led to British possession of the strategically important ridge east of Ypres – before the rain returned in October.

Ernest Gold’s diary includes notes from meetings and telephone calls with General Plumer, commander of the Second Army, and his chief of staff, General Harrington, warning them of deteriorating weather. Perhaps the British Army could fight the war with umbrellas, after all.

3. A storm before D-Day

The Met Office saves thousands of soldiers’ lives in 1944

After long months of preparation, the Allied invasion of western Europe was set for 5 June 1944. The only thing that could delay D-Day was bad weather.

Timing was crucial. The invasion had to coincide with the Soviet summer offensive in the east to ensure maximum pressure on German resources. But moon and tide conditions were favourable on only three days: 5, 6 and 7 June. The odds of even broadly acceptable weather were at least 13-1. The requirement for a full moon at the same time as the desired weather roughly trebled the odds.

Aerial view of a WWII beach landing, with troops marching inland past tanks, trucks, and landing craft on the shore

Allied forces build up at Omaha Beach in Normandy during the D-Day landings, whose success relied on good weather | Credit: Getty Images

Enter Dr James Stagg. He was the Met Office official charged with negotiating the meteorological minefield that confronted the Allies in the nerve-shredding countdown to D-Day. Stagg’s job was to bring together the differing perspectives of meteorologists from the US Air Force, UK Met Office and Admiralty in order to provide accurate forecasts to General Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. It was, to put it mildly, a fiendishly difficult job brief.

In terms of data, the Allies had a significant advantage. By June 1944, German forces had not only been pushed back in the air and at sea, they had largely failed to crack Allied codes. This meant that German forecasters likely lacked critical weather observations from the Atlantic. The chief meteorologist of the German 3 Air Fleet advised of poor weather conditions on 6 June. German commanders decided not to trigger their warning system, which had been designed to alert troops defending Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Atlantic Wall to potential invasion. Reassured, Rommel himself returned to Germany for his wife’s birthday party.

Thanks to the work of the Enigma codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Allied forecasters had access to all of the German weather observations. But that didn’t mean they could agree on what the weather would bring. Initially, the American team strongly supported a favourable forecast for 5 June but the Met Office and Admiralty believed the weather would be bad. Following significant disagreements, Stagg briefed Eisenhower to expect poor conditions on the French coast – and so the invasion was postponed. The forecast was correct and thousands of lives were saved. Stagg was now under intense pressure to find a weather window on 6 or 7 June. In his diary, he wrote: “I am now getting rather stunned, it is all a nightmare.”

Close-up black-and-white portrait of a man with a moustache

Captain James Stagg predicted the calm weather that made the D-Day landings possible | Credit: Alamy

On 4 June, observations from the Atlantic had begun to indicate a brief window of better weather two days hence. Stagg’s diary again reflected the knife-edge nature of the decision when, responding to praise for his forecast from Admiral Creasy, he wrote: “I wonder. He should wait till he sees how things go.”

As it turned out, conditions were marginal. But finding that elusive weather window enabled Stagg and his forecasters to give the Allies the element of surprise. And as the greatest amphibious assault in history got under way, that element of surprise would prove crucial.

4. Forecasting by numbers

In 1965, meteorology enters the computer age

As a pacifist who drove ambulances during the First World War, Lewis Fry Richardson spent his breaks working out how to use mathematical equations in meteorology. Published in 1922, Weather Prediction by Numerical Process was years ahead of its time as it showed how to use mathematics and physics to predict the weather from a starting set of observations – and how this could be done for more than one location at the same time by splitting up an area into a chequerboard design to create gridded forecasts.

Richardson was the first to propose this form of forecasting, although his work was nearly lost when a draft of it was sent to the rear lines during the battle of Champagne and went missing, only to be unearthed months later under a heap of coal.

Illustration of a conductor raising his baton before a grand, multi-tiered opera house filled with an audience, with a world map overlaid on the walls

The mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson imagined this “forecast factory”, in which a central conductor coordinated thousands of people in a theatre-like hall who were performing mathematical calculations to predict the weather around the world | Credit: Imaginary

He calculated that to complete his forecasts in real-time he would require 64,000 “computors” (people carrying out calculations). Richardson imagined a “forecast factory” rather like a theatre in the round and full of boxes representing the grid squares. Computors in each box carried out calculations and passed on their results, all under the direction of a central conductor keeping everything moving on schedule. Conceptually, he was essentially describing the working of a supercomputer.

Experiments in the 1950s and 1960s built upon Richardson’s work to create a simple mathematical model of the atmosphere. The first operational computer forecast using numerical weather prediction (NWP) arrived on 2 November 1965. The technique enabled the Met Office to produce twice-daily forecasts at three levels in the atmosphere across the North Atlantic and western Europe. Even with today’s more sophisticated forecasts, Richardson’s basic equations are still present.

Using computers to produce weather forecasts dramatically enhanced forecasts to extend further into the future. It gave earlier warning of severe weather events, as well as allowing forecasting for different parts of the globe. Some of the earliest impacts were seen in aviation forecasting. As early as April 1966, NWP showed that deep low pressure would bring strong high-level winds in the mid-Atlantic and heavy snowfall to much of the UK, including London. Pilots and airlines were alerted to the risks associated with these conditions.

Models have constantly improved. When the Falklands War broke out in 1982, meteorologists took just 48 hours to extend their forecasting model into the South Atlantic. These days, the Met Office supercomputer is based in the cloud and can perform 60 quadrillion calculations per second. A far cry from Richardson’s original design, but nevertheless an evolution of his original idea.

5. Hurricane? What hurricane?

In 1987, a BBC forecaster issues an infamous denial

On 15 October 1987, BBC forecaster Michael Fish delivered Britain’s most infamous weather forecast. “Earlier on today,” he said, “a woman rang the BBC and said she’d heard there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you’re watching, don’t worry, there isn’t.” He was correct, but he was talking about a storm over the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean. He said it wouldn’t reach the UK and it didn’t. However, a rapidly deepening area of low pressure from the Bay of Biscay did.

Forecasters had flagged the risk of severe weather days in advance, but early models showed the worst of it staying just south of England. As things played out, though, a clash between unusually warm tropical air and cold polar air forced the warm air upward, creating a deep area of low pressure. The sharp temperature contrast produced a particularly intense weather system.

Aerial photo of a suburban street with several large uprooted trees fallen across gardens and driveways after a storm

Britain experienced its worst storm in 300 years in October 1987 | Credit: Getty Images

Several ingredients made the Great Storm so memorable, but its track was probably most significant. Hitting the south coast, it pushed north and east, reaching the Humber estuary at about 5.30am on 16 October. This path included densely populated areas.

Gusts exceeded 100mph, uprooting 15 million trees, tearing roofs from houses, flattening vehicles and severing power across much of southern England. One family in Kent recalled waking as “the house shook as though grabbed by a giant hand”. Roads were blocked, trains halted, entire counties were plunged into chaos and 18 people died. The highest gust recorded over the UK was 115mph at Shoreham in Sussex at 3.10am. A Guardian article, “Mayhem brings London to halt”, described how power supplies, telephone connections and transport infrastructure collapsed. It also reported that Woolworths had sold 25,000 brooms and 50,000 candles as people tried to cope in the aftermath.

BBC weather forecaster Michael Fish presenting in front of a map, with an on-screen graphic reading 'Weather News with Michael Fish

Forecaster Michael Fish reassured viewers there would be no hurricane, but did warn of “some really stormy weather” | Credit: BBC Archive

The apparent mismatch between the forecasts and the storm’s severity sparked national debate. The Great Storm became a catalyst for investment and improvement in the science, technology and communication of forecasting, which has since transformed the way the UK understands and responds to severe weather.

After 1987, the Met Office created the National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS) to give government, industry, emergency responders and the public a clear, coordinated system for severe weather alerts. The warnings help people prepare. Back then, alerts were sent by fax and email to emergency services and media outlets for broadcast on TV and radio. Today, most people get forecasts and warnings through apps, social media and the web. Since 2015, storms have been named to provide a shared reference point.

The Great Storm stands as a reminder that accurate forecasting saves lives and that, when the worst weather hits, it enters national folklore. Just ask Michael Fish.

Catherine Ross is the library and archive manager at the Met Office

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This article was first published in the October 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine

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