Weather service marks 100 years of work for UK armed forces

It has been 100 years since the first weather forecast was provided for the British armed forces by the Met Office.

From the Battle of the Somme to current operations and exercises around the world, the Met Office has provided forecasting information to better inform military commanders in their operations.

Although the Met Office was producing synoptic charts and covering northwest Europe throughout World War I, these were only used for work in the UK.

The first general forecast for the British Army was not until October 24, 1916.

Met Office archivist Catherine Ross said: “The MetOfficehadmeteorological observers stationed at the front from 1915, providing critical meteorological information which impacted not only allied operations but also warned of conditions which would enable the enemy to launch gas attacks themselves.

“The operational forecasts proved to be highly important and, after what was one of the few Allied advances during the Battle of Passchendaele, one of the senior allied commanders sent a telegraph toMeteor RE to thank them for their accurate forecasts which had proven of great assistance in planning the operation.”

Famously, in World War II, the forecasts played a crucial role in the timing of the D-Day landings in Normandy, known as Operation Neptune. After calcu- lating that the moon and tide conditions would only be simultaneously favourable on June 5, 6 and 7, commanders were advised to push back the operation from its originally anticipated date in May.

This forecast was one of the most important in world history and was hugely important to the war’s outcome.

The Exeter-based Met Office service now attracts

“Operational forecasts proved to be highly important”

international attention, with allies such as the US and Nato drawing on data, advice and services. Meteorologists use one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, which can do more than 1,000trillion calculations a second.

The Met Office also provides the Mobile Met Unit to support deployed operations and exercises in the UK and overseas.

Photograph: Kami Thomson ASSISTANCE: The Met Office provides forecasts to help the military.

Forecasts played crucial role in landings by soldiers such as these Royal Marine Commandos