ROANOKE, Va. – June 6, 1944 is known as D-Day, the day in which Operation Overlord was carried out on the beaches of Normandy.
Without a pivotal forecast, however, history may very well have been written differently.
- Forecasts for June 5th were made on the evening of June 3rd, and they were confirmed on the morning of June 4th.
- The forecasts for the 6th were then made on the evening of the 4th before being confirmed early in the morning on the 5th.
Source: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
As history tells us, General Eisenhower was set to carry out the mission on June 4th, but instead pushed it to June 6th based on a weather forecast.
There was a storm that moved through the English Channel that prevented the mission from happening on the 4th, but it also prevented the Germans from doing recon on the Allies.
A team of weather forecasters, led by Captain J.M. Stagg, said this storm would bring earlier and quicker clearing in the sky once it passed the Nazi-controlled coast of France on the 6th.
A second system was slowly moving across the Atlantic Ocean, which gave Allied Forces a narrow window of opportunity to storm the beaches.
By the time the sky cleared, the Germans (who were previously scheduled to do reconnaissance) were too late.
Operation Overlord was already under way.
It wasn’t without challenges, however.
A fog bank along the shoreline made visibility a challenge. Choppy waves in the wake of the first storm system led some sailors to become sea sick.
If troops didn’t storm the beaches of Normandy on the 6th of June, the next possible time frame would have been between June 17th and June 21st.
At that time, another large storm produced hurricane-force wind gusts, destroying hundreds of warships.
If you’re interested in the step-by-step weather pattern leading up to (and following) D-Day, you can check out the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ (ECMWF) analyses here.