ww2 weather question

[Charfan]

Just a question about just after the outbreak of ww2, sept 1939. If the German's were planning a bombing campaign on scotland for example, would they have been able to tell what the weather was like there the day before?

And if they COULD, what would make them NOT be able to find out. I just want both sides of the argument.

I'm not sure if German's (and Brits for that matter) used radar to figure out the weather in areas they were about to hit or if it was limited to their own skies?

Thanks, CF.

[Lizard]

They could have simply rung up someone in Scotland and ask what the weather was doing, when the person who they rung asked why? they could simply have said they were thinking of coming over for a fishing holiday, instead of telling that person they were thinking of bombing the crap out of Glasgow, and other prominent Scottish targets.
Hope this helps.

[Charfan]

Not the answer I was looking for, but ok, that's plausible.

[Robches]

If you really want to know, an old chap who lives in my area uses the system the Germans used for weather prediction during the war. Because they could not station weather ships out in the Atlantic, what they did was to compare the current weather with that of previous years when the weather patterns were similar, and extrapolate from that. The old fellow I mentioned publishes his long range forecasts in our local paper, and they aren't bad at all.

[JamesW]

Charfan wrote:

> just after the outbreak of ww2, sept
> 1939. If the German's were planning a bombing campaign on
> scotland for example, would they have been able to tell what
> the weather was like there the day before?


Yes -- by listening to the BBC.

However in 1940 the BBC stopped giving weather forecasts and eliminated them from news bulletins entirely to avoid helping enemy bombers.

[andy at handiwork]

One of the ways the Allies could detect U-Boats in the Atlantic was by radio direction-finding, as the submarines had to make frequent condition reports. The fact that they were using enigma machines simply helped Bletchley eventually. The Germans were not in a position to get regular weather reports from surface vessels and consequently lost the 'weather-war'.

When the BBC stopped the weather forecast there was a big fuss made by the farmers.

[planeterotica]

!wink!

[Essex Lad]

I don't want to be too pedantic - oh, all right I do but why is that you cannot spell "German's" but you can spell "Brits"?

[Charfan]

thanks guys for the posts, very informative.

CF