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Selecting the kind of weather that would be best for all concerned, the High Command asked the weathermen to pick the date when the chances would be highest for getting it. June 4 or 5 was chosen tentatively, but on June 3 the weathermen said no; the weather would not be good enough. On June 4 General Eisenhower postponed the invasion. Late that night he got better news from the weathermen. A storm, they said, would pass over the Channel on June 5, leaving fairly good conditions on Tuesday. June 6.
Eisenhower followed the weathermen's advice and made his decision for a June 6 landing. June 5 was stormy, but on June 6 weather conditions were reasonably good. The invasion forces crossed the Channel, finding the Germans unprepared. Their airplanes were grounded; their naval vessels absent. Deceived by the storm which had just passed, they thought Eisenhower would wait at least another day.
The Generals Asked Too Much. During the war, Rossby visited most of the theaters where his meteorologists were sweating out their decisions. Some of the generals and admirals, he noted, alternated between cursing the weathermen and demanding forecasting accuracy that was impossible to supply. Many of their bitterest complaints were not about the forecasting but about the weather. General Patton, despairing of meteorology, once turned to his chaplain: "Goddam it," he shouted, "get me some good weather!"
After the war was over, most of the military meteorologists shifted to other fields. The Weather Bureau was the only large employer, and although, under Francis W. Reichelderfer, it was considerably modernized, it still had few jobs. Hating to see his beloved science slump to its prewar level, Rossby tried to persuade private industry to hire meteorologists or to contract for special meteorological services. For a while he put his heart into this promotion effort, writing and even answering quite a lot of letters. An important step was to persuade the Weather Bureau to make its Teletype weather data available to qualified persons to interpret as they saw fit.
Before the war, most private meteorologists were rural quacks who went by the phases of the moon or the furriness of caterpillars. The postwar crop is generally more responsible and far more effective. Most of them do not try "to beat the Weather Bureau." Instead, they take Weather Bureau information and extract from it facts of special importance to their customers. They coach oil companies on whether they should evacuate their offshore drilling rigs in the path of a hurricane. Knowledge that evacuation is not necessary may save many thousands of dollars. Small business for the private weathermen is advising whether to call off outdoor fairs and parties. Big business is coaching insurance companies that issue policies against losses caused by the weather.
Jet Stream. Promoting private meteorology was for Rossby a kind of decompression period after the war. It was not real science, and he had not forgotten the Rossby waves. Indeed, a startling feature of them had been forcibly impressed upon him during the war.