In article , says...
1) Lack of data. Up until the 1960s, there was ONE weather ship
in the North Atlantic, and the patterns were deduced by guesswork
primarily from shore station data. That has been largely resolved
by satellite data.


As one of the hundreds of Britsh weather ships in the Atlantic in the
past I think you underestimate the value of the fact that virtually the
entire british merchant fleet were kitted out to submit 6 hourly weather
reports from all over the world, we used to curse it when busy
(especially the radio officers who had to get up at all sorts of odd
times as they were done on GMT) but I never recall a missed report. As
Satilites came in so the fleet shrank so that by now even if the ships
were submitting reports they would be so far apart as to not be much use
--
Charlie Pridham, Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk
Holders of national collections of Clematis viticella cultivars and
Lapageria rosea