In article ,
Charlie Pridham writes:
|
| 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

That is true, but you reported only on a limited range of surface
observations, unless I was seriously misled when I worked (physically)
in the Met. Office. The most important data for forecasting beyond the
next 24 hours (and even to a large extent beyond the next 6) is about
the atmosphere higher up - its temperature, humidity and movement.

That is not to deprecate your work, but it helped more with warning
ships to know when to batten down the hatches than to forecast what
would hit the UK.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.