by Sean Potter, CCM, CBM
If there’s one word that anyone who has worked in operational weather forecasting can relate to, it’s “pressure.” From deadlines imposed by on-air schedules or forecast product dissemination timelines to the realities of issuing accurate warnings before a storm strikes, “pressure” may be thought of as one of the defining terms of the profession.
Perhaps no forecaster in history, however, has experienced pressure to the degree of that imposed upon Group Captain James Stagg, the UK Met Office meteorologist attached to the Royal Air Force during World War II who was entrusted by General Dwight Eisenhower with successfully forecasting conditions for the Normandy landings in June 1944, more commonly known as D-Day.
Stagg served as chief meteorological advisor for the operation, overseeing and coordinating the efforts of several teams of Allied forecasters whose contrasting philosophies and techniques added to the already unnerving tension of the task before him.
Beginning later this month, that drama will play out on the big screen in Pressure, a new film by director Anthony Maras and starring Brendan Fraser as Eisenhower and Andrew Scott as Stagg. The film, which Maras and playwright David Haig adapted for the screen from Haig’s 2014 play of the same name, takes place during the critical 72 hours leading up to D-Day and shines a light on an aspect of the invasion that is often overlooked (or glossed over) by popular accounts.
In advance of the release of Pressure, AMS is presenting a special webinar discussing the science behind the film. “Forecasting D-Day: The Science Behind History and the Story Behind Pressure” will examine how Stagg and his team navigated conflicting forecasts and will compare these historic methods with today’s advanced forecasting tools. The webinar will take place Tuesday, May 26, at 2:00 p.m. EDT and feature this panel of experts:
- Anthony Maras, writer, director, editor, and executive producer of Pressure
- James Rodger (Jim) Fleming, Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society, emeritus, at Colby College and editor of Weathering the Storm: Sverre Petterssen, the D-Day Forecast and the Rise of Modern Meteorology (AMS, 2001)
- Jim Galvin, fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMetS), former editor-in-chief of the RMetS journal Weather, and technical advisor for Pressure
- Martin Young, former Met Office chief forecaster, technical advisor for Pressure
I will be moderating the panel and hope you will join us on May 26 for a lively, entertaining, and educational discussion of the meteorology behind Pressure.
Registration for the webinar “Forecasting D-Day: The Science Behind History and the Story Behind Pressure” is available here.
