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in contact with that carrier’s operations manager, Jimmy James.
James already knew something about the potential employee’s
past life decided to take a chance and hired Krick as a cargo
clerk for $110 per month.
James told Krick, “You can draw your funny maps just as
long as you get your paper work done.” Krick jumped at the
chance to make some money and promote his weather ideas.
The company’s meteorologist, Joseph George, was going on
vacation so Krick, besides fulfilling his duties as mail clerk
and doing work on cargo shipments, was told by James, “I’ll
let you draw those weather maps of yours and you can help
us with meteorology on a part time basis.” Eventually even
James became impressed with Krick’s ideas, especially when
he accurately forecast weather for pilots. In one instance he
warned a pilot flying from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City that
he would run into a violent storm at Milford, Utah, and advised
him to land and wait for the bad weather to pass. The pilot
eventually reported back that the forecast was totally accurate
and saved him from flying into a life threatening situation; no
doubt saving his life. He told James to thank Joe George not
knowing it was Krick who had made the prediction. George,
who had been trained in physics at the University of California
Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as in traditional weather
forecasting, was not totally pleased with the influence Krick
was accruing within the company, but James told him “I think
the kid’s got something, so let’s keep doing it his way.”
In addition, Krick also projected tailwinds, telling pilots
going northward to fly at 4,000 feet to gain a wind advantage,
but when flying in the opposite direction to climb to 12,000
feet. Pilots came to believe Krick for they inevitably found the
tailwinds he had predicted. In fact his prognostications were
so accurate that a publicity department director and former
Montana newspaperman, Clancy Dayhoff, created a new
theme for the carrier: “Western Express planes always have
tail winds.” Using Krick’s weather forecasting methods the
accuracy of those reports rose from 61 percent to 96.1 percent.
Eventually, the carrier’s flight schedules were coordinated with
Krick’s projections, which saved the airline over time nearly
$35,000. (See Appendix 1)
Krick based his weather forecasting on the following
premises:
was to be invited by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to forecast the
weather for the D-Day landing (discussed below) and he was
aided by an assistant at Western, the aforementioned Joseph
“Joe” George who had studied under Krick. He left Western
in 1933 to build the meteorological department at the Cal Tech,
which he headed from 1933-1948. Krick later created the first
private weather business in the United States the year he left
Cal Tech, taking most of the department’s staff with him as
well as buying nearly the entire meteorological library. George
continued his work at the airline until later assuming the leading
meteorology position at Eastern Airlines.
One of Krick’s most notable findings involved the crash
of the U.S. Navy’s USS Akron (ZRS-4) after leaving its home
base at Lakehurst, N.J., in 1933 on a two-day training mission.
On April 3, Krick read a weather bureau bulletin describing
a peculiar convergence of fronts off the New Jersey coast. A
similar formation in the same region years before, he later
recalled, had bred a severe storm and he predicted it would
be repeated. Flying 20 miles east of Barnegat Light, N.J., the
Akron was forced down in the storm with a loss of 74 lives with
only three members of the crew surviving. Other dirigibles
suffered the same fate including the USS Macon (ZRS-5) two
years later on February 12, 1935, off Point Sur, California. In
the case of the Macon, Krick was called in by his colleagues
to explain the event given that this airship had been designed
by the best talent available, commanded by a skilled officer,
Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Victor Wiley and that all normal weather
forces that could occur were calculated into its design. Krick
concluded that the Macon had run into hidden turbulence
that meteorologists call an occluded front. Both tragedies
helped stimulate discussion about the future of lighter-thanair dirigibles, as well as the study of meteorology at Cal Tech.
Krick blamed the Weather Bureau for poor forecasting in one
of his controversial papers, and noted how his ideas could have
prevented both catastrophes.
In regard to the loss of the Akron, Krick wrote a missive
to the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Charles Frederick
Hughes, entitled “Weather Conditions Associated with the
Akron disaster,” dated February 7, 1934. He stated that, “The
afternoon map (1600 EST) would certainly leave no doubt as
to the situation, and all flights along the south Atlantic coast
should be suspended until the cold front passes.” In the course
of writing his analysis and reports, his publications brought him
alienation from the Navy meteorologists, especially its chief,
Francis W. Reichelderfer, but also to the attention of the future
chief of the Army Air Forces, Gen. Henry Arnold, who was
then a colonel stationed at March Field not far from Cal Tech
and who would later use Krick’s expertise during WWII.
Krick would write that his ideas improved weather
forecasting to about 95 percent accuracy and commented on
the importance of the atmosphere in safe airplane flight:
Assume a 10-day forecast is required. First, type the
current weather at the point of interest and upwind of
several hundred miles. Second, machine sort the previous
forty years of weather types in the analog weather type
file to obtain the best match possible. Third, study maps
of the matched periods and project the weather conditions
by assuming that thereafter patterns will repeat for the
next 10 days.2
Soon other airlines were using the “Krick Method” of
weather forecasting and he became so well known that he was
appointed to a committee by Robert Andrews Millikan, then
president of California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech) to
investigate how the United States Weather Bureau predicted
weather patterns. No doubt one of Krick’s greatest achievements
As it is now, every scheduled transport plane in the
air is in effect a weather station — manned by pilots
who have to learn much meteorology in order to obtain
their jobs, and to advance in their profession. Each large
airline gives its own courses of weather instruction.
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An airline would as soon think of sending up one of its
planes without a pilot as to send the pilots up without
being briefed to the last detail on the weather they may
encounter. Airplanes on long-distance runs mount to
heights that only a generation ago were out of reach save
for occasional bold forays; and they may stay up there
for thousands of miles, as from Japan to Hawaii, high
above the Pacific.
As you fly through the air with the greatest of ease in
one of today’s big transports, up ahead of you in the cabin
are two trained men who watch the weather constantly to
note anything unusual. Pilots on all airplanes are expected
to call in instantly any odd weather phenomena they
notice, as well as to keep a running log of the “shapes
and apparitions of the air.”
The airline companies may compete for passengers
and freight, but there is no competition in the matter of
safety, the most important element of which is weather.
Each of the larger ones has its own weather research
program specifically devoted to problems that affect
it and its own particular area, but each does work of
general interest to all. The aviation industry and the
public together spend many millions of dollars yearly on
this one factor of safe weather for aviation.3
on a Rockefeller Foundation grant. In the same year (1934)
he earned his doctoral degree with the thesis entitled: “Foehn
Winds of Southern California (Santa Ana Winds). II. Foehn
Wind Cyclo-Genesis. III. Weather Conditions Associated With
the Akron Disaster. IV. The Los Angeles Storm of December
30, 1933 to January 1, 1934,” defending his dissertation on
January 1, 1934). One of the contributions made by Krick in
this work was a more complete synoptic study of the Akron
disaster of April 3, 1933, by incorporating in his study the
Norwegian ideas of air mass analysis to track the fronts that
were linked to the severe weather. Krick concluded that
the Akron was destroyed by a double vortex formed by two
opposing air masses thus causing the tragedy. In addition, he
also speculated that the Akron had found itself in the maritime
tropical air that was wedged between the cold air advancing
from the west and the cooler polar Atlantic air to her north.4
This information was vital to air carriers along the western
seaboard in planning flights and scheduling them at the optimum
time. What also gave Krick pride in his work was that all the
major airline carriers had at least one graduate student in Cal
Tech’s meteorological section.
Theodore von Karman remembers being told there was a
young graduate student working in the Geology Department
who had information that could help solve the mystery of the
Akron crash. As von Karman noted:
Upon being accepted into Cal Tech, Krick became
interested in the phenomenon of air mass analysis that had been
developed at the Geophysical Institute at Bergen, Norway, in
1920. His teachers included Beno Gutenberg (a specialist in
atmospheric structure who had been a weather forecaster for
the German General Staff in WWI) and the Hungarian born
Theodore von Karman (aerodynamics and one time head of the
Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory) who became his graduate
advisors. Von Karman had graduated from the Budapest Royal
Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering.
He received his doctorate from Gottingen University and during
WWI served as an artillery officer and later was put to work by
the Austrian Air Service in aviation research. His tie to the
United States came after the war when as director of the Aachen
Aeronautics Institute he made contributions to glider design
and of the Zeppelin LZ-126 that was had been awarded to the
United States as a wartime reparation becoming the dirigible
Los Angeles (ZB-3).
The president of Cal Tech brought von Karman to the
university and thus the connection to Krick. Seeing the
financial and scientific possibilities, Krick wanted to try out his
ideas with an airline and wrote a thesis on the air masses of
the southwest. The title of the study for his Masters degree
had a long and involved title: “Topography Versus Air Masses:
A Discussion of the Phenomenon Associated with the Passage
of Air Masses over the Irregularities of the Earth’s Surface.”
He defended his thesis in the Geological and Planetary Science
department of the school on January 1, 1933, and passed with
no issues related to his findings.
Subsequently, Krick was appointed assistant professor in
the school’s David Guggenheim Laboratory of Aeronautics.
Before completing his Ph.D. degree he spent a year in Europe
I told him to come right over. A personable young
man soon appeared at my door and identified himself
as Irving Krick. Spreading out charts and maps, he
explained that an atmospheric condition had appeared
off the New Jersey coast which was not fully considered
in the official U.S. Weather Bureau forecasts. Air masses
traveling in opposite directions at great speed had
collided head-on exactly above the spot where the Akron
had crashed. The fronts of these masses had met like two
powerful armies. The Akron was the unwitting victim of
a gigantic air battle.5,6
Theodore von Karman left a moving testimony in memory
of the Akron, which he considered an elegant air ship by
commenting:
The USS Akron was christened in 1931 and was then
the world’s largest airship, having captured this title from
her predecessor, the USS Los Angeles. I went on one of
the Akron’s trial flights over Lake Erie and traveling at a
good cruising speed of 70 knots, I felt there was something
magnificent and luxurious about this huge cigar-shaped
balloon. Everything I had felt about the Zeppelins was
crystallized here. The ship was comfortable, noiseless,
and smooth. You had an abundance of space. You
weren’t restricted in movement as in an airplane. I recall
sitting back in the vertical fin and enjoying through the
window an unobstructed panoramic view of the Great
Lake and the beautiful surrounding countryside. It was
exhilarating.7
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Later, while studying in Norway with the Stockholm born
Jakob Aall Bonnevie Bjerknes who was the son of the famous
Norwegian meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes, Krick became
fascinated with the study of air mass analysis. Bjerknes,
following up pioneering meteorological work done by his
father and grandfather, studied the constant battle between
cold air currents plunging south from the polar regions and
the warm air currents flowing north from the tropics thus
intersecting across the prevailing westerlies to create swirling
and interacting masses of warm and cold air that form cyclones
and anticyclones that descended upon Norway and across
Scandinavia. The Norwegian theory of Bjerknes and a fellow
Swedish meteorologist, Tor Bergeron, who defined what became
known as the occluded front and thus helped increase the
accuracy of short range forecasting that in turn helped airlines
throughout the world to get more accurate reports of oncoming
weather patterns. The occluded front concept, as defined by
Bergeron, suggested that the “ultimate fate of the warm air
mass was to be lifted entirely from the surface in the mighty
arms of encircling colder air and held there until extinguished
or mingled in the general mass of the atmosphere.” Following
his experience in Norway, Krick next traveled to Germany
and observed the country’s experiments in long range weather
forecasting techniques. As Krick wrote, “It was a wonderful
experience. I especially enjoyed my exchanges with Ludwig
Weickmann in Leipzig. He had been experimenting with longrange forecasting using periodicities in the barograph traces. I
wanted to try these ideas back in California.”8
On returning to Cal Tech Krick introduced what he had
learned into the course curriculum. His theory was that
weather runs in patterns governed by eruptions of the sun thus
forecasting is about creating charts and graphs on prevailing
weather conditions with reference to the flow of air currents.
According to Krick to predict future weather it is important
to compare daily records of the past and when an analogous
period can be found an accurate forecast can be made. (See
Appendix 2)
Krick’s findings contended that foehn (descending) winds,
not masses of warm dry desert air, were mainly responsible for
California’s mild winter climate and were vital in understanding
the fundamental interactions occurring between air masses
of the North Pacific Ocean in connection with Pacific Coast
storms and their effect on aeronautical considerations. Krick
developed a method for classifying sequences of synoptic
weather patterns based on his studies of long period records
and his views on what he termed “dynamics of center of action”
in circulation patterns over the Northern Hemisphere. Later,
with his colleague Robert D. Elliott, this evolved into a series
of six-day weather types and an analog system for long range
forecasting. To Krick the atmosphere was orderly, deterministic
and repetitive.
In 1935 he was promoted to associate professor and
three years later he was instrumental in founding the school’s
meteorology department and eventually became the chair of the
department with the enduring support of the university’s Nobel
Prize winning physicist and president, Dr. Robert Milliken,
who had served in World War I as director of Army’s weather
program. Even before his formal degrees at Cal Tech Krick
had to find the ideal laboratory for his theories and that took
him to T&WA and, after that rejection, eventually to Western
Air Express whose planes operated from a low point to a
high altitude and seemed like the ideal company to pursue his
weather forecasting passion. That is how he ended up in the
office of Jimmy James at a very young age.
With the outbreak of WWII, now General Arnold recruited
Krick into the Army Air Force although originally Krick held
a commission in the Naval Reserve. The general had been
quite impressed with the scientist’s ability to analyze historical
weather patterns and cycles especially after the airship
disasters. Krick reused old weather maps and then reassembled
them to fit current weather situations arguing that “future
weather developments will most likely follow the recorded
patterns.” His critics said that his methods were of “canned
memory” and brought him enemies within the scientific elite
like George Cressman and Carl-Gustaf Rossby, as well as
the weather bureau chief, Francis Wilton Reichelderfer, who
claimed Krick was “smug, supremely self-confident and a selfpromoter.” Reichelderfer informed Arnold that Krick’s ideas
were “gambling on an unproved theory . . .,” to which Arnold
replied, “War is a gamble.” Thus, for Krick, the most important
person was General Arnold and to the military leader Krick’s
predictions were invincible.9
Before the war Krick had been a member of ROTC at the
University of California-Berkeley and was a lieutenant in the
Coast Artillery Corps in the Army Reserves from 1928-1936.
In the latter year he became commissioned an ensign in the
Naval Reserve and four years later joined the Army Air Corps
as a major in the Weather Central Division and commander of
the Long Range Forecasting Unit. From 1944-1945, he was
deputy director of Weather Services for the European theater
of Operations and eventually became chief of the weather
information section of the Army Air Forces. Following the
conclusion of the conflict Krick was awarded the Legion of
Merit, two Bronze Stars and from France the Croix de Guerre,
as well as serving as a member of the Army Air Forces Scientific
Advisory Group. A portion of the Bronze Star commendation
stated, “Colonel Krick and his associates permitted the selection
of the only date available which allowed the successful landing
[Normandy].” Many discounted his contribution to the D-Day
success. Nonetheless, he had the confidence of General
Eisenhower who upon hearing of Krick’s prediction merely
stated in a most cryptic fashion, “Ok, we’ll go.”
No doubt one of Krick’s major contributions to the war
effort was his prediction related to the Normandy invasion.
Krick, who was based in England at Widewing located at
Bushey Park, which was Eisenhower’s headquarters until later
moving his staff to Portsmouth prior to the pending invasion,
was involved in weather forecasting with members from the
British and United States naval weather services as well as a
Norwegian serving with the British, Sverre Petterssen. The
latter predicted the coming of a large storm to break out on
June 2, 1944, would interfere with the planned landings at
Normandy but Krick argued to the contrary, asserting that
there was no need to postpone the offensive for he saw nothing
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General Arnold recruited Krick into
the Army Air Force
coming in as with
the rank of major
responsible for the
long range weather
forecasting
unit.
(USAAF photo)
staff that there was an extreme low approaching Scotland quite
unlike anything seen in the past 40 years and so at 4:14 a.m.
on June 4, Stagg convinced the Allied military leaders that the
original date for the invasion of June 5 advocated by Krick was
out of the question if they wanted the attack to be successful.
Thus, the landing in France was delayed 24 hours until the
weather cleared the next day on June 6. Krick had not been
wrong very often but here was a time when another opinion
helped save a vital invasion of the European continent from
becoming a major disaster. It should be noted that Krick was
aided in his forecast by Joseph “Joe” George. What bothered
Petterssen and the British meteorologists was that Krick
took credit for the correct forecast with his usual verve. Yet
Krick and his colleages at Widewing should be given credit
for insisting that the weather window for the invasion would
be between June 4 and June 6, which proved correct except
that the assault was delayed by 24 hours. His knowledge and
determination finally convinced Dunstable and the Admiralty
of his time frame, thus helping ensure the successful invasion
of Normandy and also ensuring the reputation of Eisenhiower
in the annals of American military history. Later, Krick went
on to accurately forecast the weather during the Battle of the
Bulge and the crossing of the Rhine River on March 25, 1945,
and during the Pacific campaign Krick was also praised by
Generals Henry Arnold and Curtis LeMay for his predictions
for bombing raids on Japan of August 5 and 6 with the latter
date corresponding to the atomic bomb being dropped on
Hiroshima.)11,12
but fair weather. He said that he had reached his conclusion
based on studies of 50 years of recorded weather and that the
English Channel, shielded by an Azores high, would protect the
invasion route from bad weather. The invading forces would
have to avoid heavy swells in the English Channel and that
would be accomplished since there would be no winds stronger
than 18 miles per hour. Krick assured the Allied leaders that the
invasion weather would be clear.
The controversy continued and soon involved other
personnel as well including the career military American, Lt. Col.
Donald Norton Yates, now a deputy to the Scottish-born chief
British meteorologist, James Martin Stagg, who had once been
a former student of Krick. At age 39 Stagg, although trained as
a geophysicist, had risen to become Chief Meteorologist to the
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF)
and was well thought of in the British Meteorological Office,
commonly referred to as “MET,” headquartered at Dunstable
a small town of north of London. Although Stagg was head
of the meteorological office it was the British Air Ministry that
controlled the office. The Deputy Chief of Staff for SHAEF,
Gen. Harold Bull, who did not wish military meteorologists
reporting to a civilian, had Stagg dismissed and to be replaced
by the American Yates. That violated an agreement between
SHAEF and the Air Ministry that a British meteorologist be
in charge for he would have “a better feel for the nuances of
Northern Europe’s ever changing weather systems.” In time
Stagg was reinstated with the blessing of the British Air Ministry
and given the rank of a Royal Air Force Group Captain. The
controversy disappeared and Stagg was restored to his former
position. But the question still remained, when would be the
best date for the cross channel invasion. It should be noted
that there was a third meteorological weather command in the
Admiralty and their personnel were concerned with sea, swell
and surf forecasting.10
A very unfavorable view of Krick is included in the
following appraisal by the author, John Bull in his essay, “The
Longest Forecast” of June 28, 2014:
Krick was a man who firmly believed that weather
systems were entirely consistent and predicable. Indeed
he had largely become a meteorologist with the goal of
using the consistency to make money. Krick had become
convinced that predicting long term weather patterns
for American businesses would make him a wealthy
man and he had been working towards furthering that
end when war intervened. A ruthless self-promoter and
charismatic speaker, he had convinced many both in the
Army and outside of it that he — and only he — could
provide accurate weather forecasts.
The Norweigan Sverre Petterssen at Dunstable
considered Krick’s methods dubious and misleading. His
view was that “predicting the weather over a long period
of time required a level of scientific knowledge and data
analysis that no one had yet managed to achieve.” In
addition, Petterssen also stated that “any forecasts would
always be based on as yet incomplete understanding of
the complex systems that powered the world’s weather.”
The allies needed a forecast at least five days in advance
of the pending invasion with sufficiently calm seas and clear
visibility. Petterssen’s opinion was that June 5 would see poor
weather over the channel and won the argument and was proven
correct that the invasion should take place on the next day, June
6. He and the British forecasters informed Eisenhower and his
It should be noted that three of the advantages the Allies
had regarding weather pertaining to the invasion of Europe
were that German U-boats had been almost swept from the
Atlantic thus curtailing any definite information regarding
weather conditions near Western Europe from the sea. The
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In an October 1961 Popular Mechanics article on Krick’s weather forecasting, two 1-year forecasts by Krick were published
with the challenge of testing the forecast. Shown here is the October 3-4, 1962, forecast on the left with the actual recorded
weather map for October 3, 1962, on the right. While not completely accurate, it is still fairly close considering the U.S.
Weather Bureau was reluctant to even provide a five-day forecast at that time. (Popular Mechanics, October 1961 and “U.S.
Daily Weather Maps,” NOAA central library, https://www.lib.noaa.gov/collections/imgdocmaps/daily_weather_maps.html)
Nazi high command did not have essential weather forecasting
in mid-1944 due also to the fact that aerial reconnaissance had
been reduced by Allied air and sea control across the Atlantic.
And thirdly, the Allies had a weather reporting station working
for their cause at Blackpod Point, Ireland, making it the most
western land based weather reporting station for England.
Although technically neutral, the Republic of Ireland had
signed a secret treaty with the United Kingdom in 1939 for the
sharing of weather data. On June 2, 1944, the coast guardsman
and lighthouse keeper at Blackpod, Tom Sweeney, had reported
the barometer dropping signaling bad weather in the future.
This aided the meteorologists in England to determine with
greater accuracy the best day for the invasion of Normandy.
Nonetheless, that despite the barometer report from Blackpod,
Krick at Widewing stood by his prediction that the weather
would clear in the first week of June, although Krick missed
the date by 24 hours, June 6 and not June 5. This should not
detract from his prediction that the first week in June would be
the best possible time for the invasion that, as stated previously,
was quite correct.
Following WWII, Krick began his own cloud seeding
business in an attempt to bring moisture to drought-affected
areas. In the year he left Cal Tech (1948), he performed a
series of 27 airborne cloud-seeding tests over central Arizona
dropping up to 300 pounds of ice particles on each flight. The
experiments were successful as the seeded clouds released rain
raising water levels in the local reservoirs. Subsequently, he
experimented with ground based smoke generators dispersing
vaporized silver iodide developed at the General Electric
Research Laboratory by chemists Irving Langmuir and Vincent
Schaefer with whom Krick worked at times. By 1951 his cloud
seeding business had 120 employees and the company had
been hired to seed clouds over 330 million acres in the western
United States, as well as parts of Mexico and El Salvador.
Krick was making a substantial fortune from his new
enterprises even though the meteorological establishment
thought his methods of cloud seeding “bogus” and that weather
could not be forecasted more than five days in advance.
Others accused him of being a “kook” claiming that humans
cannot change the weather and also claiming “it is folly.”
Time Magazine called him the “Milkman of the Skies.” Most
weathermen scoffed at his methods but they did not influence
Krick who could point to successes such as the letter he received
from an Oregon company called Eagle Ranch that used his
cloud seeding process. The owner wrote to Krick that “the
fact that we are taking your service for the twelfth consecutive
year is more evidence of our satisfaction than words. We
farm around 12,500 acres of dryland wheat. While the land is
good, rainfall-wise, it was very marginal and, in fact, too dry to
produce wheat. We have never had a crop failure, nor shown a
dollar loss.” Krick considered his detractors “mossbacks bereft
of imagination.” He also criticized government forecasting that
he said “hasn’t progressed much since the nineteenth century.”
Over the years Krick’s predictions and forecasts led him
to form three Denver companies (although they operated out
of Pasadena as well) including Water Resources Development
to modify the weather, Irving Krick and Associates Industrial
Weather Service to forecast the weather and the American
Institute of Aerological Research to study the weather.
Corporations used these entities to enhance their business
and profits. For instance, race horse owners wanted to know
the weather at various racing tracks, power companies like
Portland’s Pacific Power and Light Co. paid Krick $150,000
for a five year forecast on stream flow in rivers supplying
its hydroelectric plants. In addition, the company found his
forecasts useful in predicting peak demands and when repair
American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Summer 2017
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crews should be mobilized before storms. Television and
radio stations paid for his forecasts as did department stores
that were better able to predict proper warm and cold weather
inventories while aircraft companies such as Boeing, Lockheed,
Consolidated Vultee, North American and Douglas engaged his
meteorological consulting services.
Larry MacPhail, one time head of the Brooklyn Dodgers,
was a client of Krick’s company informing the baseball
team when it would and would not rain. Krick also advised
motion picture companies on what kind of weather they
would encounter during the shooting of movie scenes. One
of his proudest predictions was in 1939 when he told MGM
executives that the day of the shooting of the burning of Atlanta
in the epic extravaganza Gone With The Wind would have clear
weather. The prediction was perfect and saved the studio a large
amount of time and money. Even hydroelectric plants bought
Krick’s service to know when it would rain and therefore when
reservoirs would be filled and what would be the eventual
ratio between steam-generated power and water-generated
power. Fuel oil companies east of the Mississippi River based
their storage and shipment plans on teletype information from
Pasadena and even the Coca Cola Co. made its plans in accord
with Krick’s prognostications. Tire chain companies planned
their advertising to coincide with the snow and sleet predictions
of the company.
There were other companies reaping profits from using
the Krick reports such as grain brokers both in Chicago and
New York who got daily reports from Pasadena during the
growing season when hail or wind would do millions of dollars
in damage. The Spreckels Sugar Co. planned its growing
operations on Krick’s forecasts as did some big Hawaiian
pineapple companies. One of Krick’s proudest predictions
affected a company that grew Christmas trees in western and
eastern Canada and Newfoundland. The story went that trees
could not be cut until after the first hard frost that set the needles
and they lie on the ground for a day or two and are then gathered.
A heavy snow when the trees were on the ground would result
in a large loss. During October, November and December 1940
the Krick reports saved the tree company so much money that
Krick received a teletype wire praising him for his predictions.
In his office at the time was General Arnold who commented,
“we want this for the Air Corps” and thus was eventually born
a group of officers who helped form the nucleus of the first Air
Force weather research center.
One of Krick’s major contributions in creating rain occurred
at the Horse Heavens Hills farm in eastern Washington owned
by Leo Horrigan who planted 100,000 acres of wheat each year.
If the rains came he earned a sizeable sum of money and if not he
used the surviving wheat for feed. Krick and his associates set
up their portable generators and sent their silver iodide crystals
into the air. Rising 16,000 feet per hour the particles fanned
out into the atmosphere and the rains came. Horrigan’s farm
was drenched and in time yielded a harvest double from the
results of the past decades. At one time, however, his methods
provided too much rain in North Dakota and Manitoba and the
machines had to be turned off.
That was not the story in the city of Denver that suffered
Controversial meteorologist Irving Krick forecasted Squaw
Valley’s volatile winter weather in advance. (Planalytics,
Inc.)
occasional droughts. Krick recommended piling up more snow
during the winters in the Rocky Mountain watershed of the South
Platte River that filled the city’s reservoir. With the artificial
snowpack the city of Denver had plenty of water even during
the hot dry summer months. He also oversaw the increase in
rainfall in the Dallas and Fort Worth areas and his company
prospered. But Krick always had one caveat: rainmakers are
not miracle workers and cannot produce rain when the sun is
shining. He went on to comment that, “Rainmaking is just a
matter of tapping one of the world’s most bountiful natural
resources without depleting it. Just as famers inject chemicals
into soils to increase the crop yield, we inject chemicals into the
clouds to increase the water yield. We’re just making nature
work more efficiently.”
Another major contribution occurred when he flew to Spain
to help solve the issue that in the central part of the country
lights were dimming and power had to be rationed at factories
because there was little rainfall to drive the hydroelectric
turbines at Union Electrica Madrilena. In 1952 Krick and two
of his expert rainmakers planted 30 silver iodide generators
in strategic mountain towns around the 1,000 square mile
Rio Alberche watershed and the rains came boosting the flow
through the hydroelectric turbines by 68 percent. In time the
Rio Alberche watershed enjoyed rainfall 21 percent above
normal and the following year the rate had risen to 56 percent.
During the 1950s Krick and the American Meteorological
Society engaged in a great debate regarding his theories and
he was challenged to prove his statement that “long range
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Dwight Eisenhower’s second inauguration. Krick said the
day would be sunny and that calculation was made 17 days
before the event. His analysis was completely correct. Three
years later, he brought rain to Israel in the midst of a severe
drought and made enough snow in Squaw Valley, Calif., for
the 1960 Winter Olympics to take place successfully. During
the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy in January 1961
the city of Washington was besieged with eight inches of wet
snow. The inaugural committee wanted to know what they
would be coping with on January 20 so they consulted with
Krick, who had voted for Nixon but said he would forecast the
weather for that date for free. He concluded that on the day
of the inauguration the weather would be fair, cold and dry. A
blizzard hit the city on the January 19, but by the next day when
the newly elected president took the oath of office the sun was
shining and it was cold and dry. Krick had been absolutely
correct in his forecast.
Featured in a profile in a Saturday Evening Post article in
1962 by John Kobler, Krick acknowledged that in his opinion
the universe and the atmosphere had order. He continued, “you
might say I’ve staked my career on a logical Supreme Being.”
A former student of Krick at Cal Tech, meteorologist Loren
Crow commented, “He tried to do things that no one else claims
you can do. His idea was you go out there and do it and prove
it with the people that count — the people that use it. He talked
about nothing but meteorology. He was enthusiastic about what
could be done, there was a tendency to saying something that
might not be totally correct but was something that somebody
wanted to hear.” (The full citation of Kobler’s essay appears in
the Bibliography)
In one of the following stories relating to Krick was this
incredible feat:
Irving Krick with a large U.S. map discusses weather
predicting. (Popular Mechanics, October 1961)
During the mid 1960s Krick and Associates operated
a successful cloud seeding operation in the area around
Calgary, Alberta. This utilized both aircraft and groundbased generators that pumped silver iodide into the
atmosphere in an attempt to reduce the threat of hail
damage. Ralph Langeman, Lynn Garrison and Stan
McLeod, all ex-members of the Royal Canadian Air
Force, attending the University of Alberta, spent their
summers flying hail suppression. A number of surplus
Harvard aircraft were fitted with racks under each wing
containing 32 railroad fuses that were impregnated with
silver iodide. These could be ignited individually or all
at once, depending upon the threat. In coordination with
ground units, the aircraft could lay a plume of silver
iodide in front of approaching cumulo-nimbus clouds
with noticeable effect. Large, active CBs were reduced
to nothing. Heavy hail storms were reduced in intensity.
weather forecasting has become established fact.” He asked for
a committee to verify his work or otherwise he would resign,
but instead the society decided he was guilty of violating its
code of ethics and accepted his resignation. In the following
decade he was appalled that Col. John Glenn’s initial flight
had to be postponed because of inclement weather. He wrote
his congressman, Peter Dornick, that “it is time to build a fire
under as many people as possible to get this matter out in the
open.” He continued, “The Weather Bureau and segments of
our profession who disclaim that forecasting is possible, and
push for millions of dollars in research money to find a method
of doing the job, are not only dishonest, but do a distinctive
disserve to our country by deterring agencies like NASA from
seeking help outside of the government.” He concluded, “I
don’t know how long it is going to take to get this across to
people, but until they understand that we are (his forecasting
company) the only group in the world that has a scientific
method of weather forecasting it cannot be appreciated and no
action will be taken”.
Nonetheless, there were those besides Krick who saw
validity in his weather forecasting and cloud seeding and in
one example he was asked to predict the weather for President
The impact of Krick’s work on the aviation world was
notable especially when predicting storms or lowering the
threat of bad weather as well as on the environment in general.
He also produced links to public utilities and the motion picture
industry but later sold the business in 1990 to Strategic Weather
Services of Wayne, Penn., remaining with the company as
American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Summer 2017
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Appendix 1:
Western Air was formally incorporated in 1925 as Western
Air Express, Inc. and reincorporated three years later as
Western Air Express Corp., later renamed Western Air Lines
in 1941. Less than a month after its initial incorporation the
carrier applied for and was granted passenger service on May
23, 1926, on a route between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City
via Las Vegas, Nevada. Three years later the airline was
granted carrier certification between Los Angeles and Oakland,
California. In 1930, during the depths of the great depression,
the company became part of Transcontinental and Western Air
(T&WA) but with the air mail controversy in 1934, airlines
were split up and Western Air became a fully independent
carrier once again. During the war the company did its patriotic
duty in supporting the Air Transport Command and following
the conflict the airline grew and prospered and by 1967 merged
with Pacific Northern Airlines. The company was acquired
by Delta Airlines in 1987. By the time it disappeared as an
entity it had grown to serve not only the west coast and the
Rocky Mountain area but also the Midwest, Alaska, Hawaii and
Miami, Florida.
Of possible interest to the reader is a letter from Krick’s
brother-in-law, Horace Byers, to a friend regarding airline
meteorology:
Krick was an early adopter of computer technology that he
used to process his historical weather data used to make his
predictions. (Denver Post, January 1957)
chairman emeritus until his death of heart failure in 1996 in
Pasadena, California. He was survived by his British born wife
Marie Spiro Krick (married on November 18, 1946), a daughter,
Marilyn Lunde of Palo Alto, Calif., who was from his first
marriage to Jane Clark. A son, Irving P. Krick, 2nd, of Battle
Creek, Mich., five grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
Marie died in July 1996 one month after her husband’s passing.
(See Appendix 4)
Let’s get things straight. Rossby (Carl GustavRossby mentioned earlier in the essay) and I were the
first airline meteorologists, employed by the Daniel
Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics
beginning May 1, 1928, at Oakland Airport for the
‘experimental commercial airline’ flown by Western
Air Express. Rossby left for MIT in 1929. Western
Air Express flew Fokker F50s Oakland to L.A. Madox
(sic) Air Lines at the same time flew Ford Tri-motors via
Fresno (one stop).
Before there were only airmail carriers, although
Pacific Air Transport had started to fly single-engine
Boeing 40s – for two passengers to Reno and L.A. to
Salt Lake City thence east with mail only. Then things
happened fast while I was away at MIT. Western Air
Express was re-organized to Western Air Lines with the
single-engine Boeings. Then Transcontinental Airlines
was formed with plane-train service from Los Angele to
New York. (Later, Transcontinental and Western Airlines
became officially known as Trans World Airlines on May
17, 1950).
When I came back to California in 1932 all these
changes had just taken place. Western Air Express had
drifted back to Western Airlines flying L.A. to Salt Lake
City without meteorologists so far as I knew. Then
(Irving) Krick or Joe George came into meteorology
and Western Air Lines got bigger planes. TWA was
already hiring honorably discharged Navy and Marine
aerologists. Krick organized himself at Cal Tech and
Western Airlines. I am not sure how Joe George came
into the picture, but Krick took over. Western Airlines
Conclusion
For all of his correct predictions Krick understood that
long range weather forecasting was not an exact science. He
explained:
That is no reason not to continue trying to make
it so – and to do that one must utilize what is at hand
and, as errors occur, correct them by further experiment
and study. It is absolutely essential for the efficient
functioning of many industries that certainty of longrange weather expectancy be assured. Without it, for
instance, regulatory agricultural planting can never be
anything but a hazardous guess, for, in the very year that
crops are curtailed, a drought may occur; department
stores will continue to sustain heavy losses in ‘markdowns’ until they can gauge their inventories in advance
for months which are to prove unseasonable; production
schedules for hydroelectric generating plans must
necessarily continue to be extravagant in order that a
sufficient power load will always be available, no matter
what the weather, and so on.13 Q
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faded away and TWA became the big thing until
American Airlines began in 1933 with cumbersome biplanes.14
Appendix 3:
Having gained a reputation by working on zeppelins at
the Aachen Technical University in the 1920s Theodore von
Karman was one of the world’s foremost experts on rigidframed airships. As he recollected following the crash of the
Akron:
Appendix 2:
Foehn winds of Southern California: Abstract by Irving
Krick:
An investigation of the hot, dry and dust laden winds
occurring in the late fall and early winter in the Los Angeles
Basin and attributed in the past to the influences of the desert
regions to the north revealed that these currents were of a
foehn nature. Their properties were found to be entirely due
to dynamical being produced in the descent from the high level
areas in the interior to the lower Los Angeles Basin. Any dust
associated with the phenomenon was found to be acquired from
the Los Angeles area rather than transported from the desert.
It was found that the frequency of occurrence of a mild type
foehn of this nature during this season was sufficient to warrant
its classification as a winter monsoon. The results from the
topography of the Los Angeles region allows an easy entrance
to the air from the interior by virtue of the low level mountain
passes north of the area. The monsoon provides the mild winter
climate of southern California since temperatures associated
with the foehn currents are far higher than those experienced
when maritime air from the adjacent Pacific Ocean occupies
the region.
I was deeply concerned with the cause of the disaster,
especially since the U.S. Weather Bureau had reported
for that day a storm intensity below the danger level for
flight. What had gone wrong? Was it poor workmanship?
Was it an aerodynamic failure? Or a meteorological
mistake? Back in Pasadena I called in several Cal Tech
experts, but no one was able to contribute more than I
already knew. Shortly thereafter I received a phone call
from a young graduate student [Irving Krick] working in
the Geology Department for Professor Beno Gutenberg,
the earthquake specialist. Krick spread out his maps
and charts and explained the weather [based on air mass
analysis]. I was delighted with the explanation. At Cal
Tech we concluded that better meteorology would be an
important adjunct in airship travel, as well as for many
military purposes. I suggested to Millikan (the president
of Cal Tech) that one of the future applications of fluid
mechanics would be the establishment of a “reasonable
meteorology” and that we ought to begin to teach it at the
institute. Millikan agreed with me.
. . . It is believed that practical meteorology and the
science of the physics of the atmosphere are promising
fields which should be developed at the Institute. The
course will stress the practical application of the
principles of dynamic meteorology.
Foehn wind cyclo-genesis:
Intense anticyclones frequently build up over the high
level regions of the Great Basin and Columbia Plateau that lie
between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains to the west
and the Rocky Mountains to the east. The outflow from these
anticyclones produce extensive foehns east of the Rockies in
the comparatively low level areas of the middle west and the
Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Normally
at this season of the year very cold polar continental air masses
are present over this territory and with the occurrence of these
foehns marked discontinuity surfaces arise between the warm
foehn current which is obliged to slide over a colder mass,
and the air to the east. Cyclones are easily produced from this
phenomenon and take the form of unstable waves that propagate
along the discontinuity surface between the dissimilar masses.
A continual series of such cyclones was found to occur as long
as the Great Basin anticyclone is maintained with undiminished
intensity.
The situation illustrates the speedy development and
propagation of young disturbances in the eastern United
States during the spring of the year under the influence of the
conditionally unstable tropical maritime air masses which
characterize the region. It also furnishes an excellent example
of the superiority of air mass and frontal methods of weather
prediction for aircraft operation over the older methods based
upon pressure distribution.
A further commentary included the following:
Weather forecasts for agricultural purposes are
overshadowed by the immediate needs of aviation, both
civil and military and two prominent problems of modern
meteorology: atmospheric waves and atmospheric
turbulence are par excellence aerodynamical problems.
An interesting study of von Karman’s ideas can be found
in his work in collaboration with Lee Edson, The Wind and
Beyond (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967).
Appendix 4:
The American Meteorological Society left a lasting
memorial to Irving Krick which in part stated:
It was during his tenure as head of Caltech’s
meteorology department that he made perhaps his great
contributions to our field. He had a unique ability to
convey his exceptional enthusiasm and concepts to his
students and associates. His was particularly significant
American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Summer 2017
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just prior to and during the U.S. involvement in WWII,
when many of his students became part of the nucleus of
the rapidly expanding weather service of the U.S. Army
Air Corps (later Army Air Forces and U.S. Air Force).
Thus, his influence directly and indirectly initiated many
productive and often outstanding careers in meteorology
and related fields. (Richard E. Cale and Robert C.
Bundgaard: American Meteorological Society Bulletin,
LXXVIII (Jan. 1997), 278.
End Notes
1
Horace Byers had studied with the Swedish Carl-Gustave
Rossby who was a meteorological theoretician at the
United States Weather Bureau. Rossby was also involved
in aviation weather forcasting and in the spring of 1928
he was in California using the Daniel Guggenheim Fund
for the Promotion of Aeronautics to the extend the Weather
Bureau’s fledging airways weather reporting service south
from Oakland to Los Angeles. Talking to Western Air
Express pilots Rossby discovered that they could fly in
foggy mountainous areas if there were many more weather
reports than offered by the usual weather service bureau.
Rossby arranged along with Byers, now his summer aide,
for the establishment of 30 subordinate observation stations
to supplement the bureau’s four units.
2
See the interview by Arthur F. Merewether, June 24, 1982
in Charles Carpenter Bates and John Frederick Fuller,
America’s Weather Warriors, 1914-1985, 275 which is
fully cited in the Bibliography).
3
See Krick and Fleming, Sun Sea and Sky, 148-150, fully
cited in the Bibliography).
4
In her essay entitled “Weather For Sale,” in the Saturday
Evening Post, for February 10, 1940 Helen Nace Satterlee
wrote the following regarding Krick’s findings (full citation
in the Bibliography):
Awards and Accolades:
•
President and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the
American Institute of Aerological Research
•
California Junior Chamber of Commerce presented him
with its Distinguished Service Award in 1936 while the
Chamber of Commerce of the United States listed Krick
as one of the ten most outstanding men under thirty-five
years of age.
•
Head of the Meteorology Department at the California
Institute of Technology, 1938-1948
•
Member of the American Meteorological Society
•
Member of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
•
Member of the Institute of Aeronautical Science
•
At the University of California-Berkeley he was a
member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity
•
Elected to the Sigma Xi science honorary
•
He considered himself a Republican and professed to
be a Protestant.
Foehn winds, first discovered in the Swiss Alps, are
descending winds that also known to exist in Southern
California. Krick’s study and analysis of their prevailing
northeast winter sweep from elevations ranging from
2500-4000 feet down to sea level, through the three
major mountain passes-San Gorgonio, Cajon, and Mint
Canyon, lying to the north and east of Southern California
was fully realized that the resultant compressional (sic)
heating of the air-about 27 (degrees) Fahrenheit is
generated for every 5,000 feet of decrease in elevation
and is responsible for California’s arid, warm-winter
atmosphere.
5
von Karman , The Wind and Beyond, 163.
6
In some defense of the United States Weather Service, it
should be remembered that the forecast was complicated
by a sudden secondary cyclonic development near North
Carolina as the front approached the Atlantic. This cyclone
moved northward along the front and later occluded over
Newfoundland. When a sister ship, the Macon (ZRS5), was lost on February 12, 1935 off Point Sur south of
Monterrey Bay with 83 crew members aboard. Rescue
efforts saved all but two of the crew members thanks to
life rafts and life preservers that were aboard and required
following the demise of the Akron two years earlier.
The Akron had been christened in 1931 by Mrs. Herbert
Hoover and after 74 flights and 1,700 flight hours was
lost at sea with the loss of the Chief of the Bureau of
Aeronautics, R.Adm. William Moffett . It was Mrs. Moffett
who presided over the christening of the Macon on March
11, 1933. For the interested reader see the United States
Congress, Investigation of Dirigible Disasters, Hearings
Before a Joint Committee to Investigate Dirigible Disasters,
Acknowledgements:
I know over the years of research for studies that have been
published in the AAHS Journal I have been somewhat redundant
in stating that no historical project could be successfully
completed without the assistance of knowledgeable archivists
and librarians. Thus, I would like to take this opportunity to thank
Ms. Kristin Buxton of the California Institute of Technology’s
Engineering Library and Mr. John Wade of that institution’s
Document Services for their kind assistant in finding materials
relating to Irving Krick. Their efforts in my behalf are greatly
appreciated. In addition, I owe a great thank you to Mr. Daniel
Gifoyle, Remote Duty Officer, British National Archives, Kew,
England, for his courtesies and information regarding my topic.
The Foreign Office had some information under the entry
“Foreign Office and Meteor.” In addition, the assistance of
Ms. Megan Dwyre, Technical Reference Operations, National
Archives and Records Administration II at College Park,
Maryland, was helpful in completing the story of Irving Krick,
especially relating to his activities with SHAEF and the D-Day
invasion.
Editor’s Note: An extensive bibliography for this article
can be found on the AAHS Website (http://www.aahsonline.org/journals/krick_biblio.pdf)
123
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(73rd Congress, 1st session, 1933). See also, United States
Congress, Airship Investigation-Report of Colonel Henry
Breckenridge, Committee Print for Use of Joint Committee
to Investigate Dirigible Disasters, (73rd Congress, 1st
session, 1933), 35, passim.
7
von Karman, The Wind and Beyond, 162.
8
History is filled with ironies and one of those is the leading
German meteorologist during World War II, Heinz H.
Lettau, received his PhD from the University of Leipzig in
1931 and he and Krick were opposing meteorologists during
the D-Day invasion in June 1944. The overall commander
of the German weather service was Lieutenant General
Richard Habermehl. His conclusion for June 4-6 was that
“the unsettled weather made conditions unfavorable for an
invasion.” Consequently no weather alerts were issued for
the night of June 5-6 even though the weather was clearing
over the channel. It was remarkably in favor of the Allied
landings that Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was in Berlin,
the seventh army commander, General Friedrich Dollmann,
who was directly in charge of defending Normandy and
Brittany, was holding map reading exercises at Rennes
on June 5, and the commander of the 21 Panzer Division
at Normandy, General Edgar Feuchtinger, was at a Paris
nightclub on the evening of June 5.
9
Reichelderfer had been an opponent of Krick’s ideas since
the Akron disaster when the latter had warned airships from
flying the day of the crash along the eastern seaboard and
Reichelderfer noted that he did not need Krick’s advice or
conclusions since he had been using air-mass analysis nine
years before Krick had ever drawn a weather map.
10 At the termination of the conflict Yates was awarded the
Army Legion of Merit with the statement that “through
Colonel Yates’ good judgment, skill and sound leadership,
reconciliation of the differences in forecasting methods
were effected resulting in the development of a procedure
capable of utilizing the talents and facilities of both nations
(U.S. and U.K.) and all services in a unified manner. The
advice of Colonel Yates has since been proven as the day
selected for the continental assault and probably the only
day during the month of June n which the operation could
have been launched.” Yates also received the Degree of
Chevalier in the National Order of the Legion of Honor of
France.
James Stagg rose to become director of services at
the British Meteorological Office until 1960 but previously
he had been awarded the United States Legion of Merit in
1945, subsequently appointed Officer of the Order of the
British Empire (OBE) and later appointed Companion of
the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1954. In the movie, The
Longest Day, Stagg was portrayed by the actor Patrick Barr
and later wrote a play called Pressure which was made into
a movie in 2014 in which Stagg was portrayed by the actor
David Haig.
Following the war Yates became chief meteorologist
of the newly formed United States Air Force and later
Commander of the Air Force Missile Test Center at Patrick,
Air Force Base, Florida from 1954-1960. While in that
position he was award the Navy Legion of Merit for his
services on the Navy Project Vanguard and Navy Ballistic
Missile Program Polaris and retired from the Air Force as a
Lieutenant General on March 31, 1961.
11 For Krick’s view of his contribution regarding the weather
forecasting for D-Day see “D- Day Epic” as quoted in
Irving Krick and Roscoe Fleming, Sun, Sea and Sky, 179184 fully cited in the Bibliography. In part Krick wrote
concerning when to launch the invasion:
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American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Summer 2017
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Albert Hansen, 1932 - 2017
We are sad to report that long time AAHS member Albert Hansen passed away on June 5, 2017, after
a short illness.
Al was an early member of the Society, Member #81, and actively engaged in Society activities up
until recently. He was a long time editor of the AAHS Journal “Forum of Flight” and served on the Board of
Directors for a number of years. He also served as Executive Editor of the Journal as well.
In addition to Forum of Flight, Al contributed well over 30 other articles to the Journal. His primary
interest was in Golden Age aircraft - Waco, Stinson, Lockheed, etc. He was the go-to person for those of
us in AAHS office on early aircraft and general aircraft identification. He regularly attended the EAA fly-in
each summer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Al’s interests also included air racing from both the 1930s as well as more recently. He was a regular
attendee of the Reno National Air Races until recently.
Al served in the U.S. Navy in the early 1950s and spent a long career as an engineer with North American Aviation and later
North American Rockwell.
Al’s calm, warm friendly presence to those around him and contributions will be sorely missed by all of us in the Society.
Now it was up to the forecasters. Had not skilled
meteorologists using modern methods correctly foreseen
tiny chinks opening in the lowering winter and spring of
1944 in Western Europe, almost as fleeting as glimpses
of blue sky between storm clouds (and had not the
military commanders taken their word), all the mighty
preparations for D-Day might have gone for naught, and
the war in Europe might have gone on for years. Had the
meteorologists been mistaken and the landing ships and
the artificial harbors and the equipment and the men been
dashed to destruction by an angry Channel against the
hostile shores of France, the war might have been lost. A
final bit or irony is that Major Heinz H. Lettau mentioned
earlier, the chief German meteorologist, and his staff
had agreed that the weather following June 4 would be
much too bad to permit an invasion attempt, because new
storms moving in from the North Atlantic. As a result, the
German high command had relaxed and many officers
were on leave, and many troops on maneuvers. Poor
meteorology on the German side, therefore contributed
to the success of D-day, as well as modern methods on
the side of the Allies.
forecast team around June 1 and 4, as to whether the
next few days would provide any weather opportunity
at all for the invasion. But at last the decisive word was
taken to him that the weather should be “possible,” and
he ordered the great movement to start. A forecast ruling
the weather “impossible” might well have delayed for a
year the ending of the war.
Finally Krick left the following:
When the weatherman’s memo analyzing the terrible
weather of the next possible invasion period after D-day,
June 17 or 21, was shown to him, General Eisenhower
wrote this comment: “Thanks, and thank the gods of war
that we went when we did!” As it was, a four-day storm,
June 18-22, did smash up the artificial harbors, and set
back the tempo of the invasion for weeks.
12 Paul W. Tibbets, “Training the 509th for Hiroshima,” Air
Force Magazine, LVI (1973), 49-55.
13 Helen Nace Satterlee, “Weather For Sale,” Saturday
Evening Post, Feb. 10, 1940, 68.
14 Norman A. Phillips, “Carl-Gustav Rossby: His Times,
Personality, and Actions,” Bulletin of the American
Meteorological Society, LXXIX (June. 1998), 1109-1110.
He continued:
General Eisenhower probably has never known how
bitter were the divisions and arguments within the
125
