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Technology orbiting the world for weather predictions....

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Shippo
Posts: 58
Joined: Mon May 14, 2012 11:43 pm

Technology orbiting the world for weather predictions....

Post by Shippo » Thu Aug 13, 2015 6:55 pm

A weather ship was a ship stationed in the ocean as a platform for surface and upper air meteorological observations for use in weather forecasting. They were primarily located in the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans.

The ocean weather station idea originated in the early days of radio communications and trans-oceanic aviation. As early as 1921, the Director of the French Meteorological Service proposed establishing a stationary weather observing ship in the North Atlantic to benefit merchant shipping and the anticipated inauguration of trans-Atlantic air service

The loss of a PanAmerican aircraft in 1938 due to weather on a trans-Pacific flight prompted the Coast Guard and the Weather Bureau of the USA to begin tests of upper air observations using instrumented balloons. Their success resulted in a recommendation by Commander E. H. Smith of the International Ice Patrol (and future Director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) for a network of ships in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Second World War brought about a dramatic increase in trans-Atlantic air navigation, and in January 1940 President Roosevelt established the "Atlantic Weather Observation Service" using Coast Guard cutters and US Weather Bureau observers.

When WW2 ended, the US Navy intended to discontinue weather ship operations, but pressure from several sources resulted instead in establishment of a permanent peacetime system of 13 stations.

By 1970, new jet aircraft were coming to rely less on fixed ocean stations, and satellites were beginning to provide weather data. In 1974, the US Coast Guard announced plans to terminate the US stations, and, in 1977, the last weather ship was replaced by a newly developed buoy. The last weather ship was Polarfront, known as weather station M ("Mike"), which was removed from operation in January 2010. The international programme ended when this ship was made redundant.

The United Kingdom Met Office's network of Marine Automatic Weather Stations (MAWS) consists of 11 moored buoys and seven systems on lightships and islands. Three of the buoys are in coastal inshore waters, six are in open-ocean locations to the west of the British Isles and two, jointly owned with the French, are in the deep waters off the Bay of Biscay. These are supplemented by six moored buoys operated by Ireland and one by the Jersey Met Department.

Captain Arthur Creighton is considered to be an expert in navigation and has been looking at weather patterns whereby oceans which cover around 70 percent of the Earth's surface, play an important role in driving the atmospheric circulation. He has been invited to give a talk on OCEAN WEATHER SHIPS to Friends of Metheringham Airfield.

He is a retired Royal Air Force Officer, Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, a former airline Captain and respected committee member of the Royal Aeronautical Society. During his extensive career he has flown many different types of aircraft, clocking over 30,000 flying hours.

The lecture will be in the WW2 gymnasium at the Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre on Wednesday, 26th August, beginning at 7.30pm

Admission is £5.00 to visitors to include refreshments but is free to members of Friends of Metheringham Airfield and veterans of 106 Squadron.

For further details contact 01526 378270

John Shipton
Friends of Metheringham Airfield
Lincoln
War time home to 106 Squadron at RAF Metheringham

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