Weather Reconnaisance

Reading Gotha Summer by C.M White I came across a reference to long range reconnaisance missions undertaken for weather information by Rumpler aircraft from December 1917. Coupled with this is a memory of a report of a German aircraft being found crashed in a remote part of Wales in the 20's or 30's. Does anyone have any information on these missions or the crashed aircraft.

andy

Greetings Andy: Don't know about the crashed planes in Wales, but the weather along the Western front was reported (or compiled) from local army weather nets by the RAF weather center at Cape Gris Nez (Cape Grey Nose). The Royal Meteorological Society, England, has the original data. Please explain how an airplane can develop weather data.

This is very interesting in view of something I have been writing which involves Second World War weather reconnaissance operations. The Germans were clearly under a forecast handicap in both world wars, as they had no permanent reporting stations west of the European coast; in the Second World War they relied heavily on sporadic reports from U-boats (plus at least one robot station planted in Labrador) but even this was unavailable to them in 1917-1918. Given that many Zeppelin raids failed owing to unforeseen weather and the necessity for data to assist in raids on Britain (to say nothing of orthodox Western Front operations) the possibility that they attempted airborne weather reconnaissance sorties exists (I am not sure of the PROBABILITY but pioneering work often pushes the possible to the edge of probability). If any more details of even experimental meteorological flying for this period comes to light, I would appreciate hearing of it.

The lack of accurate weather info was a serious handicap to the Gotha bombing operation during 1917. Probably more Gothas were lost to weather related incidents than to enemy action. White says
that submarines were not used for weather reconnaisance in WW1. When the Gotha operation was set up a weather station was established within the squadron which received daily reports from Frankfurt, Hamburg, Ostend and Bruges. The problem being Englands weather is affected by Atlantic lows hence the need to aquire pressure, temperature, humidity and windspeed information from the atlantic. I'm still trying to track down the report of the crashed aircraft in Wales.

andy

[Darryl]

On the subject, does anybody have any forecasts for any days during 1917/18, giving wind direction AND speed?

What can I say, retro weather is a hobby of mine.....

Darryl

[Vigilant]

Darryl

I've got patchy coverage for the summer of 1917 - but unfortunately nothing more than "fines", "dud", "fair" etc culled from various sources.

Retro weather? You need to get out more

[Darryl]

Vig,

Wish I could old boy, but they only let me out on weekends if I don't bite the nurse or burn my bed

regards

Darryl

Having said that German submarines did not provide weather info in WW1, according to Haddow and Grosz in the German Giants (R Planes) they did. I wonder who is correct? The use of U boats for this purpose seems likely.

andy

[Vigilant]

It's interesting that the concept of the 'weather front' wasn't discovered until the 1920s. This must have made Great War forecasting somewhat hit and miss to say the least.

Vig.