The Upper-Air Group

Abstract

No visitor to Dunstable could fail to notice some unique features of my upper-air group, as compared with the other and far more sedate sections of this agglomeration of meteorological activities. In January 1942, when I began to plan and organize the upper-air work, I found it wise to look around for young talent rather than trying to attract experienced forecasters. Weather forecasting is an art and a science. Although the art component derives from experience, not all experience is productive. Particularly in large organizations, weather forecasting easily becomes surrounded by a mass of routines, which tend toward undesirable standardization and often serve to stabilize stagnation. Since seniority rather than scientific knowledge and imagination tends to control promotions, one can hardly expect a personnel officer to make the best choices in trying to staff any new enterprise. The Meteorological Office’s effort in upper-air forecasting had, until then, been next to negligible. The bulk of the forecasters had gained their experience from studies of sea level charts only, and I thought it preferable to search for potential, rather than realized, values.

There’s nowt so queer as folk!⁴⁹

—Yorkshire proverb