Sverre Petterssen
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Sverre Petterssen (1898-1974) was a Norwegian meteorologist, he was a big figure in the field of weather analysis and forecasting and an international leader in meteorology. He was born in Norway from an humble means family. He was able to reach higher studies with money he earned working at the telegraph office and a nursery provided by the armed forces that he joined as a recruit. He studied in Bergen where he met Tor Bergeron during a lecture and was so impressed by his analysis of a 1922 storm that he joined the Bergen School of Meteorology in 1923.
After school, he continued a weather officer in the Norwegian Air Force until 1939. He went to the US in 1935, lecturing about the Norwegian meteorological theories to the Navy and Caltech. In 1939, he was hired by MIT to be their head of the meteorology department and wrote two important books there: Weather analysis and forecasting (1940) et Introduction to Meteorology (1941).
With the invasion of Norway, Petterssen returned to Europe and offered is services in England to the Met Office on loan from the Norway Air Force. During World War II, he served as a weather forecaster for bombing raids and special operations. He is most famous for his work in what has been labeled the most significant weather forecast in history, the D-Day Forecast, where he contributed significantly to get the D-day postponed one day. There were three groups of meteorologists who gave advice to general Dwight Eisenhower, the D-Day was originally planned to be launched on June 5, 1944. The forecast provided by Sverre Petterssen and the other meteorologists caused Eisenhower to decide at 0430 4 June to postpone D-day to June 6, at first they planned to postpone the operation to June 19, but luckily all three teams predicted a break in the weather on June 6, on June 19 the worst storm that far in the century roamed the English channel. If the D-Day had been launched on June 5 as originally planned the Allied casualties would probably be far higher, and even higher if launched on June 19, on June 17 all teams predicted perfect weather conditions for June 19, luckily the D-day had already been.
