When involved in VC10K3 'Secondary Role' exercises and operations, we often had a tame weather guesser with us, who would consult his seaweed, beetles, fir cones and various other tools of the trade, in order to assess the most likely area for a good 'sniff'. But it was quite hilarious listening to the arguments between 'Atomic Arthur' from Aldermaston and the MetO - they often had professional disagreements about the target area. Which could be a largish chunk of remote airspace.
With the advent of the 'Cray Twins' at Bracknell, the tide began to turn in favour of the MetO's 'mesh models' though. But on the last operation in which I was involved, the art and science of the MetO found us a good time and area for the search in a much more flexible manner than the information we'd received from our colonial cousins at Patrick AFB!
At RAF Brawdy, local knowledge was vital. When a new MetO arrived and gave a standard brief, the older hands merely smiled and said "He'll learn"... One vile day, we were sitting around at Morning Met waiting for the Stn Cdr to appear. As he entered, he threw a snowball at the MetO, which bounced off and landed on the OHP slides. The wonderful art work dissolved in a splurge of various colours; drily the MetO announced "Thank you Sir, I couldn't have put it better myself - today's weather will be vile!".
Last edited by BEagle; 6th Apr 2024 at 21:43.