History of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography Special Interest Group Newsletter 1, 2010 ANNUAL REPORT CONTENTS We asked in the last two newsletters if you Annual Report ........................................... 1 thought the History Group should hold an Committee members ................................ 2 Annual General Meeting. There is nothing in Mrs Jean Ludlam ...................................... 2 the By-Law s or Standing Orders of the Royal Meteorological Society that requires the The 2010 Summer Meeting ..................... 3 Group to hold one, nor does Charity Law Report of meeting on 18 November .......... 4 require one. Which papers have been cited? .............. 10 Don’t try this at home! ............................. 10 Only one person responded, and that was in More Richard Gregory reminiscences ..... 11 passing during a telephone conversation about something else. He was in favour of Storm warnings for seafarers: Part 2 ....... 13 holding an AGM but only slightly so. He Swedish storm warnings ......................... 17 expressed the view that an AGM provides an Rikitea meteorological station ................. 19 opportunity to put forward ideas for the More on the D-Day forecast .................... 20 Group’s committee to consider. Recent publications ................................ 21 As there has been so little response, the Did you know? ........................................ 22 Group’s committee has decided that there will Date for your diary .................................. 23 not be an AGM this year. Historic picture ........................................ 23 2009 members of the Group ................... 24 CHAIRMAN’S REVIEW OF 2009 by Malcolm Walker year. Sadly, however, two people who have supported the Group for many years died during I begin as I did last year. Without an enthusiastic 2009. David Limbert passed away on 3 M a y, and conscientious committee, there would be no and Jean Ludlam died in October (see page 2). History Group. Many thanks to all who have served on the committee this past year (see With 81 members at the end of 2009, we were page 2). Thanks especially to Sara Osman, who easily the largest of the Royal Meteorological stepped down as Hon Secretary in April 2009. Society’s Special Interest Groups. But, as I said She left the Met Office in January 2008 and has last year and the year before, I should like to since worked in the library of Kingston see a massive growth in membership. When I University. At the 2009 AGM, we thanked her talk to meteorologists and oceanographers, I very much indeed for all she had done for the find no lack of interest in the history of their Group during her time as Secretary, and that subjects, but why do not many more of them join was, believe me, a great deal. Thanks also to our Group? Perhaps they do not know exactly our Treasurer, Mick Wood, who has once again what our Group is for and what it does. I ask kept our accounts healthy (see page 2). Martin you, please, to publicize the Group’s work Kidds succeeded Sara as Hon Secretary, and whenever and wherever you can. we thank him for nobly taking on this job. He too Repeating further what I said last year, I ask you has recently (February 2010) moved to pastures all, please, to spread the word that our Group is new, from the National Meteorological Library to very active and well worth supporting and the National Gallery, to become their Systems arranges meetings which are full of interest. We Librarian. We welcomed to the committee in need especially to convince students that the 2009 Graham Bartlett, who worked in the origins and growth of the atmospheric and National Meteorological Library for many years oceanic sciences are not only fascinating but and retired from there in December 2008. also important. All too many research students As I said at the AGM last year and the year are now discouraged from reading anything before, I am very keen to see a growth in more than ten years old and, moreover, do not membership of the Group, and we have, indeed, appear to want to read anything that is not on welcomed several new members during the past the Web. 1 In 2009, four excellent meetings were held, one Three issues of the newsletter appeared in 2009 in January, one in March, one in June, the other and we hope you found them interesting. The in November. newsletter has included substantial articles and • The meeting on 15 January was a joint one increased in size to 24 pages. Do, please, send with the Retired Members’ Group of the us snippets or longer pieces for the newsletter, London and South East Branch of the Institute including book reviews. We want it to be your of Physics and was held in London at the newsletter. The assistance and support of the Institute of Physics. It focused on the Royal Meteorological Society in printing the development of upper-air meteorological newsletter is greatly appreciated. observations. The attendance was 95, We congratulate Dr Dennis Wheeler of the including about twenty members of our Group. University of Sunderland, who was awarded the • The meeting on 28 March was held in London Group’s Jehuda Neumann Memorial Prize for at the Royal Astronomical Society and was 2009. He received at the prize at the Royal another joint one, this time with the Society for Meteorological Society’s Awards Dinner at the History of Astronomy. The meeting was Caversham on 1 July. concerned with links between meteorologists As chairman of a Royal Meteorological Society and astronomers. The attendance was 42. Special Interest Group, I attend meetings of the • The meeting on 6 June was at the Society’s Meetings Committee. I attended three Rothamsted Research Station, Hertfordshire, such meetings in 2009 and took every the subject ‘Agricultural Meteorology’. For opportunity to point out the importance of various reasons, the attendance was only 19, historical context. but those who missed the meeting missed a very good day. Committee members 2009 • The meeting on 18 November was the second Malcolm Walker, Chairman of the ‘Classic Papers’ meetings and was held Martin Kidds, Secretary (since March 2009) at the University of Reading. The subject was Sara Osman, Secretary (until March 2009) ‘Dynamicists versus numerical modellers: a Mick Wood, Treasurer and Vice-Chairman growing divide?’, and a contentious approach Graham Bartlett was taken. The attendance was 161, making Margaret Deacon this the best-attended History Group meeting Alan Heasman of all time, though I should perhaps say that it Joan Kenworthy was actually a Royal Meteorological Society Julian Mayes National Wednesday Meeting organized by Howard Oliver the Group. David Pedgley Vernon Radcliffe We thank all who have organized, and those Dennis Wheeler who have spoken at, the Group’s meetings. Finances Three more occasional papers were published in 2009, these being: Thanks to Mick, the Group’s finances remain in good shape. Income for the year was £735.98 • No.7. Weather services at war, by and expenditure £644.31. At the end of the year, K.D.Anderson, based upon Mr Anderson’s the Group’s balance totalled £2,040.92. personal diaries during a period on active service in May 1940. • No.8. The Met Office grows up in war and MRS JEAN LUDLAM peace, by Maurice Crewe. We were extremely sorry to hear that Jean • No.9. ‘An experimental measure’ – the first Ludlam, widow of Professor Frank Ludlam, had meteorological office at South Farnborough passed away in late October 2009. She had and the Meteorological Office Radio Station, been a member of the History Group from the Aldershot, January 1911 to December 1918, beginning and typed for the Group in the 1980s by Brian Booth. and '90s many a transcript of the tape-recorded These papers are all available via the Royal interviews of distinguished meteorologists. For Meteorological Society’s website many years she was almost an honorary (http://www.rmets.org/about/history/index.php), member of staff of the National Meteorological and paper copies are held in the National Library (when it was at Bracknell), and she often Meteorological Library at Exeter. supplied very nice biscuits when she visited. 2 THE 2010 SUMMER MEETING 18-20 July 2010 The two-day Summer Meeting used to be a highlight of the Society’s calendar. This year’s will be the first for almost twenty years. The meeting will be based in the historic city of Exeter in the glorious county of Devon. It will be an informal meeting which we hope will prove attractive to many. The programme is full of topical interest. The meeting begins with dinner and a talk on Sunday 18 July and finishes at about 6.00 pm on Tuesday the 20th. The talk will be given by Professor Julia Slingo OBE, who is President of the Society and Chief Scientist of the Met Office. She will speak on today’s challenges in atmospheric science. There will be overnight accommodation at Exeter University, which has a beautiful campus with landscaped botanical gardens containing a great many plants and trees and extensive views across Exeter. In the first half of each morning, there will talks, given at the university. Afterwards, there will be visits, for which coach transport will be provided. On the Monday morning, the talks will focus on recent developments in weather forecasting, including modern presentations of forecasts and the changing requirements of users. On the Tuesday morning, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Met Office’s Hadley Centre, talks will focus upon recent advances in climate science. The Monday visits will be to the Met Office (Exeter), the National Meteorological Archive (Exeter) and Barometer World (at Merton, near Great Torrington). At the Archive, some of the treasures of the Met Office and Royal Meteorological Society will be on show.