Okay, slight change of plans today, but I could NOT pass this up! I was invited to join Dave’s group today at the UK Met Office. We got a tour of the full UK Met Office facility…which included seeing the ORIGINAL D-Day weather maps!
We also saw other foundational documents in the UK Met Office’s history, including some of Matthew Fontaine Maury’s first “pilot charts” — plots of ship reports from the 1850s (most of which are in the Library of Congress), and the first attempt at station models in 1859 by Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy, the founder of the Meteorological Office, part of the UK’s first attempts at weather forecasting based on current observations.
I won’t be surprised if this is the highlight of my entire week. My original plans for the day were to go to the beach in Exmouth, but I’m glad I didn’t. Besides, the weather wasn’t super pleasant. Tomorrow…London!
Note: that framed image isn’t the original chart, but we did get to see 3 days worth of original charts in a separate room.
#travelswithdaveandpatricia #exeter
