Ingrid Berg, 49, was a radio operator in the Merchant Marine. After surviving two transatlantic voyages, she returned home to find that no one wanted to hire a woman for ground stations. She spent all her paychecks acquiring 77 hectares of barren, sagebrush-covered land near the Continental Divide to set up her own shortwave listening station.
She built a tiny plywood shack and an 18-meter antenna tower using salvaged pipes. She rose at all hours to record ionospheric signals and weather conditions. Dressed in khaki, she carried a logbook, a Morse key, and a short-barreled 12-gauge shotgun "for the coyotes that gnawed through the guy wires."
In 1946, an FCC inspector came and forced her to close her station for operating illegally. She sat him down in front of his receiver, handed him headphones, and let him listen to a faint signal from a Pacific weather ship while she cleaned his rifle. He left with a complete copy of the logbook and a recommendation to leave his station as it was, considering it "valuable wartime surplus work."
His transmission recordings from the 1940s proved useful to early weather forecasting networks. She continued broadcasting under a call sign known only to her until 1983.
A weather ship, or ocean station vessel, was a ship stationed in the ocean for surface and upper air meteorological observations for use in weather forecasting. They were primarily located in the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans, reporting via radio. The vessels aided in search and rescue operations, supported transatlantic flights,[1][2][3] acted as research platforms for oceanographers, monitored marine pollution, and aided weather forecasting by weather forecasters and in computerized atmospheric models. Research vessels remain heavily used in oceanography, including physical oceanography and the integration of meteorological and climatological data in Earth system science.
The idea of a stationary weather ship was proposed as early as 1921 by Météo-France to help support shipping and the coming of transatlantic aviation. They were used during World War II but had no means of defense, which led to the loss of several ships and many lives. On the whole, the establishment of weather ships proved to be so useful during World War II for Europe and North America that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) established a global network of weather ships in 1948, with 13 to be supplied by Canada, the United States and some European countries. This number was eventually cut to nine. The agreement of the use of weather ships by the international community ended in 1985.
Weather ship observations proved to be helpful in wind and wave studies, as commercial shipping tended to avoid weather systems for safety reasons, whereas the weather ships did not. They were also helpful in monitoring storms at sea, such as tropical cyclones. Beginning in the 1970s, their role was largely superseded by cheaper weather buoys. The removal of a weather ship became a negative factor in forecasts leading up to the Great Storm of 1987. The last weather ship was Polarfront, known as weather station M ("Mike"), which was removed from operation on January 1, 2010. Weather observations from ships continue from a fleet of voluntary merchant vessels in routine commercial operation.
Starting in 1939, United States Coast Guard vessels were being used as weather ships to protect transatlantic air commerce, as a response to the crash of Pan American World Airways Hawaii Clipper during a transpacific flight in 1938.[2][9] The Atlantic Weather Observation Service was authorized by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on January 25, 1940.[17] The Germans began to use weather ships in the summer of 1940. However, three of their four ships had been sunk by November 23, which led to the use of fishing vessels for the German weather ship fleet. Their weather ships were out to sea for three to five weeks at a time and German weather observations were encrypted using Enigma machines.[18] By February 1941, five 327-foot (100 m) United States Coast Guard cutters were used in weather patrol, usually deployed for three weeks at a time, then sent back to port for ten days. As World War II continued, the cutters were needed for the war effort and by August 1942, six cargo vessels had replaced them. The ships were fitted with two deck guns, anti-aircraft guns, and depth charges, but lacked SONAR (Asdic), Radar, and HF/DF, which may have contributed to the loss of the USCGC Muskeget (WAG-48) with 121 aboard on September 9, 1942. In 1943, the United States Weather Bureau recognized their observations as "indispensable" during the war effort.[2]
The flying of fighter planes between North America, Greenland, and Iceland led to the deployment of two more weather ships in 1943 and 1944. Great Britain established one of their own 80 kilometres (50 mi) off their west coast. By May 1945, frigates were used across the Pacific for similar operations. Weather Bureau personnel stationed on weather ships were asked voluntarily to accept the assignment. In addition to surface weather observations, the weather ships would launch radiosondes and release pilot balloons, or PIBALs, to determine weather conditions aloft. However, after the war ended, the ships were withdrawn from service, which led to a loss of upper air weather observations over the oceans.[5] Due to its value, operations resumed after World War II as a result of an international agreement made in September 1946, which stated that no fewer than 13 ocean weather stations would be maintained by the Coast Guard, with five others maintained by Great Britain and two by Brazil.[2]
https://www.eaglespeak.us/2007/01/sunday-ship-history-ocean-weather.html
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