If this narrow time slot was missed, the invasion would have been delayed for two weeks. Spring low tide was necessary to ensure extreme low sea level so that the landing craft could spot and avoid the thousands of mined obstacles that had been deployed on the beaches. Darkness was needed when the airborne troops went in, but moonlight once they were on the ground. The opportunity for launching an invasion was limited to only a few days in each month to take advantage of the moon and tide.
There were actually three different teams of weather forecasters involved with the Normandy invasion including the British Royal Navy, British Meteorological Office, and the US Strategic and Tactical Air Force, but Stagg was given the role as the chief meteorologist and the only meteorologist allowed direct contact with Eisenhower.
Stagg ultimately persuaded General Eisenhower to change the date of the Allied invasion of Europe during World War II due to weather concerns from the 5th of June to the 6th of June in 1944. With definitive forecast information required and thousands of lives on the line, it is an underestimate to say that the task was daunting for chief meteorologist, Group Captain James Martin Stagg, of the British Royal Air Force. There were no computer forecast models, no satellites, radar was in its infancy and being used primarily for military purposes only, and yet General Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower wanted a definitive weather forecast for the planned invasion of Normandy, France with no “ifs”, “maybes” or “possibles” attached to the wording. Defying his colleagues, Captain James Martin Stagg advised General Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower to postpone the invasion of Normandy by one day from June 5th to June 6th because of uncertain weather conditions in a weather forecast that was arguably the most important of all-time. Years of detailed planning went into the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, but success hinged on one element that no military commander could control - the weather.
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