User:21stCenturyGreenstuff/ROCMET
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UK WARTIME METEOROLOGICAL SERVICE was a post-nuclear-attack national meteorological service that would have been provided predominantly by personnel of the British Royal Observer Corps (ROC), coupled with information from other sources, in the event of a nuclear strike on the United Kingdom, during the Cold War.
Provision of the service was a prime requirement charged to the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation (UKWMO), for whom the Royal Observer Corps provided the national fieldforce.
Meteorological forecasts were essential to predict the likely paths of radioactive fallout across the country but it was considered unlikely that the mainly glass-fronted UK Met Office Headquarters at Bracknell would survive a nuclear first strike wave due to its proximity to metropolitan London. Additionally Armed Forces HQs of the British Army, Royal Navy and particularly the Royal Air Force required up to date weather predictions to continue operations during any war.
This meteorologocal service provision ceased in 1992 when both the UKWMO and the ROC were disbanded and stood down by the UK Government. Since 2003 the Met Office HQ is now relocated to Exeter and is less vulnerable to attack damage. Local authorities and armed forces headquarters would need alternative arrangements in the future, but current provisions and systems are classified.
Organisation[edit]
Protected buildings[edit]
The ROC operated a network of 25 widely spread regional Operational Controls connected to nearly 900 underground monitoring posts, roughly ten square miles apart, all over the UK and Northern Ireland. The buildings would have been manned during war by civilian volunteers, who wore a Royal Air Force style uniform. The posts were grouped together into clusters of between three to five posts and one of these posts was classed as the cluster's Master Post.
ROCMET posts[edit]
A carefully selected eighty seven of the master posts across the country(roughly ten percent of the total number of posts) were additionally designated as ROCMET posts and were provided with instruments that enabled them to prepare a detailed local weather picture.
SUPMET posts[edit]
The 25 Group Controls and the remainder of the ROC posts were able to provide limited hourly supplemental weather information based solely on visual assessments.
HOMET posts[edit]
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Continued inputs from the Met Office[edit]
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System[edit]
At the start of operations and/or as soon as it became apparent that the Met Office had ceased to function, the hourly meteorological reports would be commenced. Posts made their reports to their Group Control, where they were collated and forwarded on to the Sector Control. At each sector a Met Officer from Bracknell would be in attendance as part of their war service commitments. The Met Officer would prepare a weather report, consulting with their colleagues at the other four sectors. Once finished the completed weather chart would be circulated to British and neighbouring NATO armed forces and civilian authorities, by fax machine over EMP protected telephone connections.
Instrumentation and other aides[edit]
ROCMET posts[edit]
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SUPMET monitoring posts[edit]
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Local innovations[edit]
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Report formats[edit]
Report elements[edit]
Each message included:
- Wind direction
- Wind speed
- Temperature
- Cloud cover
- Precipitation
ROCMET[edit]
A typical report would start with the codeword ROCMET and the post identification number and time, followed by the text describing the current weather details eg. "ROCMET Shrewsbury 56 Post 2100 (hours).....????????......"
SUPMET[edit]
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Effective Downwind Forecast (EDF) messages[edit]
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Met Messages (MM)[edit]
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Fax transmission of weather charts[edit]
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Improvements under development at stand-down[edit]
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References[edit]
See also[edit]
- Royal Observer Corps
- United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation
- Met Office
- Operational instruments of the Royal Observer Corps
Category:Royal Observer Corps Category:Cold War military equipment of the United Kingdom Category:Cold War