WIREDGOV

The new movie PRESSURE is in cinemas now and tells the true story behind the Met Office’s most important forecast; the one for the D-Day invasion. But what’s the historical reality behind the film?

PRESSURE is based on a true story. The central themes, disagreements and scientific knowledge displayed on screen are a broadly accurate re-telling of one of the most important weather forecasts in history.

Group Captain Dr James Stagg was responsible for working with teams of meteorologists, both American and British, to deliver the forecast to the highest levels of military command on the potential impact of the weather on the D-Day plans.

The film’s producers, Working Title and STUDIOCANAL, took great care to bring the story to life and visited the Met Office during pre-production to collect resources and quiz subject-matter experts to help bring realism on to set.

Met Office Library and Archive Manager Catherine Ross said: “It was great to see the lengths the film crew went to in order to bring the historical reality of the D-Day forecast to the big screen.

“Scans of maps, reference books, output from teleprinters at the time. You name it, they wanted to see it. Such was the level of detail; they even sourced original printing presses from the time so each document would have the correct opacity and feel. While there’s inevitably some creative license to produce a film, what you’re seeing on screen is a great re-enactment of some of the tension, disagreements and people behind the most important forecast in the Met Office’s history.”

This blog will contain some minor spoilers for the movie and some of its plot points, though the outcome of D-Day isn’t technically a spoiler.  

Click here for the full press release