Meteorologist Mike Smith, over at Meteorological Musings has a great story to relay. While the source of the quote is from Churchhill, it makes me think of Apollo 13 and Gene Krantz.  Mike writes of the effort put into forecasting hurricane Sandy:

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss…

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. 

                              — Sir Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940

I’ve thought of that famous quote from Sir Winston several times since Saturday — when it became completely clear that Hurricane Sandy was going to be the multi-state disaster that had threatened for the previous two days.

While victims and officials are still early in the process of sorting out this huge disaster, it is clear that unprecedented and extremely difficult-to-forecast Hurricane Sandy was meteorology’s “finest hour.”

How good were these forecasts?

Read his full story at: “This Was Their Finest Hour”