     The German attack had been launched in bad weather. A gray overcast cloaked the Ardennes. Fog hung low to the ground. Snow and rain drizzled down. It was miserable, lousy weather -- perfect for a German attack. In the poor weather, the Allied aircraft could not operate. The feared jabos could not pick German columns to pieces. The Allied heavy bombers could not flatten entire assembly areas. Resupply aircraft could not find their targets.
     The Americans fought with the assumption that air support was always just a radio call away. Their defensive deployments assumed air support. They were stretched thin, but it was no matter; if they got into trouble, the Air Force would save the day. But this time it was different. The bad weather started on the 14th, and it stayed bad. Day after day, the Germans surged forward under the protective cloud cover, blasting through the thin American positions, wreaking havoc, while Allied aircraft patrolled over the cloud deck in useless frustration. The disastrous collapse and surrender of two regiments of the 106th Infantry Division developed largely because bad weather prevented aerial resupply. The German generals began to smile to themselves. Perhaps Hitler's famous luck had returned.
     But now, on the morning of the 23rd, soldiers on both sides of the front awoke from their frozen holes to a gloriously clear blue sky. The sun shone bright, the air was bitterly cold and clear. All over the front, Americans took heart and Germans cringed. Now the Allied air forces would step into the battle. Things were about to change dramatically.
/Weather
     Weather has always played a major role in warfare. Gideon prayed for a few more hours of sunlight to crush his enemies; the kamikaze, or divine wind, was a storm that destroyed a Mongol invasion of Japan in the 13th century. A similar fate befell the Spanish armada's invasion of England in 1588. The Battle of Waterloo was delayed for a crucial few hours while Napoleon waited for the ground to dry after a thunderstorm; those hours were just enough for the Prussians to intervene and win the battle. In 1979, the American rescue of its hostages in Iran was foiled by a sandstorm.
     Weather affects military operations in myriad ways. Rain softens the ground, making it difficult to maneuver heavy equipment. It turns roads into quagmires, slowing the movement of armies. In 1941, the Germans blitzed across 1200 miles of Russian territory in 3 months; then the rasputitsa, the mud season, started and the panzers came to an instant halt.
     Weather also affects visibility, making it more difficult for soldiers to see their enemies. For a time, rain made battle impossible; wet gunpowder wouln't fire, and so the armies couldn't shoot each other on rainy days. Sadly, that problem was solved.
     The Allies had a big advantage in World War Two: they knew the weather better than the Germans did. Storms came to Europe from the northwest, through areas controlled by the Allies. They thus knew impending weather better. The Germans were forced to used submarines to take weather data and radio it home, a spotty and unreliable process./