Turbulence

The D-Day landings: the fate of two and half million men, three thousand landing-craft and the entire future of Europe depends on the right weather conditions in the English Channel on a single day. A team of Allied scientists is charged with agreeing an accurate forecast five days in advance. But is it even possible to predict the weather so far ahead? And what is the relationship between predictability and turbulence, one of the last great mysteries of modern physics?

Wallace Ryman has devised a system that comprehends all of this - but he is a reclusive pacifist who stubbornly refuses to divulge his secrets. Henry Meadows, a young maths prodigy from the Met Office, is sent to Scotland to discover Ryman's system and apply it to the Normandy landings. But turbulence proves more elusive than anyone could have imagined, and events, like the weather, begin to spiral out of control.

Watch Giles Foden discuss Turbulence and the epic events of D-Day.

More from Giles Foden at Waterstone's Online .

For an alternative ending to Turbulence check out Oxfam's Ox Tales books.