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Originally Posted by Anaraxes
Storms are bad for aircraft, too. In this era, it's not quite so easy to fly over storms or fronts as it is with pressurized jets. On the bright side (for ruining surface ships, that is), a water world with small islands may well generate bigger waves on the larger oceans, which wouldn't matter to subs or planes.
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Another option is for the plane to set down in a sheltered lagoon, beach the plane and wait until the storm passes.
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Submerged speed of a WW2 sub is maybe half that of the surface speed. They spent almost all their time on the surface. So the cargo subs are likely diving just to escape storms. (The storms are presumably also a threat to a surfaced sub.)
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Although ... in 1938 Japan launched a test sub that made 13 knots on the surface and 21 knots submerged using diesel electric engines. Two classes were based on it but few were built, but both classes were faster underwater than surfaced.