Weather: The Ultimate Book of Meteorological Events

Weather

• Introduction
• Contents
• Foreword
• Light
• Nature's Fireworks
• Climatic Data Charts

foreword

Ancient philosophers speculated the world was composed of four humors: earth, air, fire, and water. Modern physics describes a more diverse universe, yet what we experience as weather and climate essentially emerge from the mixture of gases called air, plus water in its three phases (gas, liquid, and solid), earth (the tiny specs of matter upon which all rain and snow must condense), and the atmospheric motions driven by the unequal distribution of heat received from the solar fire.

Our atmosphere, proportionally thinner than the skin of an apple, is home to an endless parade of swirls and eddies, calms and gales, droughts and deluges, searing heat and numbing cold that affect humanity in myriad ways. The peaceful pleasure of enjoying a sea breeze on the shore while the reddened sun sets can overnight be replaced by the terror of the banshee howl of winds and an inexorable tropical storm surge drowning a coastal village.

Forecasting nature's moods was once the realm of sorcerers, astrologers, and early astronomers. Those who foretold a pending eclipse were rewarded for serving the local ruler's political ends. Those who failed sometimes met tragic fates. The first scientific attempts at weather forecasting in 1860s England saw Robert Fitzroy bravely striving to save lives and livelihoods by teasing the next day's weather from scattered observations telegraphed to his London office. Yet even he paid the price of frequent failure, as public derision was a likely factor in him taking his life in 1865.

By 1870, the first U.S. public storm warnings were issued and in 1890, the formation began of what is now the modern National Weather Service. Progress was steady, but slow. The atmosphere—and meteorology—is international in scope. During World War I, Scandinavian scientists' detailed analyses of Nordic weather maps discovered the warm and cold fronts now marching familiarly across our TV weather maps. These pioneers were specialists in fluid dynamics who noted that air is, in fact, a fluid.

The same equations of fluid behavior could be applied to prognosticate fronts, cyclones, and anticyclones. In the 1920s, Lewis Richardson proclaimed a legion of 10,000 accountants armed with calculators could solve those equations before tomorrow's weather occurred. This absurd notion suddenly became practical with the advent of the digital computer in the 1950s. Soon a New York Times story claimed future computers would someday generate personalized forecasts down to the street-corner level. Indeed, today's supercomputers do transmit surprisingly accurate forecasts to your cell phone, at least with zip code precision, and perhaps soon, that same street corner.

Once the butt of jokes for their inaccuracy, forecasters have developed sufficient skill that people are surprised when a major storm prediction is busted. They save thousands of lives annually, and though economic losses are still considerable, the savings are far greater in the 30 percent of the massive U.S. economy that is weather sensitive. Whether the prognosis is for massive waves to delight surfers, swells to be avoided by giant container vessels, or jet-stream tailwinds to be ridden by jumbo jets, modern weather forecasting is a triumph of the tenacity and courage of legions of scientists. Robert Fitzroy would be pleased. —Walter Lyons, CCM

Weather: The Ultimate Book of Meteorological Events

Authors: Editors of the Weather Calendar
ISBN: 978-0-7407-6989-4
Format: 13 ½ x 10 ¼, 256 pp, hardcover with jacket
Price: $50.00 U.S.A. ($60.00 Canada)

Contact: Shelly Barkes, (800) 851-8923, ext. 7498, sbarkes@amuniversal.com