Extreme American Weather - Softcover

Tim Vasquez

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0970684053 ISBN 13: 9780970684059

Publisher: Weather Graphics, 2004

The book Extreme American Weather is a reference guide for the most significant forecasting events that have ever occurred in the United States. Surface and upper-air charts detailing the event’s lifecycle are combined with summaries, newspaper accounts, and meteorological information. Extreme American Weather is also educational and interactive, presenting twelve unanalyzed events with solutions and discussions so that readers can try their hand at travelling into the past and analyzing historical weather.

Historic weather stories are engrained in American culture. We all remember the Storm of the Century and we’ve heard about the film and novel The Perfect Storm. Some of us may have even heard about the Winter of 1899 or the heat waves of 1936.

However it is often difficult to find anything on these weather events beyond anecdotal "human interest" stories. Technical case studies do surface that detail the more significant events, but many tend to become obscure, either disappearing into old publications, minimally circulated, or a victim of the "out of print" syndrome. This is disappointing as meteorologists must be able to understand historic record-setting weather events before they can effectively anticipate future ones. Numerical models do not perform well in such situations, yet ironically it is during significant weather events where they are depended upon most heavily.

Extreme American Weather is the reference book that covers these weather events in the detail that they deserve. Perfect for hobbyists, weather professionals, television meteorologists, pilots, and storm chasers.

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About the Author:

Tim Vasquez is an experienced meteorologist and chaser whose skill at forecasting severe weather has become legendary. In 1989 he began a decade of service as an Air Force meteorologist, initially working at the Nevada Test Site for the Stealth Fighter program, which was still semi-secret. At RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom he was the lead forecaster for an American B-1B bomber fleet that roared over Normandy to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day. At Mombasa, Kenya he was one of the most qualified forecasters assisting United Nations airlifts into Rwanda in the wake of a disastrous civil war. In 1992 Tim began writing weather analysis software tools, and by 1996 he gravitated to the severe weather hub of Norman, Oklahoma. Since 2000, Tim has provided severe weather classes in the wintertime, plus forecasting services in the springtime for over 50 chasers annually. He also has been a Weatherwise magazine columnist since 2001. Tim enjoys traveling, astronomy, flight simulators, brewing beer, and reading just about anything related to science, geography, history, and cartography. He lives in Norman, Oklahoma.

Review:

For anyone interested in American extreme weather and/or weather map analysis, Extreme American Weather is a must-have book for their bookshelf. Though it is brief in its description of the human factors the stories of most of these events are well-documented elsewhere it gives clear discussions of the state of the atmosphere precipitating the events. I found the maps used in the book very legible considering the reduction necessary to fit the large format maps on a book page. --Keith Heidorn, The Weather Doctor Book Reviews

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