MIGHTY STORMS OF NEW ENGLAND The Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Blizzards, and Floods That Shaped the Region

The New England landscape has long been battered by some of the most intense weather in the United States. The region breeds one of the highest concentrations of meteorologists in the country for a reason. One can experience just about anything except a dust storm. Snowstorms, floods, droughts, heat waves, arctic blasts, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and other atmospheric oddities come and go with the changing seasons. Rare is the boring year of weather.

Knowing the past is a critical part of understanding and forecasting the weather. Meteorologist Eric Fisher takes an in depth look at some of the most intense weather events in New England’s history. The stories in this book not only describe the loss and the damage caused by the storms, but also how nearly all of them in left such an impression that they immediately led to progress where new warnings systems were implemented, government agencies formed, and technology accelerated in response to the devastation these events left behind.

Eric Fisher is Chief Meteorologist for CBS Boston’s WBZ-TV News and anchors weather segments weeknights at 5 p.m., 6 p.m., and 11 p.m., as well as WBZ-TV News at 10 p.m. on TV38 (WSBK-TV). He is also a contributor for CBS News, often found reporting on breaking severe weather across the country.

Born and raised in New England, Eric says there are few places on earth that produce weather like this little corner of the U.S. It offers the challenges of blockbuster snowstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, frigid cold snaps and dramatic seasonal shifts. Eric vividly remembers Memorial Day of 1995 as a day that helped solidify his path as a meteorologist, when an infamous tornado ripped through Great Barrington in the Berkshires. Glued to the red warnings crawling across the screen and watching the radar, his career in weather was born.

Fisher joined WBZ-TV News from The Weather Channel in Atlanta where he spent three years as a Meteorologist. He produced and delivered national forecasts and contributed to numerous live reports on extreme weather for The Weather Channel, NBC Nightly News, TODAY and MSNBC. Some of the most notable events Fisher reported from include the Moore, Oklahoma tornado in 2013; the 2011 tornado Super Outbreak; Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, and Isaac; and the massive blizzards that essentially shut down New York City in December of 2010 and Boston in February of 2013. Recent times have unfortunately provided no shortage of natural disasters. Previously Fisher worked as the morning meteorologist at WGGB-TV in Springfield, Massachusetts.

A supporter of science and learning, Eric is a member of both the Mount Washington Observatory and the Blue Hill Observatory here in New England. Eric is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY) with a B.S. degree in Atmospheric Science.