Download or read book Americans and Their Weather written by William B. Meyer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-10 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revealing book synthesizes research from many fields to offer the first complete history of the roles played by weather and climate in American life from colonial times to the present. Author William B. Meyer characterizes weather events as neutral phenomena that are inherently neither hazards nor resources, but can become either depending on the activities with which they interact. Meyer documents the ways in which different kinds of weather throughout history have represented hazards and resources not only for such exposed outdoor pursuits as agriculture, warfare, transportation, construction, and recreation, but for other realms of life ranging from manufacturing to migration to human health. He points out that while the weather and climate by themselves have never determined the course of human events, their significance as been continuously altered for better and for worse by the evolution of American life.
Download or read book Americans and Their Weather written by William B. Meyer and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revealing book synthesizes research from many fields to offer the first complete history of the roles played by weather and climate in American life from colonial times to the present. Author William B. Meyer characterizes weather events as neutral phenomena that are inherently neither hazards nor resources, but can become either depending on the activities with which they interact. Meyer documents the ways in which different kinds of weather throughout history have represented hazards and resources not only for such exposed outdoor pursuits as agriculture, warfare, transportation, construction, and recreation, but for other realms of life ranging from manufacturing to migration to human health. He points out that while the weather and climate by themselves have never determined the course of human events, their significance as been continuously altered for better and for worse by the evolution of American life.
Download or read book Weather Matters written by Bernard Mergen and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A kaleidoscopic book that illuminates our obsession with weather--as both physical reality and evocative metaphor--focusing on the ways in which it is perceived, feared, embraced, managed, and even marketed.
Download or read book Braving the Elements written by David Laskin and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1997-06-16 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nowhere in the world is weather as volatile and powerful as it is in North America. Scorching heat in the Southwest, hurricanes on the Atlantic coast, tornadoes in the Plains, blizzards in the mountains: Every area of the country has vastly different weather, and vastly different cultures as a result. Braving the Elements is David Laskin's delightful and fascinating history of how our unique weather has shaped a nation, and how we've tried to cope with it over centuries. Since before Columbus, the peoples of America have struggled to make sense of the capricious and violent nature of America's weather. Anasazi Indians used the rain dance (and sometimes human sacrifice) to induce rain, while the Puritans in New England blamed the sins of the community for lightening strikes and Nor'easters. IN modern times we carry on those traditions by blaming the weatherman for ruined weekends. Despite hi-tech satellites and powerful computers and 24-hour-a-day forecasting from The Weather Channel, we're still at the mercy of the whims of Mother Nature. Laskin recounts the many dramatic moments in American weather history, from the "Little Ice Age" to Ben Franklin's invention of the lightning rod to the Great Blizzard of the 1930's to the worries about global warming. Packed with fresh insights and wonderful lore and trivia, Braving the Elements is unique and essential reading for anyone who's ever asked, "What's it like outside?"
Download or read book Big Weather written by Mark Svenvold and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author profiles real tornadoes and severe weather patterns over six thousand miles of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, known as Tornado Alley.
Download or read book Weather Legends written by Carole Garbuny Vogel and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Native American tales are set against scientific facts to explain how thunder, tornadoes, sunlight, rainbows, and other weather phenomena come into existence.
Download or read book Outlaws of America written by Dan Berger and published by AK Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fiery true story of America's most famous radical fugitives, urgently and passionately told.
Download or read book National Audubon Society Field Guide to Weather written by David Ludlum and published by Knopf. This book was released on 1991-10-15 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incredibly comprehensive yet portable enough for your day pack, the definitive field guide to every type of weather system, cloud formation, and atmospheric phenomenon common to North America--from the go-to reference source for over 18 million nature lovers. The 378 dramatic photographs in National Audubon Society Field Guide to Weather capture cloud types, precipitation, storms, twisters, and optical phenomena such as the Northern Lights. Essays with accompanying maps and illustrations discuss the earth's atmosphere, weather systems, cloud formation, and development of tornadoes and many other weather events.
Download or read book Make It Rain written by Kristine C. Harper and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Weather control. Juxtaposing those two words is enough to raise eyebrows in a world where even the best weather models still fail to nail every forecast, and when the effects of climate change on sea level height, seasonal averages of weather phenomena, and biological behavior are being watched with interest by all, regardless of political or scientific persuasion. But between the late nineteenth century—when the United States first funded an attempt to “shock” rain out of clouds—and the late 1940s, rainmaking (as it had been known) became weather control. And then things got out of control. In Make It Rain, Kristine C. Harper tells the long and somewhat ludicrous history of state-funded attempts to manage, manipulate, and deploy the weather in America. Harper shows that governments from the federal to the local became helplessly captivated by the idea that weather control could promote agriculture, health, industrial output, and economic growth at home, or even be used as a military weapon and diplomatic tool abroad. Clear fog for landing aircraft? There’s a project for that. Gentle rain for strawberries? Let’s do it! Enhanced snowpacks for hydroelectric utilities? Check. The heyday of these weather control programs came during the Cold War, as the atmosphere came to be seen as something to be defended, weaponized, and manipulated. Yet Harper demonstrates that today there are clear implications for our attempts to solve the problems of climate change.
Download or read book Stormy Weather written by Anastasia Carol Curwood and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The so-called New Negroes of the period between World Wars I and II embodied a new sense of racial pride and upward mobility for the race. Many of them thought that relationships between spouses could be a crucial factor in realizing this dream. But there
Download or read book Tornado God written by Peter J. Thuesen and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the earliest sources of humanity's religious impulse was severe weather, which ancient peoples attributed to the wrath of storm gods. Enlightenment thinkers derided such beliefs as superstition and predicted they would pass away as humans became more scientifically and theologically sophisticated. But in America, scientific and theological hubris came face-to-face with the tornado, nature's most violent windstorm. Striking the United States more than any other nation, tornadoes have consistently defied scientists' efforts to unlock their secrets. Meteorologists now acknowledge that even the most powerful computers will likely never be able to predict a tornado's precise path. Similarly, tornadoes have repeatedly brought Americans to the outer limits of theology, drawing them into the vortex of such mysteries as how to reconcile suffering with a loving God and whether there is underlying purpose or randomness in the universe. In this groundbreaking history, Peter Thuesen captures the harrowing drama of tornadoes, as clergy, theologians, meteorologists, and ordinary citizens struggle to make sense of these death-dealing tempests. He argues that, in the tornado, Americans experience something that is at once culturally peculiar (the indigenous storm of the national imagination) and religiously primal (the sense of awe before an unpredictable and mysterious power). He also shows that, in an era of climate change, the weather raises the issue of society's complicity in natural disasters. In the whirlwind, Americans confront the question of their own destiny-how much is self-determined and how much is beyond human understanding or control.
Download or read book The Howling Storm written by Kenneth W. Noe and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Lincoln Prize! Traditional histories of the Civil War describe the conflict as a war between North and South. Kenneth W. Noe suggests it should instead be understood as a war between the North, the South, and the weather. In The Howling Storm, Noe retells the history of the conflagration with a focus on the ways in which weather and climate shaped the outcomes of battles and campaigns. He further contends that events such as floods and droughts affecting the Confederate home front constricted soldiers’ food supply, lowered morale, and undercut the government’s efforts to boost nationalist sentiment. By contrast, the superior equipment and open supply lines enjoyed by Union soldiers enabled them to cope successfully with the South’s extreme conditions and, ultimately, secure victory in 1865. Climate conditions during the war proved unusual, as irregular phenomena such as El Niño, La Niña, and similar oscillations in the Atlantic Ocean disrupted weather patterns across southern states. Taking into account these meteorological events, Noe rethinks conventional explanations of battlefield victories and losses, compelling historians to reconsider long-held conclusions about the war. Unlike past studies that fault inflation, taxation, and logistical problems for the Confederate defeat, his work considers how soldiers and civilians dealt with floods and droughts that beset areas of the South in 1862, 1863, and 1864. In doing so, he addresses the foundational causes that forced Richmond to make difficult and sometimes disastrous decisions when prioritizing the feeding of the home front or the front lines. The Howling Storm stands as the first comprehensive examination of weather and climate during the Civil War. Its approach, coverage, and conclusions are certain to reshape the field of Civil War studies.
Download or read book The AMS Weather Book written by Jack Williams and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America has one of the most varied and dynamic weather systems in the world. Every year, the Gulf Coast is battered by hurricanes, the Great Plains are ravaged by tornados, the Midwest is pummeled by blizzards, and the temperature in the Southwest reaches a sweltering 120 degrees. Extreme weather can be a matter of life and death, but even when it is pleasant—72 degrees and sunny—weather is still central to the lives of all Americans. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a topic of greater collective interest. Whether we want to know if we should close the storm shutters or just carry an umbrella to work, we turn to forecasts. But few of us really understand the science behind them. All that changes with The AMS Weather Book. The most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to our weather and our atmosphere, it is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to understand how hurricanes form, why tornados twirl, or even why the sky is cerulean blue. Written by esteemed science journalist and former USA Today weather editor Jack Williams, The AMS Weather Book covers everything from daily weather patterns to air pollution and global warming and explores the stories of people coping with severe weather and those who devote their lives to understanding the atmosphere, oceans, and climate. Words alone, of course, are not adequate to explain many meteorological concepts, so The AMS Weather Book is filled with engaging full-color graphics that explain such concepts as why winds blow in a particular direction, how Doppler weather radar works, what happens inside hurricanes, how clouds create wind and snow, and what’s really affecting the earth’s climate. For Weather Channel junkies, amateur meteorologists, and storm chasers alike, The AMS Weather Book is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to better understand how weather works and how it affects our lives.
Download or read book Flying America s Weather written by Thomas A. Horne and published by Aviation Supplies & Academics. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite quantum leaps in cockpit technology, weather radar and forecasting techniques, flying often boils down to "someone sitting in a cramped cockpit somewhere, trying for all he's worth to figure out what meaning those clouds up ahead have for him." An understanding of how larger climatic forces affect each region's specific patterns can give that lone pilot the edge, and this edge is what Flying America's Weather is all about.
Download or read book Eric Sloane s Weather Book written by Eric Sloane and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2005-10-28 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Amateur weather forecasters (which includes just about everyone) will find this volume an informative and entertaining account of the why and how of the weather." — The Nation In simple language, Eric Sloane explains the whys and wherefores of weather and weather forecasting — and does it in a style that's universally appealing. With humor and common sense shining through in a book that's also lively and informative, Sloane shows readers how to predict the weather by "reading" such natural phenomena as winds, skies, and animal sounds. This beautifully illustrated and practical treasure trove of climate lore will enlighten outdoorsmen, farmers, sailors, and anyone else who has ever wondered what a large halo around the moon means, why birds "sit it out" before a storm, and whether or not to take an umbrella when leaving the house.
Download or read book The Weather Factor written by David Ludlum and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, David Ludlum, America's acknowledged dean of weather history, describes historical weather events and their consequences to society. From the colonists' first encounter with the American climate to the launch of the first weather satellite in space, weather has influenced battles, wars, elections, sports events, balloon launches, airship flights, and many other history-making events. Want to know what part the weather played in ending the Siege in Yorktown? Why President Harrison caught his fatal cold on Inauguration Day? Which was the worst-ever Saturday for football all across the country? This book attempts to answer these questions and many more.
Download or read book The Weather of the Pacific Northwest written by Cliff Mass and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-09-12 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Powerful Pacific storms strike the region. Otherworldly lenticular clouds often cap Mount Rainier. Rain shadows create sunny skies while torrential rain falls a few miles away. The Pineapple Express brings tropical moisture and warmth during Northwest winters. The Pacific Northwest produces some of the most distinctive and variable weather in North America, which is described with colorful and evocative language in this book. Atmospheric scientist and blogger Cliff Mass, known for his ability to make complex science readily accessible to all, shares eyewitness accounts, historical episodes, and the latest meteorological knowledge. This updated, extensively illustrated, and expanded new edition features: • A new chapter on the history of wildfires and their impact on air quality • Analysis of recent floods and storms, including the Oso landslide of 2014, the 2016 “Ides of October” windstorm, and the tornado that damaged 250 homes in Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula in 2018 • Fresh insight on local weather phenomena such as “The Blob” • Updates on the latest technological advances used in forecasting • A new chapter on the meteorology of British Columbia Highly readable and packed with useful scientific information, this indispensable guide is a go-to resource for outdoor enthusiasts, boaters, gardeners, and anyone who wants to understand and appreciate the complex and fascinating meteorology of the region.
