it takes a serious look at a bigger picture." "- The ""Philadelphia"" Inquirer" " A chaotic whirl. "Big Weather" is much more than an entertaining look at characters from the midway, a cast Svenvold clearly enjoys observing. At turns wacky, macho and whimsical.Â"Â-Kirkus Reviews Â"Svenvold's wry, supple prose vividly captures a heartland made up of the awe-inspiring and the absurd.Â"Â-Publisher's Weekly, " A meticulously researched, well-written narrative. Svenvold even makes the topic of catastrophe insurance engaging. is right up there beside suchThe Perfect StormandInto Thin Air.Â"Â-Booklist(starred review) Â"An entertaining and fast-paced work of narrative journalism. Be prepared to be thrilled by Svenvold's funny, elegant descriptions of both the storms and this strange species.Â"Â-Los AngelesTimes Â"Svenvold is a gifted storyteller he displays a wide knowledge of classical and general literature in an easy-going fashion powered with vivid anecdotes.Â"Â-New Scientist(London) Â"If you're a fan of movies about extreme weather you'll definitely want to give this book a read. exhilarating.Â"Â-The New York Times Â"A lively, firsthand look at the cult (and culture) of storm chasers.Â"Â-Entertainment Weekly Â"Welcome to the world of Â'storm chasers' and Â'weather dweebs'.
it takes a serious look at a bigger picture.Â"Â-ThePhiladelphiaInquirer Â"A chaotic whirl. Differential Calculus 001-A1: The Differential For.Â"A meticulously researched, well-written narrative.Big Weatheris much more than an entertaining look at characters from the midway, a cast Svenvold clearly enjoys observing.And You Thought Prime Numbers Were Dull.
There's plenty to like about Big Weather. A really big one, an F5, leaves only plowed ground. We tend to be drawn to destruction, and nothing causes greater levels of localized destruction than a tornado. The cultish reaction many chasers have to images and video of tornadoes prompts the author to call it "torn porn." Probably apt. To see more, there are plenty of web sites with thousands of pictures. There's just enough photography to whet the appetite. If the amount of CO2 were increased ten times, the maximum warming would be 4-6 deg F (2-3 C), so there's a limit to what will result just by our burning stuff. In temperate latitudes, the main effect has been greater variability: longer, warmer spring and summer, colder but shorter winter, with more violent storms more common than before. We can figure it has resulted in about a degree or two (F or half to 1 deg C) of warming. We know CO2 has about doubled since 1850. But I'm one who sees more benefit than loss in that equation. Casey doesn't fit any other category, but is serious enough, and has learned enough, to earn the respect of the operators of the Doppler-on-Wheels (DOW) trucks from the Center for Severe Weather Research. Plenty of ink, and several photos, goes to Sean Casey and his "Tornado Intercept Vehicle" (TIV), a homemade tank weighing over six tons. Actually, it seems in retrospect that a third of the writing is polemical, intended to convince the reader of the reality, not just of global warming, but of human causes thereof. With the phenomenon of storm-chasing, quite a number of allied subjects fall under scrutiny: the classes of chasers (from yahoos to scientists), the advent and rise of the Weather Channel, and possible influences of global warming among them. The account in the book is from several eyewitnesses (and some scar-witnesses). May 22 produced the Hallam, NE tornado, which basically plowed a furrow some sixty miles wide, and as wide as 2.5 miles, the widest on record. The first half of May that year was quiet, quiet enough to drive hundreds of storm-chasers half crazy.
The book has copious endnotes and a good index, but no bibliography. His book Big Weather: Chasing Tornadoes in the Heart of America ( Henry Holt, publisher)s not so much a chronicle as a memoir and meditation. Mark Svenvold, Fordham University's Poet-in-Residence, spent a summer traveling with veteran storm chaser Matt Biddle, logging 6,000 miles in May, 2004. Kw: book reviews, tornadoes, storm chasers, weather phenomena, global warming
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