Americans and Their Weather

Americans and Their Weather
Author: William B. Meyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2014
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0190212810

This book traces the major exchanges that have occurred since colonial times in the role of weather in life and livelihood in the U.S. The intent is to relate how shifts in ordinary human activities have been influenced and altered the significance of climate patterns -- patterns that have been far more stable than the society experiencing them -- development of weather science where appropriate. At times, persistent features of our climate and recurrent weather have acted as help or hindrance, hazard or resource. And as ways of life in country have changed, these features have become hazard of resources in new ways.

Weather Matters

Weather Matters
Author: Bernard Mergen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN:

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.

Americans and Their Weather

Americans and Their Weather
Author: William B. Meyer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2014-10-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0195351177

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.

Big Weather

Big Weather
Author: Mark Svenvold
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2006-05-02
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780805080148

The author profiles real tornadoes and severe weather patterns over six thousand miles of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, known as Tornado Alley.

Braving the Elements

Braving the Elements
Author: David Laskin
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 273
Release: 1997-06-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 038546956X

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?"

National Audubon Society Field Guide to Weather

National Audubon Society Field Guide to Weather
Author: David Ludlum
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 660
Release: 1991-10-15
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0679408517

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.

National Geographic Pocket Guide to the Weather of North America

National Geographic Pocket Guide to the Weather of North America
Author: Jack Williams
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2017
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1426217862

"This easy-to-use field guide provides the resources to understand the meteorological events that affect us every day. With illustrations and graphics for every topic, this is the go-to book for answers about weather reports and conditions on our increasingly turbulent planet"--

Outlaws of America

Outlaws of America
Author: Dan Berger
Publisher: AK Press
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2006
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1904859410

The fiery true story of America's most famous radical fugitives, urgently and passionately told.

Weather Legends

Weather Legends
Author: Carole Garbuny Vogel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 80
Release: 2001
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 076131900X

Native American tales are set against scientific facts to explain how thunder, tornadoes, sunlight, rainbows, and other weather phenomena come into existence.

Make It Rain

Make It Rain
Author: Kristine Harper
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2017-03-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 022643723X

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.