Freaks of the Storm

Description

Extremes of nature have always inspired curiosity, fear and reverence - from Old Testament tales of fire-and-brimstone to modern natural catastrophes. Even in societies where the elements seem to be predictable or tamed, nature's awesome capacity still has the ability to shock; and when the weather does something unusual, human reason can often seem insufficient in explaining it. How, for example can phenomena like "blood rain", which has been documented by such historically and geographically disparate figures as Plutarch, Saint Gregory of Tours and Reverend Thomas Short really happen? Now, in climatoligist Randy Cerveny's first book, we learn of real, documented stories such as these: Odd occurrences of chickens losing all their feathers during tornadoes (so-called "chicken plucking") Strange stories of finding lightning victims who have been completely stripped of all of their clothes (through a process known as "the vapour effect") Weird stories of how past powerful hailstorms have both led to the ending of one war - and the complete prevention of another Bizarre uses of weather - such as the strange contraption called a "windwagon" that literally "sailed" nearly 500 miles from Kansas to Colorado. Each chapter encompasses the oddities of a specific type of weather, such as tornadoes, cyclones, lightning, and hail. The author also divides specific conditions into a set of categories associated with the overall phenomena.