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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 551.5
EAN num: 9780395976319
ISBN number: 0395976316
Label: Houghton Mifflin
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 384
Printing Date: November 01, 1998
Publishing house: Houghton Mifflin
Sale Popularity Level: 497062
Studio: Houghton Mifflin
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
More than 400 photographs and line drawings illustrate every kind of atmospheric phenomenon: clouds of every type; storms, from cloudbursts to hurricanes; and sky colors.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This book is not so mundane as others have suggested. It should not be confused with other "cloud spotting" books. It is not a book about "garden-variety" storms either. The emphasis here is almost always on the processes that underpin the clouds, storms, and other phenemona rather than the clouds and storms themselves. This book is really a palatable introduction to the atmospheric sciences aimed at naturalists, educators, and anyone else scientifically-inclined.
If I could level one argument at this book, it is that the authors obviously struggle occasionally with delivering very complex topics in a way that maintains the flow and organization of the book. And I feel any newcomer would find it challenging to intuitively connect how some of the localized chemical processes described in this book produce the weather they experience each day. However, I feel the authors do a very commendable job of walking the fine line between being scientifically complete while preserving, in as much as it is possible, the Field Guide format so appealing to the layman. This book could have been incredibly dry, yet it was surprisingly interesting and enjoyable to read.
As a person who was completely uninitiated with these subjects when I very first picked up this book, I now have a much greater appreciation of everyday weather. The book will also give you the essential background needed to better interpret your daily observations and even the ordinary weather maps found in your local newspaper. Mankind's impact on the atmosphere, ranging from pollution to actual weather modification, are also discussed. A Great Book!
Rated by buyers 
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This is a useful weather field guide because it spends most time illustrating regular weather phenomena. By that, I mean it spends most time on the various types of clouds, "garden-variety" thunderstorms, and ordinary optical phenomena like rainbows, irridescence, halo(e)s, and the like - the kind of stuff you're most likely to see if you glance out your bedroom window of a morning, or . . . whatever. (It's hard not to sound corny there!)Also, the text goes into how such phenomena comes about, which is useful.
There are also useful appendices like the Beaufort scale, and tornado safety rules in the back.
The only drawbacks are, the fact that this isn't a full-colour guide: the colour plates have been segregated to an insert around the middle of the book, which makes up perhaps an eighth of the book - if that (all other photos - the majority of the book - are in much less detailed and descriptive grey and white); also, the illustration of severe weather is rather limited. We don't see features of a severe thunderstorm, or satellite images of a hurricane at its various stages of intensity (or an illustrated discusion of satellite pictures in general - this guide may be from 1981, but satellites existed then!), or the forms a tornado can take, or where one can form - we only have photos of distant, non-severe looking cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) clouds, a view of clouds around a hurricane taken from a plane (which isn't the perspective either a satellite or someone on the groud is going to have), and one photo of a tornado chosen for its historical merit only (it being the "first photo taken of a tornado," near Howard, SD on 8/28/1884 - an older photo, taken near either Garnett or Westphalia, KS on 4/26/1884, has since been found). [Regarding the thunderstorm/tornado images, I realize this isn't supposed to be a NOAA spotter's guide, therefore gospel, but a variety of images helps.]
But if a lack of colour doesn't bother you, and you know your severe storms (or they don't bother you, either), this is a good field guide to have.
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