nado Alley." Fifty-five color photographs, although individuals under the command of the chief meteo- unnumbered, are included and cover the gamut of rologist. There is no time for that last look at the ra- southern Plains severe phenomena. There dar or for a telephone call to highway patrol spotters. does appear to be some confusion among what would I have seen Gary England get new information handed be plates 13-16 on which depict wall clouds and to him while he is on the air, interrupting network which do not. programming, and integrate it smoothly into his pre- Weathering the Storm details the personal effort sentation. It is clear he is an experienced professional Gary England undertook to keep a seemingly endless and has a deep respect for the violence of southern parade of news directors committed to acquiring the Plains thunderstorms. latest technologies including satellite imagery, Dop- Again, this is a book more about television than pler radar, computers, and graphic packages. The about weather, even though England earned a degree reader gains insight into the keen sense of competi- in mathematics with a meteorology option from the tion among news departments in a medium-sized University of in the early 1960s. I would market with three major network affiliates going head- recommend it for anyone thinking of pursuing a ca- to-head at 5, 6, and 10 P.M. reer as a broadcast meteorologist and for those who Occasionally, this competition gets out of hand. are curious about the behind-the-scenes operation and England's description of the televi- politics in the television broadcasting business. sion "weather wars" will amaze readers from —James F. Kimpel. nontornado-prone regions of the country with tales of program interruptions for live reports on tornadoes James F. Kimpel is a professor of meteorology at 500 miles away and even interruptions to report no the , Norman, Oklahoma. severe weather. To his credit, England played a ma- jor role in restoring credibility in the Oklahoma City Editor's Note: Readers who do not live in the Okla- market by minimizing program interruptions and by homa City broadcast area can catch England in action focusing on factual reporting and safety precautions. while playing himself in the Amblin Entertainment This competitive spirit is evident in England's movie, Twister, in theaters now. • chronicle of several major squabbles with the Okla- homa City Forecast Office r — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -i (NWSFO). England claims credit for broadcasting the first television Doppler radar warning for tornadoes on 15 March 1982. It was successful and evidently preceded the Oklahoma City NWSFO warning. For I 1 several years, the Oklahoma City NWSFO and the Na- i American Institute of Chemical Engineers, 345 | tional Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in nearby I East 47 St., New York, NY 10017; telephone: 212- | Norman, Oklahoma, had been collaborating by infor- 1 705-7657 | mally incorporating Doppler radar information from * Milton R. Beychok, 2233 Martin St., Unit 205, Irvine, j NSSL's research radars into the issuance of public •i CA 92715; telephone: unavailable * warnings, a fact mentioned in Weathering the Storm. The ensuing feud over who could issue warn- | Cambridge University Press, 40 W. 20 St., New | ings escalated in the broadcast and print media and | York, NY 10011; telephone: 800-221 -4512 f remnants appeared for years in such publications as ! CRC Press, 2000 Corporate Blvd., Boca Raton, FL [| The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. At j 33431; telephone: 407-994-0555 * risk was the fledgling Next Generation of Weather Ra- dar Program (NEXRAD) and the fate of 5- versus 10- | Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 270 8th | cm technology. England's accounts, obviously from | Ave., New York, NY 10011; telephone: 212-206-8900 | his perspective, make for fascinating reading. The major achievement of Weathering the Storm i Kluwer Academic Publishers, 101 Philip Dr., J is England's descriptions of the drama in the news- J Norwell, MA 02061; telephone: 617-871 -6600 J room during outbreaks of severe weather. Pages 166 to 168 are especially compelling. Literally, life and 1 Publishers' addresses continued on p. 1601 1 death decisions are made in split seconds by teams of —— — — _ — — — _ — — J

1598 Vol. 77, No. 7, July 1 996

Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/25/21 10:13 PM UTC today's computerized dispersion calculation models. meteorologists observe, analyze, and forecast the It contains example calculations, while avoiding ad- weather. He introduces weather patterns, weather vanced mathematics. Topics include atmospheric pa- maps, and forecasting tools. He even presents infor- rameters, Gaussian dispersion equations, dispersion mation to teach the reader how to build a weather sta- coefficients, plume rise, time averaging, wind veloc- tion, keep a weather log, and make forecasts. By dis- ity profiles, calculating stack gas plume dispersion, cussing the history, weather basics, wind, and clouds, trapped plumes, fumigation, meteorological data, and Kahl stresses that the more information one has about flare stack plume rise. the conditions of the atmosphere, the more accurate a forecast can be made. The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change (Richard C. J. Somerville, 1996, 195 pp., Meteorology in Estonia in Johannes Letzmann's $21.95, clothbound, University of California Press, Times and Today (Heino Eelsalu and Heino Tooming, ISBN 0-520-08890-5). This is not a story of who can Eds., 1995, 192 pp., $—unavailable, paperbound, Es- induce changes to the global climate: Mother Nature tonia Academy Publishers, ISBN 9985-50-111 -X). A or humankind. Rather, it is an attempt to clearly tell conference devoted to meteorology and related top- the story of global change: how the earth has been ics was held 14-16 September 1995 to celebrate the naturally changing since its formation and how hu- 110th birthday of the Estonian meteorologist Johannes man-induced development affects and changes the Letzmann. The publication, a posthumous tribute to earth's natural processes. Intended for the public and Letzmann, attempts to show that Estonian meteorol- written by an atmospheric scientist, the book offers ogy was outstanding in the past and has remained pro- the first comprehensive up-to-date scientific guide to ductive in spite of current difficulties. Topics include global change. In the text, Somerville stresses the "im- Letzmann's tornado research, his first scientific con- portance of an educated public in a world where the tacts with Germany, his involvement with the Esto- role of science is increasingly critical." Topics include nian Naturalists' Society and as a lecturer at the Uni- the ozone hole, greenhouse effect, computing weather versity of Tartu, tasks and problems in Estonian me- and climate, reacting to climate change, global change teorology, tornadoes in Estonia, Estonia's thunder- causes and remedies, air pollution and acid rain, the storm network, and statistical relationships between future of the earth, and scientists doing science. the winter-spring meteorological factors in Estonia.® Physical Signatures of Magnetospheric Boundary Layer Processes (Jan A. Holtet and Alv Egeland, Eds., 1994,480 pp., $ 154.00, hardbound, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 0-7923-2763-2). This book is a vol- ume of invited talks and reports presented at the NATO Advanced Workshop on Physical Signatures of Magnetospheric Boundary Layer Processes, held in Norway, 9-14 May 1993. International political and scientific communities have established research pro- grams solely to study global change. The magneto- Taylor & Francis,1900 Frost Rd., Suite 101, Bristol, sphere, "the earth-space," is part of the environment, PA 19007-1598; telephone: 215-785-5800 of which it is necessary to understand in order to ob- University of Oklahoma Press, 1005 Asp Ave., tain a complete working knowledge of the earth's Norman, OK 73019; telephone: 405-325-5111 environment. This volume contains information in the general study of solar-terrestrial processes, viewed Estonia Academy Publishers, P.O. 43, Tartu EE from the perspectives of a variety of disciplines. 2400, Estonia, telephone: unavailable Lerner Publications, 241 First Ave. North, Minne- Weather Watch: Forecasting the Weather (Jonathan apolis, MN 55401; telephone: 800-328-4929 D. W. Kahl, 1996, 72 pp., $14.96, hardbound, Lerner Publications, ISBN 0-8225-2529-1). Weather is one University of California Press, 2120 Berkeley Way, of the factors that influences our lives daily. Kahl's Berkeley, CA 94720; telephone: 415-642-4247 goal in this book is to teach readers to understand how L —______J

16 77 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

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