Tornadoes are the most violent, magnificent, and utterly unpredictable storms on earth, reaching estimated wind speeds of 300 mph and leaving swaths of destruction in their wake. In Tornado Alley, Howard Bluestein draws on two decades of experience chasing and photographing tornadoes across the Plains to present a fascinating historical account of the study of tornadoes and the great thunderstorms that spawn them.
A century ago, tornado warnings were so unreliable that they usually went unreported. Today, despite cutting-edge Doppler radar technology and computer simulation, these storms...

Key scientific research by authors including Kerry Emanuel, Robert Burpee, Edwin Kessler, and Louis Uccellini illustrates the evolution of the fields of synoptic meteorology, weather analysis, forecasting, and climatology. It is published in honor of the late Fred Sanders, emeritus professor of meteorology at MIT, whose influence was vast: he coined the term bomb for explosively intensifying winter storms; he established the roles of low-level horizontal confluence and convergence in frontal collapse; and he invented the field of oceanic mesometeorology. This monograph is both an essential...

This book is a focused, comprehensive reference on recent research on severe convective storms and tornadoes. It will contain many illustrations of severe storm phenomena from mobile Doppler radars, operational Doppler radars, photographs and numerical simulations.