Big Weather: Chasing Tornadoes in the Heart of America

Big Weather is a lot about weather and a little about weather, all at the same time. How come? Because Mark Svenvold can describe physical phenomena in prose approaching poetry, and the topic allows him to introduce the reader to multiple other venues. The title attracts those of us who need to deal with weather. I fly light airplanes and taught weather as a major chapter in aviation ground school class curricula. Even so, tornadoes are a fish pilots do not swim with. We race the other way, like herring trying to fly when the whales arrive to corral them with air bubbles. So on a daily basis, pilots need to know more about, for example, the Current Icing Potential on the ADDS Web, or the convective SIGMETS, which describe the wide range of turbulence generators. But whatever makes you open Big Weather, you will find, in the first paragraph of page one, the rich ability of a poet to describe the factual in impressionistic ways. A few pages later, you will meet Matt Biddle, his hero. And it keeps getting better. Want to know about Chaos? Svenvold will tell you about Lorenz, and then you can read James Gleick. His mention of Heisenberg might remind you that Werner was once asked if he had any questions for God. He responded "Yes, I will ask him to explain relativity and turbulence, and I think he will be able to explain relativity". Or, when Svenvold brings up Pliny the Elder, describing a vortex, you can pick up John Mc Phee's "Control of Nature" and read how Pliny dropped dead when Vesuvius erupted under his nose. Think tornadoes are all violence? Svenvold will connect you with their sublime elements, and with Dionysius Longinus, sublime's first champion. Science, art, science, literature, science, psychology, geography, history, philosophy. On and on it goes. Elmer Mc Curdy is another good yarn. Get that too.

Residing as I do on the periphery of Tornado Alley, and as the resident of a town mostly leveled by the Great Cyclone of 1919, I was very interested in this title. And, being familiar with Mr. Svenvold's prior work, I knew that the literacy level of his new book would be well beyond the breathless, you-were-there prose that he so effectively lampoons ("The twister approached. My car door was jammed. I cursed."), and that seems to typify many such efforts. "Big Weather" does not disappoint. Loosely structured around a month that the author spent chasing storms around the Midwest, Mr. Svenvold, like the professional guide that he once was, not only takes the reader right to the edge of the chaos, but also provides a thorough, even exhaustive understanding of the events, lives and science that are inextricably intertwined with catastrophilia. And, perhaps most distinctively, Mr. Svenvold is not only unafraid to digress, but makes it a priority to do so: one can easily envision the author sprawled out across the front seat as he rides across those wide-open spaces, Doritos and Diet Coke in hand, letting his many and varied thoughts drift up to the developing cumulonimbi. One could argue that "Big Weather," with its considerable esoterica, might be less than fully accessible to some readers. However: 1) as Mr. Svenvold emphasizes, the most hard-core weather wonks are pretty sharp individuals, anything but beer-swilling Jethros; and 2) I, for one, appreciated a book that occasionally made me reach for the thesaurus or for Google.com. I would not have necessarily associated a tornado book with elusive Russian poets, but now I'm kind of curious about this Yevtushenko character. I also disagree with some of the prior reviews accusing Mr. Svenvold of having a political agenda, a blue-state liberal axe to grind, or other such nonsense. For example, his discussion of global warming cites objective, even overwhelming scientific data that more or less represents a consensus amongst those who do not have their heads firmly planted in the sand. And perhaps some of these "chasers" are a tad touchy about being portrayed in such a straight-on manner: yes, an armor-plated tornado intercept vehicle may appear goofy to the uninitiated, but the author is never condescending. As opposed to "carpetbagging" or some other self-interested motivation, the author is trying fully to understand, and communicate, the spectacle of "Big Weather." Overall, Mr. Svenvold has done an outstanding job of reporting, and carefully considering, a phenomenon that is as old as weather-related small talk, but stands to have future implications in far-reaching and unpredictable ways. Highly recommended.

I picked this book up, having enjoyed Svenvold's first nonfiction title, Elmer McCurdy. I expected more of his wide ranging reflection on the peculiarities of American culture, and I was not disappointed. Here again Svenvold shows not only that he is an excellent, inventive, amusing and serious writer, but also that he knows how fit the small strange peices of the American puzzle into the big picture. The author is quite well-read, and he uses what he has read in the service of that big picture. He's also good at the thumbnail sketch, in which he catches of many of the chasers in amusing and sometimes unflattering light. There's more here to laugh outloud at and to reflect seriously on than in your typical summer reading. This is a great book that anyone interested in our rapidly changing climate needs to read. I was on Zacynthos in the Ionian Sea when I finished it, and I did not want it to end.

This book, while it does stray into topics I have no interest in, is a decent account of storm chasing, but more so of storm chasers. I do not see how anyone without an agenda would not enjoy it.

This is an excellent book, much deeper than the other of the weather-related books. Not only does it tell the science and the story of extreme weather, it delves into the underlying way the weather affects our joint psyche and what our fascination with catastrophe means about ourselves. Svenvold's storm-chasing characters reveal an Americana straight out of a PT Barnum asemblage. The author is gifted with words and with the ability to see his subject in broader contexts.