Sources for Chapter 1

The books, Web sites, journal articles, and interviews listed on this page are sources of information other than facts and concepts found in most beginning college-level meteorology textbooks, which the author used or that could help readers better understand the concepts described. For more on various topics, including further reading and links to related Web sites, follow the links labeled “Explorations.” Links labeled “Outtakes” are to text from early drafts of the book that were dropped before publication.

In the notes below “the author” refers to Jack Williams, author of The AMS Weather Book.

Pages 2–3

• Robert Ricks’s Katrina story: The author’s telephone conversations and e-mail exchanges with Ricks in the spring of 2006; Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News story.
• Ricks’s warning text: NOAA archive.

Page 3

• Times of Katrina watches and warnings: The National Hurricane Center archived Katrina advisories and graphics.
• Katrina news stories: Original and later coverage of Katrina, the New Orleans Times–Picayune and NOLA.com archive.
• The 1935 Labor Day hurricane: Bob Sheets and Jack Williams, Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth (New York: Vintage, 2001), 85–88.

Page 4

• Pre-Katrina warnings of the consequences of a major New Orleans hurricane: Washing Away series, New Orleans Times–Picayune (2002).
• Jeff Rosenfeld, “The Mourning after Katrina,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS) 86 (November 2005): 1555–1566.
• Explorations: The Hurricane Threat to New Orleans

Page 5

• Weather economics: Roger Pielke, Jr., and R. E. Carbone, “Weather Impacts, Forecasts, and Policy: An Integrated Perspective” BAMS 83 (March 2002): 394–403; Economic Statistics for NOAA (PDF file), (NOAA, 2006); Fair Weather: Effective Partnerships in Weather and Climate Services (Washington, DC: The National Academy of Sciences, 2003); NOAA Economics Web site; Air Transport Association: State of the Airline Industry: A Report on Recent Trends for U.S. Air Carriers (Washington, DC: Air Transport Association, 2002).

Page 6

• U.S. government weather-related activities: Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology Web site.
• Private meteorology: David B. Spiegler “The Private Sector in Meteorology—An Update (PDF file),” AMS Web site (June 2007).
• Discrepancies in weather-deaths statistics: P. G. Dixon, D. M. Brommer, B. C. Hedquist, A. J. Kalkstein, G. B. Goodrich, J. C. Walter, C. C. Dickerson IV, S. J. Penny, and R. S. Cerveny, “Heat Mortality versus Cold Mortality,” BAMS 86 (July 2005): 937–943.
• Direct or indirect weather deaths: Gib Parrish, “Impact of Weather on Health,” Workshop on the Social and Economic Impacts of Weather, University of Colorado (April 1997).
• Weather deaths: “Weather Fatalities,” National Weather Service (NWS) Web site.

Page 7

• Theological meteorology: David Laskin, Braving the Elements: The Stormy History of American Weather (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 57–58.
• Weather folklore: R. E. Spencer, “Weather Proverbs Often Don’t Work,” Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin (published online by USATODAY.com), (December 27, 1954); Candace Pollock, “Woolly Bear Winter Prediction Not Science, But Fun,” Ohio State University Extension Web site (October 21, 2002).

Page 10

• Quote from Richard Hamblyn, The Invention of Clouds (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 36.
• History of rainbow theories: Raymond L. Lee, Jr., and Alistair B. Fraser, The Rainbow Bridge: Rainbows in Art, Myth, and Science (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 102–205; Carl B. Boyer, The Rainbow: From Myth to Mathematics (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987).

Page 12

• Graphic: Robert Greenler, Rainbows, Halos, and Glories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 1–21; About Rainbows Web page, University Cooperation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR); Rainbows Web page, The Weather World 2010 Project (WW2010) Web site; Rainbows Web page, Atmospheric Optics Web site.

Page 13

• Measuring the angle of a halo from the sun: Walter Tape and Jarmo Moilanen, Atmospheric Halos and the Search for Angle X (Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union, 2006), 2.
• History of halo science and frequency of halo appearances: Tape and Moilanen, Atmospheric Halos, 20–29; Greenler, Rainbows, Halos, and Glories, 23–40; e-mail exchanges with Walter Tape.
• Newton on rainbow colors: Lee and Fraser, The Rainbow Bridge, 214.

Page 14

• Halo graphic: Tape and Moilanen, Atmospheric Halos, 5. Frequent Halos Web page, Atmospheric Optics Web site; Greenler, Rainbows, Halos, and Glories, 23–26; e-mail exchanges with Walter Tape and Ken Tape.
• January 11, 1999, South Pole halo display: Author’s interviews with the three Finnish scientists studying halos at the South Pole on January 17, 1999; e-mail exchanges with Mary Hanson of the National Science Foundation.

Page 15

• Sun pillars graphic: Greenler, Rainbows, Halos, and Glories, 72; “An Introduction to Sun Pillars and Related Phenomena,” The Weather Doctor Web site.
• New halo discoveries likely: Tape and Moilanen, Atmospheric Halos, vii.
• Blue sky—Rayleigh’s electromagnetic scattering discovery: Peter Pesic, Sky in a Bottle (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 112–119.

Page 16

• Blue sky and atomic hypothesis: Pesic, Sky in a Bottle, 119–128.

Pages 18–19

• The profile of Bob and Joanne Simpson is based primarily on the author’s interviews with the Simpsons, both individually and together at various times from 1991 through 2005, and information supplied by Dr. Robert Sheets when he and the author were writing Hurricane Watch in 2000–01. Other information came from “From Clouds to Hurricanes: A Tribute to Bob and Joanne Simpson,” University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Web site and W. K. Taoa, et al., “Summary of the October 2000 Symposium on Cloud Systems, Hurricanes, and TRMM: Celebration of Dr. Joanne Simpson’s Career—The First Fifty Years,” BAMS 81 (October 2000): 2463–2474.

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