Like the serendipitous traveler in Robert Frost's
The Road Not Taken, we decided to follow a path
"less traveled by" in writing this introductory guide through
meteorology. Sometimes, the broadening experience of travel is
limited by taking a traditional tour. We have written this book
with the aim that students do not merely go sight-seeing along the
superhighway of meteorology. Rather, we hope that students become
real travelers, willing to detour off the beaten path and to
actively seek new adventures that will broaden their appreciation
and understanding of how the atmosphere works.
The Blizzard of 1993. Hurricane Andrew. The Great Flood of
1993. These mighty forces of nature awakened the awe of weather in
many people. Students who bring a sense of wonder about weather to
an introductory course expect to study such events -- but not in a
passive way. Henry David Thoreau once wrote: "The traveler must
be born again on the road, and earn a passport from the elements".
Throughout A World of Weather, students
will
earn their passport from the elements by working with historical
weather data, affording them opportunities to unravel the back-road
secrets of some of the greatest storms on earth. It is this
"hands-on" approach that makes students active travelers rather
than passive tourists on the road to learning meteorology.
A World of Weather is a text book.
It is
also a laboratory manual. Real-life examples and non-traditional
problems, as well as a hands-on approach, make our book a valuable
teaching tool for introductory courses at both large and small
universities, including colleges that do not have a meteorology
program and offer only one course in weather. Though the text is
streamlined for college students with a non-meteorology major, we
firmly believe that A World of Weather
will also serve as a well-rounded foundation for students intending
to major in meteorology.
Fundamentally, we want students to be good weather consumers.
They will be bombarded by all types of weather information
throughout their lives. Some of it will be scientifically
accurate; some of it will be fuzzy and misleading. For example,
the notion that the heat index represents "the temperature the air
feels like" is not meteorologically or physiologically sound.
Humans do not all
"feel" the same. Moreover, the heat index is based solely on
temperature and humidity, and does not take other factors into
account. But it's undeniable that cooling summer
breezes sometimes. Yet the heat index neglects the cooling power
of the wind. Thus, any attempt to quantify exactly what
"the air feels like" becomes a bit futile. Students who use A
World of Weather as a guide through meteorology will
be aware of such pitfalls. They will learn that wind-chill values
are not based on human physiology but on how fast it once took
water in
plastic bags to freeze under varying wind conditions in Antarctica.
Like Robert Frost's traveler who came upon two roads
diverging in a wood, we believe that, by choosing A
World
of Weather, you have taken "the one less traveled
by." And it will make all the difference.