Windswept_ The Story of Wind and Weather - Marq de Villiers [0]
BY THE SAME AUTHDR
Sable Island: The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic (with Sheila Hirtle)
Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert
WINDSWEPT
THE STORY OF WIND AND WEATHER
Marq de Villiers
Copyright © 2006 by Jacobus Communications Corp.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Walker & Company, 104 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
Illustration by William Gilkerson
Illustrations by Dereck Day
Published by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., New York
Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers
All papers used by Walker & Company are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
De Villiers, Marq.
Windswept : the story of wind and weather / Marq de Villiers.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Winds. 2. Weather. I. Title.
QC931.D48 2006
551.51'8—dc22
2005023115
First published in the United States by Walker & Company in 2006
This paperback edition published in 2007
eISBN: 978-0-802-71843-3
Visit Walker & Company's Web site at www.walkerbooks.com
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Original book design for Sable Island by Maura Fadden Rosenthal/mspace Typeset by Westchester Book Group
Printed in the United States of America by Quebecor World Fairfield
The wind goeth towards the south, and turneth about unto the north, it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
—Ecclesiastes 1:6
The wind being contrary, we betook ourselves to prayers again.
—-Jesuit father, Voyage to Siam, 1685
Weather is personal.
—Forecaster's Credo
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Wind's Mystery and Meaning
CHAPTER TWO
Wind's Great Theater
CHAPTER THREE
The Search for Understanding
CHAPTER FOUR
Wind's Intricate Patterns
CHAPTER FIVE
The Art of Prediction
CHAPTER SIX
The Most Furious Gale
CHAPTER SEVEN
An Ill Wind
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Technology of Wind
EPILOGUE
APPENDICES
1. The composition of the modern atmosphere
2. The Beaufort scale
3. The Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale
4. Hurricane strikes in the U.S.
5. Canadian tropical cyclone statistics
6. World's worst tropical cyclones
(hurricanes and typhoons, by year, with casualties)
7. Wind speed variation within the hurricane eyewall, by elevation
8. Worst winter storms on record
9. The Fujita tornado scale
10. Worst tornadoes in the twentieth century by year
11. Wind force table
12. Canadian wind chill index
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
CHAPTER ONE
Wind's Mystery and Meaning
The story of Hurricane Ivan: It began, as these things so often do, long ago and far, far away. Long ago, at least, in the reckoning of weathermen, and far away at least as seen from the Caribbean and the east coast of North America, where the storm's full fury would in due time be unleashed. In the course of its tumultuous and destructive life, the cyclone they came to call Ivan would exemplify all the perilous uncertainties and complex patterns of global climatology (and exaggerate my own rather paranoid view of hard weather), but its beginning was hidden, even secretive, and could only be seen in rueful hindsight.
In the spring of 2004, it rained in Darfur, the Sudanese hellhole wracked by decades of civil war. Darfur is on the southeastern fringes of the endless emptiness of the Sahara, and its soil, beaten down from too many cattle and too many goats over too many years of drought, couldn't hold the water. It pooled and then gathered in little muddy torrents that swept away the scattered huts of the countryside. A few days before, the refugees in their grim camps had been dying of thirst—an