Weather Extremes of the West

A rare and deadly twister rips through parts of Oregon and Washington. Haboobs strip paint off cars in Arizona. A dramatic two-hour temperature gyration from 4??F to 54??F and then back to 4??F breaks plate-glass windows in Spearfish, South Dakota. Most of the wildness of the western frontier may have gone the way of the buffalo, but weather, as meteorologist Tye Parzybok illustrates in Weather Extremes of the West, is still a wild beast. From the windswept High Plains to the mossy Pacific Coast, weather runs rampant flooding, burning, and blowing its way across the western landscape. Parzybok highlights the West s most notorious historical weather events in easily understood prose, with photographs, figures, and satellite images to explain the workings of the West s most unique, and regularly occurring, weather phenomena. With a multitude of statistics and scientific information, he explains what is causing the Salt Lake basin s lake stink, how wide-open spaces influence Texas s fearsome windstorms called Blue Northers, and why Albuquerque s box effect draws balloonists from around the world. Both meteorologists and weather junkies will find Weather Extremes illuminating and entertaining.