“ STORM” by George R. Stewart, should be REQUIRED READING if you are a meteorologist, meteorology student, deal with or communicate California weather, anyone whose day-to-day activities in California are impacted by the weather or just a weather enthusiast. I have just finished rereading it for probably the 5th time and couldn’t put it down.
I first read “Storm” when I was an NWS meteorologist intern in 1975 and identified with one of the characters in the book, the Junior Meteorologist (JM) at the Weather Bureau in San Francisco. Over the years, I have given or loaned copies to over a dozen friends and colleagues and even though it was written in 1941, the meteorology is still sound and incredibly insightful. Likewise, the impact of a storm across California for 12 days in a winter where there had been early talk of a drought resonates strongly with this year’s headlines. Interwoven throughout the book are the interactions between the weather, the utilities, railroads, commerce, the airlines and people, which are just as relevant today as they were almost 80 years ago.
Please, do yourself a favor and track down a copy. It’s in many libraries, plus I often find copies squirreled away in used bookstores and there are numerous versions available on Amazon and now on AUDIBLE. (When you finish “Storm”, read Stewart’s “Fire” which looks at another timely topic, the impact of a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada.)
