Weather Disasters

January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent.

The New England landscape has long been battered by some of the most intense weather in the United States. The region breeds one of the highest concentrations of meteorologists in the country for a reason. One can experience just about anything except a dust storm. Knowing the past is a critical part of understanding and forecasting the weather. Meteorologist Eric Fisher takes an in-depth look at some of the most intense weather events in New England's history.

In 1934, hundreds of jobless World War I veterans were sent to the remote Florida Keys to build a highway from Miami to Key West. The Roosevelt Administration was making a genuine effort to help these down-and-out vets. But the attempt to help them turned into a tragedy. The supervisors in charge of the veterans misunderstood the danger posed by hurricanes in the low-lying Florida Keys. The hurricane that struck the Upper Florida Keys on the evening of September 2, 1935, is still the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the US.

Learn the science behind weather and weather prediction in this clear and straightforward new guide. Weather is everywhere, and while it's typically not thought about most of the time, it can get everyone's attention in an instant - whether it's the swirling destruction of a tornado, the wreckage from a hurricane, or the havoc of climate change on the environment.

On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a cargo ship tall as a hundred-story building that made a regular run between Jacksonville, Florida, and Puerto Rico, delivering everything from razor blades to new Chevrolet cars, disappeared in Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 storm. The ship, her hundreds of shipping containers, and her entire crew sank to the bottom of the ocean, three miles down. The sinking was the greatest seagoing US merchant marine shipping disaster since World War II.

In 2006 freelance photojournalist and amateur climber Nick van der Leek wrote a five page analysis of the 1996 Everest disaster titled MOUNTAIN MADNESS, and published in HEARTLAND magazine. His distillation was described at the time by THE CLIMB co-author, Weston DeWalt, as ‘the clearest exposition of the 1996 disaster I have ever seen’. Now, nine years later, having honed his penmanship within the rigors and deceits of the True Crime genre, Nick van der Leek is taking on the Everest narrative once more but with a fresh approach. Compared to his 2006 article, NEVEREST is a much larger ...

By the end of the 1996 season - the deadliest in the history of Mount Everest - 13 climbers in all had perished. If it wasn’t the weather, and if it wasn't just the presence of journalists, what else fatally compromised Rob Hall's team, the Adventure Consultants? Were they really on a winning wicket when things "suddenly" went south on summit day, or was something else insidiously eating at the team's ability to perform all along? If so, what was it? What was the actual psychology that drove a record number of strong, brave men – and a Japanese woman – to certain death? On May 10 two ...

Dangerous winds. Torrential rains. Toppled trees. The roaring winds and sheets of rain brought on by a hurricane can cause a devastating amount of damage in a short time. Get an up-close look at how these swirling storms form and learn about some of history’s worst hurricanes.

In the ongoing saga of the Zombie Rules series, Zach, his family and friends are lured from their home in Tennessee and relocate to a post-apocalyptic bunker known as Mount Weather, nestled in rural Virginia. They have been promised a better life by none other than the President himself. Zach's apparent immunity to the zombie virus may hold the key to creating a vaccine and securing a future for the human race.

With waves crashing down from heights of 100 feet (30 meters) or more, tsunamis are powerful forces of nature. The towering wall of water can demolish buildings and leave entire cities underwater. Climb to higher ground and explore the world’s worst tsunamis.

Rescue of the Bounty is the harrowing story of the sinking and rescue of Bounty - the tall ship used in the classic 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty - which was caught in the path of Hurricane Sandy with 16 aboard.

Brace for Impact: Stories of Hope and Horror Fifteen plane crashes. Fifteen stories of survival. From the frozen wastelands of Siberia to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, Brace for Impact captures the raw terror, resilience, and impossible decisions faced by those who lived through aviation disasters. Some found hope in the wreckage—others faced the brutal realities of isolation, injury, and the unforgiving elements. Told with gripping intensity, these true-to-life narratives echo the haunting suspense of your favorite Survival Stories, placing you inside the doomed cabins, the ...

Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years, she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addict brother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal. She's become famous for her prescient podcast, Hell and High Water, and wants to hire Lizzie to answer the mail she receives.

It's hurricane season. Scientists have detected a storm at sea, and it's growing. Learn about how these monster storms form, how scientists track them, and how people respond to their destruction.

The storm isn’t the only thing that kills. When a supercell touches down across the American Midwest, seasoned storm chasers race to capture its fury. But as the skies darken and the winds rise, a violent gang of looters follows the destruction—robbing, hunting, and silencing anyone in their way. Caught between the storm and the savages, a scattered group of chasers must survive tornadoes, betrayal, and chaos on the open road. As towns are shredded and secrets exposed, only one thing is certain: not everyone will make it out alive. Perfect for fans of Twister, Into the Storm, and ...

On the night of September 20, 1938, the news on the radio was full of Hitler's pending invasion of Czechoslovakia. Severe weather wasn't mentioned; only light rain was forecast for the following day. In a matter of hours, however, a hurricane of unprecedented force would tear through one of the wealthiest and most populated stretches of coastline in America, obliterating communities from Long Island to Providence, destroying entire fishing fleets from Montauk to Narragansett Bay.

Describes the process of how tornadoes can form. Also includes explanations of updrafts, downdrafts, thunderstorms, rotation, and funnel clouds.

Filled with real accounts of the devastating power of hurricanes, this audiobook takes listeners into the eye of the storm - where it may be calm, clear, and sunny, but surrounding you on all sides are black clouds and rampaging winds. Here, you'll come face-to-face with some of the greatest hurricanes in history through firsthand accounts from people who survived these destructive storms. You'll see the frightful sights and hear the roaring sounds these witnesses experienced during their harrowing ordeals.

Who was this Rita Ten Grieve? Greenpeace operative? Point person for some mysterious, deep-state conspiracy or NOAA-led, wild-eyed crusade? Ghostly emissary from the datasphere, wherever that might be? Or just a crazy stalker, a crackpot on a mission? That’s what Jake Krimmer, Rita’s latest “client,” wants to know, as Rita coaxes him into playing her “little game of grieves.” Jake’s making a fortune by predicting the calamitous effects of “weird weather.” He’d sooner forswear beef, take cold showers, and drive around in a battery-powered go-kart than be subjected to ...

Taking listeners from the melting Alaskan permafrost to storm-torn New Orleans, acclaimed journalist Elizabeth Kolbert approaches this monumental problem from every angle. She interviews researchers and environmentalists, explains the science, draws frightening parallels to lost civilizations, and presents the moving tales of people who are watching their worlds disappear.