Storm Kings

Starred review from December 3, 2012
James Espy, the first meteorologist in America, thought of tornadoes as “rapidly rising column of air” that operated according to the laws of steam power, pumping warm air into cold; his lifelong rival, William Redfield, maintained that the storms were “gigantic whirlwind, spinning around a moving center like a top.” Though they were essentially espousing “two halves of the same process,” they were never able to reconcile their differences and find common ground. Sandlin, however, deftly synthesizes and illuminates the duality of his title—both the tornado itself, which early settlers in America referred to as “the Storm King”; and the individuals who made it their life’s work to document, predict, and better understand those despots of the plains. Legendary storms roil throughout the text, from the funnel of fire—or as one eyewitness (whose eyeballs were consequently seared) described it, “the finger of God”—that destroyed Peshtigo, Wis., in 1871, scorching over a million acres and killing 1,500 people, to the Tristate Tornado of 1925, which rampaged for 219 miles across parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. On ground level, Sandlin describes mankind’s efforts to comprehend storms, from Ben Franklin’s famous kite experiment to the F1–5 intensity rating system developed by Japanese immigrant Tetsuya Fujita. Sandlin makes talking about the weather much more than a conversational nicety—he makes it come brilliantly to life. 16 pages of b&w illus. Agent: Danielle Egan-Miller, Browne and Miller Literary Associates.

February 1, 2013
Sandlin (Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild, 2010, etc.) offers a lively account of early investigators who, through both "grinding stupidity and unaccountable insights," eventually came to understand and learned to coexist with--but never tame--the furious force of tornadoes. Today, SUVs laden with all sorts of gizmos, plus many "weather tourists," travel the roads of Tornado Alley (Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa), part of a deep American "tradition of obsessive hunting" for the elusive twister. More elusive was hard information beyond folk tales on why tornadoes were so destructive, wiping out towns and killing hundreds in a minute. Sandlin starts his tale with Benjamin Franklin and his casual fascination with "whirlwinds." But the real story begins with James Espy, America's first official meteorologist. In the 1830s and beyond, Espy came up with ideas both accurate and silly: Tornadoes might be caused by convection, warm air rising to meet cold air. Therefore, the climate of the continent could be controlled by the judicious building of very large fires. Espy feuded with other early tornado devotees over matters trivial and substantive before yielding to a younger generation just as contentious. In the late 1800s, John Park Finley and the military's Signal Corps developed a system of weather forecasts. Yet Finley feuded with Henry Hazen, who believed massive dynamiting would destroy tornadoes. All involved seemed to have feuded with Washington politics and bureaucracy, to the point that while America's heartland became increasingly populated, and tornadoes a greater threat, in the first decades of the 20th century, the federal government kept no records of tornadoes at all. While later investigators with more sophisticated technology made significant gains in our understanding of tornadoes, Sandlin's story is really one of how science gets done amid, and despite, clashes of ego and political interference. Well-constructed history of the politics and personalities of weather.

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Starred review from February 15, 2013

Here Sandlin (Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild) relates the history of meteorology and tornadoes in the United States from colonial times to the present. The subtitle is misleading: it's not a history of tornado chasing but a history of American meteorological science, especially government and military research. Sandlin's narrative style shows influences of James Michener, for he follows his subject through generations of change. The book traces the development of the U.S. Army's Signal Corps and its contributions to tornado science. The author demonstrates that 19th-century meteorology was competitive, with scientists loudly airing their competing theories in the public arena. As people began to migrate into the tornado belt, the need for accurate forecasts increased, yet tornado science lagged until after World War II, when surplus radar units helped improve forecasting. The final chapter relates the author's experiences in a recent tornado chase, creating a surreal and almost poetic conclusion. VERDICT This remarkable and gripping book will appeal to those studying the history of science, the U.S. military, and weather forecasting.--Jeffrey Beall, Univ. of Colorado, Denver Lib.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2013
Long before a tornado whisked Dorothy off to the magical Land of Oz, Americans have been both terrified and fascinated by these furious black whirlwinds. Sandlin, whose Wicked River: The Mississippi When It Last Ran Wild (2010) profiled another unruly natural phenomenon, will keep readers thoroughly engrossed in this account of America's first tornado chasers. Not surprisingly, Sandlin begins with that famous colonial kite-and-key-wielding amateur electrician, Ben Franklin, who, before entering politics, often pondered the mystery of wilderness windroads and a landspout he witnessed one blustery Maryland day. A generation later, during the mid-1800s, the nation's foremost meteorologists were James Espy and William Redfield, whose conflicting theories of tornado formation fueled a decades-long bitter rivalry. Along with describing how these early weather enthusiasts painstakingly probed twister secrets, Sandlin also gives chilling accounts of several infamous tornado catastrophes, including the 1871 fire tornado in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, that killed 1,500 people. Fans of Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers and anyone who secretly venerates tornadoes will find Sandlin's history captivating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)