Customer Reviews

Freaks of the Storm: From Flying Cows to Stealing Thunder: The World's Strangest True Weather Stories

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cerveny has organized his book into sections of types of weather oddities, e.g. hurricanes, hail, tornados, with additional sections at the end for extremes, and one odd weather story for every state in the United States, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There are numerous small photographs and other illustrations throughout. The book doesn't have narrative flow, but most parts are pretty gripping. Fascinating though it is to read that some people have survived being picked up by a tornado and spun around in the center, I don't think I'll try it.

The sections on specific types of weather usually have thirteen parts, "lucky" thirteen being safety measures. One can hope that people who think that strength of character is sufficient protection from extreme weather will learn a little sense. Made me try to remember where my portable radio is!

Obviously, weather buffs will eat this up. It is also a great book for anyone who like collections of oddities from such "fortean" authors as Charles Berlitz - the advantage is, these are much more likely to be true. Cerveny includes some legends, biblical stories and credible reports, although he is careful to specify when something is considered to be official. He notes that although "ball" lightening has not been scientifically observed, most experts agree that the large number of sightings indicate that it must exist.

It is also an interesting book for picking up and thumbing through at odd moments. I think I was most struck by the case of a PINE plank that was driven through an IRON girder by a tornado. How is that even possible?!

I was torn between giving this a 4 or a 5. Cerveny could do with reading a little more broadly - 1757 was not the Middle Ages in Germany (p.85). Citations are often giving a rather general terms without precise dates or pagination.

There is an extensive bibliography as well as a detailed index.

I enjoy reading and learning about weather. In all my science classes, I never got much instruction about how weather works...even in physics. So now I am pursuing learning about it for my own curiosity and protection. Being deaf in an area which occasionally sees tornadoes and the end parts of hurricanes, which can be devastating here because of flooding, I have no way to hear the sirens they blare when approaching bad weather occurs. Unfortunately, this is a major problem for most deaf people, and no one seems to be doing anything about it. The only person who died two years ago when PIttsburgh got clobbered by 3 hurricanes in rapid succession, was a deaf man who did not know the area was flooding. This happens on a regular basis.

Anyway, I could see that this book was less about weather and more about the odd things that happen in bad weather. The book explains where a lot of old sayings come from, and the possible/probable reasons for 'raining fish' and other such things. This book had a lot of information in it I had read before in more serious books, but there were some good stories in it also.

This isn't the book you want if you are serious about learning about weather. Like I said, the author who is a weather researcher, gathered up all these stories especially in our country about weather. I am sure in every country and language, there are similar stories to be told about horrific weather...the U.S. is unique in some ways for having to bear the brunt of the Atlantic hurricanes. I am sure there are unexplored places in Russian where there may be weather phenomena we are not familiar with...as well as interesting stories from the people who inhabit such places. It would have been interesting to get more information from other countries.

The writing is so-so. Definitely not on par with Erik Larson's Issac's Storm, which I think is a classic of this genre.

Karen Sadler

Any interested in weather and its changing impact on human lives will find FREAKS OF THE STORM: THE WORLD'S STRANGEST TRUE WEATHER STORIES a compelling presentation. From freak hailstones with horns and colored snowflakes to rainfalls of frogs, climatologist Randy Cerveny uses his database of some 8,000 recorded strange weather events to provide a lively survey of the many forms of strange weather. Even leisure browsers with little usual interest in weather will find it a fun survey.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

The storms were exciting and spell binding. It held my attention for hours on end. I recommend this book for all who enjoys a thrilling read. Thank you.

Karen Kay Ullom

I enjoyed learning about many facts of the weather through embellished stories and documented happenings. It seems so much more entertaining and easier to digest that just a straight book of facts. It was interesting to learn how weather and weather instruments developed over the centuries. The book also references many other books to follow your desire for more info on any weather topic. Well worth the price.

I enjoyed the wide variety of anecdotes and fascinating weather stories in "Freaks of the Storm", but it was difficult to read them with the almost constant barrage of typos and grammatical errors. There are sentences lacking a subject, or with words mixed around. The "District of Colombia" is not part of the United States (try "District of Columbia). A marker for a grave is described as a "moment" instead of "monument". A board blown through the air by tornado supposedly "skewed" a carpenter working on a building's roof (instead of "skewered"). There are more, more, more, so many such problems that I found myself looking for them on each page.

Please, somebody, edit this book carefully for subsequent printings! It's not fair to make readers constantly double back to figure out what was meant by scrambled sentences and misspelled or incorrect words!

This is a great book to have on a table to spark some conversation. It has amazing pictures and stories. There are a few errors I noticed, two so far, in which the author refers to something he says he previously said, but which isn't there, and another odd error. I'll be more specific later. I rated it four stars because of those errors.

Interesting subject matter -- TERRIBLE writing! Doesn't his guy know someone in the English Department? I can't believe a publisher let this through with all the spelling and grammatical errors. Plus, some of the writing is downrigh turgid (that's a word the author will no doubt have to look up).

I have to confess that I am not a weather buff, but the subject matter is very intriguing. Who wouldn't want to read about people seeing into the vortex of a tornado, or a person having the car he was driving safely lifted and set down onto the top of a building by a tornado? There are many great stories here. There is also a lot of interesting information about how weather forms, as well as countless quotes from scientists and weather observers from the past several thousand years.
Cerveny is very knowledgeable about weather, however, he apparently does not understand some of the basic points of good writing. There are many redundancies such as "fatally killing" on page 50 and again "fatally struck and killed" on page 64, to name a few. Some points the author makes are obvious, such as on pages 104-105 in which Cerveny quotes another scientist to come to the stunning conclusion that the sound of hail comes from "the combined sound of hailstones falling on surface objects." Duh! There is also an error on pp. 104-105. Section 9 of the Hail chapter, "The Sound of Hail" progresses to Section 9 (instead of 10) "Most Hail Accumulation." Was there an editor for this book? Apparently, the author is a contributing editor for Weatherwise, the magazine, but someone should have checked his writing. I recently finished a Master's degree in another field (not English, by the way) and, though my own writing is far from perfect, my professors would never have let me get away with the errors I find every time I pick up this book. There is a wealth of interesting information here, but the writing problems are a major distraction.

This book is almost an encyclopedia of weather phenomena and related stories. In about 340 pages of text, the author recounts over 500 weather-related stories, all categorized by the type of weather phenomenon involved, e.g., tornadoes, hail, rain, snow, etc. The author's writing style is very friendly and engaging; the reader can tell that he has a passion for his subject matter. In most cases, some possible scientific explanations are given for the odd events; in other cases, no explanations are given other than, perhaps, a tongue-in-cheek comment alluding to the veracity of the story. The author's sources are given as is a discussion on some weather archivists - both past and present. This is a very entertaining book and a very easy and enjoyable read. Since most people are interested in the weather, this book should be very popular with just about everyone.