Customer Reviews

The Rough Guide to Weather 2 (Rough Guide Reference)

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This book was a real disappointment. I very much enjoyed the Rough Guide to Climate Change, and I fully expected this book to be just as well written.
I suppose the book works for some intended audience: those afraid of science and with no patience for trying to figure things out. It presents only a very superficial overview of the why and wherefore of weather, glossing over things like why the jet stream is where it is and flows as it does, or the significance of say a 500mb contour chart, or even something as basic as the relationship between fronts and low pressure centers. We get brief mentions of such things in the context of a very cursory summary of the science behind the weather.
The book does have a strength though. The second half of the book is a survey of weather by geographic region. This part of the book does provide some good insights into the weather patterns that affect a given region. It isn't just a compendium of average temperatures and such.
So for the traveler who wants a brief introduction to weather science and some good descriptions of regional weather trends, this is probably a good resource. It isn't really a very good introduction to meteorology though.

This book is up to date, well written and thorough, one of the best books I have ever read on weather, M. R.