Customer Reviews

Under the Whirlwind: Everything You Need to Know about Tornadoes But Didn't Know Who to Ask

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Although the authors are Canadian, and aim the book at an audience north of the U.S., American weather enthusiasts and anyone wondering about tornadoes will soak this up. "Under the Whirlwind" is a solid work overall; and for a self-published book, it is amazingly informative and accurate. Readers may be as surprised at the Verkaiks' insight into severe storms issues, since they are not meteorologists. However, their devotion to learning scientific concepts, combined with their extensive storm observing experience and conversational writing style, allows them to succeed with this book. Although the reading is light in a purely technical sense, I found only a few typos and insignificant errors. More important are the clear messages of practicality, realism, education and compassion in the book -- which includes numerous suvivors' tales as well as segments on insurance coverage and helping children to deal with storm-related tragedy. The authors convey a wise message of safety and responsibility as well, for example: "After damaging tornadoes strike there are usually calls for better alert systems -- more bells and whistles.... But the best warning you can have comes from keeping your eye on the sky."

The illustrations are numerous and excellent, without peer in popular severe weather literature. Their deep artistic and educational appreciation for the wonders of a stormy sky pours forth in the form of dozens of full-color photos -- many consisting of spectacular storm structure scenes taken on their forays to the American Great Plains. These aren't presented just to show off the Verkaiks' mastery of storm photography, but to aid in interpreting cloud features. There are also several interesting, high-quality, contributed photos of Canadian tornadoes which never have been published before. The Verkaiks richly endow the volume with drawings, tables and color graphs as well, including numerous inset trivia boxes scattered throughout the book related to debunked tornado myths and tornado oddities.

Because this hasn't been a widely advertised book or peddled by a major publishing house since its 1997 debut, it may go under the radar, so to speak. But it is well worth the cost for students and general audiences curious about the mysteries of tornadoes.

This book has several fascinating accounts of personal encounters with tornadoes and is very informative about the structure and occurance of storms and tornadoes. The descriptions are easy to understand and very detailed. I have been interested in storms for years and have learned a great deal from this book about how to identify parts of a storm and determine how severe it is and may get and where tornodoes will occur. There are many good diagrams and quality color pictures of storms and tornadoes. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in storms but doesn't know all the details about them.

Under The Whirlwind is, one of the best books about tornadoes available. By reading the book, you will gain an amazing amount of knowledge, and be able to look at the sky with amazement and knowledge about what you see happening. It explains everything you ever wanted or need to know about severe weather and tornadoes, and it is written in understandable terms. Buy this book, and impress your friends with your knowledge of the stormy sky!

Well, it's not quite everything, but if you live in the Midwest you should really consider getting this book, whether it be used or new. It offers many different images as far as storm structures, tornado structures and clouds.

Diagrams are offered for 1) viewing the inside of a "worst-first" thunderstorm, 2) viewing the inside of a "worst-last" thunderstorm, 3) inside a tornado, 4) two pages of drawings of different "breeds" of tornadoes, 5) damage paths with debris location, etc.

There are small side notes on almost every page including "weird" information, myths, quick reference, highlights and checklists.

As for beginning chasers or settled chasers with bad luck (such as I), this is a great book to get started with. Aside from Arjen and Jerrine talking about one specific storm that spawned two tornadoes, you'll also learn about "The Storm Environment" (p.68). The Storm Environment explains the different types of clouds that are present with storms and what to expect with them. This section lasts two pages. The "Weather Words" section will get you up to date on your vocabulary used throughout the book. Although there are no scientific words that you'll never understand written throughout the book at all, it does contain words like aloft, updraft, downdraft, inflow, outflow and core. If you're unfamiliar with these words (or you simply think you know what they mean) this could come in handy. A small section is given to weather offices, such as SKYWARN and CANWARN.

This book will also describe to you the difference between a tornado, twister, funnel, funnel cloud, wall cloud, etc. Some of them have no differences at all, even though they are thought to have different meanings.

So far, I have only gotten through the two chapters focusing on Severe Storms and Tornadoes. I'll be back to update the review after I've gotten through the entire book. Enjoy!

I am 10 years old and I have always been fascinated by nature's furocious elements. This book tells true encounters of people who have lived through some of America's worst tornadoes. I recommend it to anyone who shares my interest in extreme weather related stories.

I am very pleased with this book. It gives great in-depth detail about what a victim goes through during a tornado, how to read the stormy sky, about the tornadoes in Ontario, and what to do after a tornado. I have personally met the authors.

~Laura Duchesne (Storm Chaser)

I have been an active Storm Chaser for over 10 years and have read just about every book on storms and tornadoes that I can get my hands on, including text books, and this book was easily one the best and most pleasant to read. A lot of these types of books can feel detached. In other words they may give you great information but it just seems devoid of any real enthusiasm or emotion. That is simply not the case with this book. The authors, Jerrine & Arjen Verkaik, have a real passion for this subject matter and this passion and excitement gets transferred to the written page making the reading far more enjoyable and imo that much easier to remember.

On top of how well its written, it also has a lot of fantastic pictures, illustrations and diagrams which really add to the depth of the writing. The personal experience and expertise that the Verkaik's bring to the table is impressive by any standards and again it just adds a quality and depth to the writing that simply isn't present with a lot of other books. The fact that they are not meteorologists just makes the entire book that much more impressive.

The bottom line - If your interested in storms and tornadoes then this book should be at the top of your to read list. Once finished you will never look at a tornado or storm the same way again. If your an active storm chaser or thinking about getting into storm chasing then this book should be a mandatory addition to your library. Even if you dislike technical books you should give this book a go. The manner in which its written really lifts this book above its competition and ultimately makes it accessible to practically everyone, including those who have a hard time with technical books.

An absolutely brilliant read!