Inside the Hurricane: Face to Face with Nature's Deadliest Storms (Hardcover)

~ Pete Davies (Author) "Shaped like a rough stone dagger pointing downward, the island of Guanaja lies thirty miles north of the Caribbean coast of Honduras..." (more)
Key Phrases: major hurricane activity, forecast track, named storms, Mike Black, Frank Marks, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In October 1998, a tropical wave (a.k.a. "seedling disturbance") churned up in the waters off West Africa, where the hot air masses of the Sahara and the tropics meet the cold wall of the Atlantic Ocean. This "bundle of disarranged weather," in Pete Davies's memorable phrase, gathered strength as it passed across the ocean, emerging days later as the catastrophic Hurricane Mitch, which devastated huge sections of the Caribbean and Central America and killed thousands of people.

Mitch fascinated storm-chasing meteorologists, who, in the main, failed to predict the storm's intensity and to track it accurately. They failed for good reason, Davies suggests: these scientific heroes, the kind of men and women who think nothing of flying through the eyewall of great storms to see what's inside, catalogue their findings through research programs that, Davies writes, are woefully underfunded and understaffed. The United States sends up only two sets of weather balloons a day, many other hurricane-prone countries lack the resources to send up any balloons at all, and a key satellite failed during the storm. Despite the destruction that Mitch wrought, and despite a mountain of evidence that shows that storms are becoming ever more severe in their intensity as a result of global warming, "the world's upper-air network is being steadily degraded" as governments seek to cut their budgets. All of which, Davies suggests, means that although doomsday storms may become commonplace, our ability to foresee them and guess at their landfalls is an iffy matter at best, all for want of a few dollars more. "This is a prospect," he writes, "that good and credible science lays before us--good science done by brave men on a puny budget--and it's a prospect that the people of Honduras already understand far too well."

Inside the Hurricane is an engaging introduction to the minutiae of storm-watching and an impassioned argument that we need to keep a closer eye on the sky. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

By going literally inside the hurricane, Davies (Storm Country, etc.) carries journalistic thoroughness to extremes. Not content merely to study the inner workings of hurricanes through articles, textbooks and interviews, Davies arranged to participate in cutting-edge research with the scientists at the National Hurricane Center and other research facilities in Florida, even flying with them into, through, and around the powerful storms. Through Davies's eyes and ears, readers will learn the basic meteorology of these storms, the instruments used to study them and the computers that simulate and predict their behavior. Yet this is more a human story than a scientific one. Davies introduces members of meteorological research teams, whose work blends fascination with powerful natural phenomena, scientific curiosity, thrill-seeking and determination to provide life-saving early warnings when killer storms, such as 1992's Andrew, approach. In detail so relentless that many readers will find it overwhelming, Davies shares the 1998 and 1999 hurricane seasons: the compact yet powerful Bret; the monstrous Floyd, which dropped rivers from the North Carolina sky, killing far more people by inland flooding than by wind; and the devastating Mitch, which set impoverished but developing Honduras back two decades. In his final chapters, Davies presents the meteorological argument that the world's oceans are entering two decades of more numerous and powerful tropical cyclones, part of a normal climatic cycle. He ends with the forecast for 2000Abad, but probably less severe than 1999Aand a persuasive argument for increased funding for hurricane research.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (September 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805065741
• ISBN-13: 978-0805065749
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,390,461 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting topic, uneven text, February 18, 2001

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Inside the Hurricane" is far more interesting than several other recent weather books (the horrid "Tying down the Wind" and the ho-hum "Eye of the Storm"). Author Pete Davies provides an exccelent account of Hurricanes Mitch and Floyd and the horrendous damage they wrought. He also sounds a dire warning about the near certainty that the Gulf or East Coasts of the U.S. will someday experience a catastrophe of epic proportions. Imagine, writes the author, if Mitch had followed the same storm track as Hurricane Irene, a Catagory 1 storm that deluged Miami not long after Floyd made headlines.

A lion's share of author Pete Davies's narrative involves the stories of the forecasters and storm chasers who track these meteorlogical beasts. And while their stories are somtimes interesting, they don't have the same power as the descriptions of the hurricaines themselves. Overall however, "Inside the Hurricane" is a decent book for weather-philes.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, Despite Being a Bit Uneven, November 3, 2000

By	Paul (New Orleans) - See all my reviews

"Inside the Hurricane: Face to Face With Nature's Deadliest Storms", is worthwhile for anyone interested in learning more about hurricanes. This book concentrates on following the 1999 hurricane season, with an examination of the horror inflicted by 1998's Category 5 Hurricane Mitch, which killed at least 9,000 people in Central America. The author gives a riveting account of the power of Mitch, telling of its absolute devastion to the nation of Honduras.

The author concentrates on the Hurricane Research Division (HRD), the scientists who try to learn more on these powerful storms, and who fly into them for first-hand scientific observation,and the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the people responsible for making the forecasts as to where these dangerous storms will go. This is interesting stuff, especially when the scientists fly into the storms.

Unfortunately, it seems that that the author simply took info off his tape recorder and stuck it into the book, beacause a lot of the heavy science conversations which are included in this book do not have enough explanation or context.

This book is also hindered by certain editorial decisions. This book suffers from the lack of maps showing the tracks of the hurricanes the author discusses, especially because the author spends a great deal of time discussing the meandering nature of the hurricanes.

The book also contains some minor errors, some of which can be chalked up to the author not being a native American (e.g., describing as one of the highest points in Florida as "Disney's Magic Mountain", when everyone knows that he meant Disney's Space Mountain.) While these minor errors do not really detract from this book, and the above-average number of typos is not much of a problem, the real problem comes from the feel that there are times when this author does not go into needed detail. For example, the author talks about the rapid intensification of Hurricanes Opal and Camille, but while the author examined the rapid intensification of Opal, he made no such prior mention of Camille.

The author fails to provide detail in other areas. While expalantions are provided for some criticism of the media, we really don't know why the huuricane jocks at HRD are so critical of the Weather Channel's staff, especially weatherman Jim Cantori. This book has a slap-dash feel.

However, the descriptions of the hurricanes themselves surpass the author's limitations in other areas of writing. As a native of New Orleans, I've seen my share of hurricanes. One of my earliest memories is of Hurricane Betsy. I lost family in Hurricane Camille. I was one of the tens of thousands of people who evacuted, with my family, from 1998's Hurricane Georges, which was a near miss. I've done research on hurricanes for school, so I have a bit more scientific and personal knowledge than the general public. There are flaws in this book, but the postives far out weigh the negatives.

The author has not written the perfect book on hurricanes, but he is to be commended for spelling out the dangers these massive storms pose, for pointing out the lack of funding which goes into hurricane research, and for his skill in relating the tragedy which is inflicted on hurricane victims, especially the devastation of Hounduras.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Good science done by brave men on a puny budget", February 4, 2001

By	Susan Paxton (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews

Pete Davies spent the 1999 hurricane season with the scientists of the National Hurricane Center in Miami as they studied a series of fascinating and intense hurricanes and struggled with budget limitations that are, in these times of surplus, increasingly inane and unforgivable. Davies' writing is vivid and gripping; his descriptions of the devastation of Hurricane Mitch and the experience of people in the midst of the storm are absolutely unforgettable. Davies also flew missions with the NOAA's P-3 hurricane hunter aircraft and gives a good feel for the combination of raw excitement, pure terror, and occasional boredom of these epic flights. One thing missing from the book were any charts, maps, or diagrams; an appendix containing the Saffir-Simpson scale would have been nice. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in hurricanes, which should be anyone who lives in the United States. Even if your state is out of the reach of hurricane damage (and few actually are), the devastation caused by these vast and increasingly dangerous storms can cause economic disaster and human suffering on a scale not exceeded by any other natural disaster. And after reading, contact your congressional representatives and express to them your dismay that funding for important research remains at pittance levels. Too often Americans brainlessly run around chanting "We're Number One!" when what is really needed is a good long look at how money is spent in this country and who truly benefits from government funding.