By Cat Holmes
University of Georgia

When University of Georgia meteorologist John Knox set out to
write an introductory textbook on meteorology, he wanted it to be
as compelling as the first thunderstorm he remembers during a
baseball game in Birmingham, Ala., when he was 4 years old.

He also wanted to feature the dramatic weather of the South,
where he grew up and lives today.

“Textbooks can be general and boring,” Knox said. “I wanted a
book that catches the eye and captures the imagination the way
any good book does: by telling good stories. Everyone has a good
weather story, (whether it’s) the time grandpa was in the tornado
or the year the blizzard knocked the power out.”

And so, “Meteorology: Understanding the Atmosphere” begins with
the storm that first caught Knox’s attention:

“It’s a hot, muggy summer night at the baseball stadium. …
Midway through the game … the weather takes a violent turn.
High winds suddenly blow chairs off the stadium roof. Then the
sky explodes with light and sound as lightning strikes an
electric transformer on a pole out beyond center field. A
fireball dances along the power lines and the stadium lights go
dark.”

The sort of fare that keeps millions glued to the Weather Channel
during a storm, Knox hopes, will hold the attention of college
students taking introductory meteorology classes nationwide.

The textbook, co-authored with Steve Ackerman of the University
of Wisconsin-Madison and published by Brooks/Cole, is the first
to put a consistent focus on weather phenomena in the South and
Midwest. Until now, weather textbooks have focused on weather
conditions elsewhere — the Northeast, for example, or the
West.

Good stories aside, there are good economic reasons to focus on
weather conditions specific to the South, Knox said.

“The South may not necessarily have the most photogenic weather,”
Knox said. “But because the South is more heavily populated than
the West, storms in the South can be much more devastating, doing
more damage to people and structures.”

Indeed, Knox points out that during the 1990s, Georgia recorded
$4.3 billion in weather-related losses and government
assistance.

While the textbook doesn’t focus solely on the South, it does
take on topics overlooked before now. Among them are the “cold
air damming” and “rain shadow” effects of the Blue Ridge and
Smoky mountains and the potential for severely eroding shorelines
along the Georgia, Florida and Louisiana coasts in the event of
global warming.

The book even addresses the perennial question: Are tornadoes
attracted to mobile homes? The answer, in case you’re interested,
is no. The reason mobile homes are often struck is simply because
there are so many of them. In the past 20 years, their number has
quadrupled in the Southeast.

“No, tornados are not attracted to trailer parks,” Knox said.
“It’s just a bad confluence of economics and weather.”

The recently published textbook has been well received around the
country. Filled with dramatic photos and colorful charts, it is
visually arresting.

It has been nominated for the William Henry Fox Talbot Prize (the
“Talby”), with which the Society of Academic Authors recognizes
excellence in visuals in textbooks and other learning
materials.

The text’s accompanying Web site includes original Java applets
that extend the book’s treatment of key topics such as weather
map analysis, satellite interpretations and numerical weather
models.

To access these applets, go to the book’s website at info.brookscole.com/
ackerman> and click on “book companion site” in the box on
the right. On the left side of the page, you can click on
“Applets.” Knox particularly recommends Chapter 6’s “Friction and
Fly Balls.”

“I think the applets are awesome,” Knox said. “Meteorology has
needed simple video-game-like instructional methods for decades.
And these applets are some of the first I’ve ever seen that
actually do the jobs of teaching and entertaining.”

(Cat Holmes is a science writer with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)