Weather Disasters

Man’s struggle against the sea is a theme that has created some of the world’s most exciting stories. Now, in the tradition of Moby Dick comes a New York Times best seller destined to become a modern classic. Written by journalist Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm combines an intimate portrait of a small fishing crew with fascinating scientific data about boats and weather systems.

1816 was a remarkable year - mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.

In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada's oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 90,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the story of this apocalyptic conflagration, John Vaillant explores the past and the future of our ever-hotter, more flammable world.

Buckle up and embark on a journey through some of the notable weather phenomena and natural disasters that occur on our planet. Learn about what causes these phenomena, where they occur on our planet, and what you can do to keep yourself safe should you encounter some of these natural disasters.

With A Furious Sky, Eric Jay Dolin has created a vivid, sprawling account of our encounters with hurricanes, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus's New World voyages to the destruction wrought in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. Weaving a story of shipwrecks and devastated cities, of heroism and folly, Dolin introduces a rich cast of unlikely heroes and puts us in the middle of the most devastating storms of the past, none worse than the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which killed at least 6,000 people, the highest toll of any natural disaster in American history.

Nature has the ability to turn our world into a disaster zone. From blizzards to volcanoes, this series looks at the science behind the destruction. How is a blizzard different from a snowstorm? What causes hurricanes to form? How do you stay safe in an earthquake? Children can answer these questions and more. This volume includes Landslides, Sinkholes, and Tornadoes.

Nature has the ability to turn our world into a disaster zone. From blizzards to volcanoes, this series looks at the science behind the destruction. How is a blizzard different from a snowstorm? What causes hurricanes to form? How do you stay safe in an earthquake? Children can answer these questions and more. This volume includes Earthquakes, Heat Waves, and Hurricanes.

Nature has the ability to turn our world into a disaster zone. From blizzards to volcanoes, this series looks at the science behind the destruction. How is a blizzard different from a snowstorm? What causes hurricanes to form? How do you stay safe in an earthquake? Children can answer these questions and more. This volume includes Avalanches, Blizzards, and Droughts.

Nature has the ability to turn our world into a disaster zone. From blizzards to volcanoes, this series looks at the science behind the destruction. How is a blizzard different from a snowstorm? What causes hurricanes to form? How do you stay safe in an earthquake? Children can answer these questions and more. This volume includes Tsunamis and Volcanoes.

The earth is full of natural dangers that everyone should know how to survive. Step up and learn exactly what these disasters are, how to prepare, and the best ways to brave them.

On October 1, 2015, the SS El Faro, a cargo ship tall as a hundred-story building that made a regular run between Jacksonville, Florida, and Puerto Rico, delivering everything from razor blades to new Chevrolet cars, disappeared in Hurricane Joaquin, a category 4 storm. The ship, her hundreds of shipping containers, and her entire crew sank to the bottom of the ocean, three miles down. The sinking was the greatest seagoing US merchant marine shipping disaster since World War II.

In 1934, hundreds of jobless World War I veterans were sent to the remote Florida Keys to build a highway from Miami to Key West. The Roosevelt Administration was making a genuine effort to help these down-and-out vets. But the attempt to help them turned into a tragedy. The supervisors in charge of the veterans misunderstood the danger posed by hurricanes in the low-lying Florida Keys. The hurricane that struck the Upper Florida Keys on the evening of September 2, 1935, is still the most powerful hurricane to make landfall in the US.

In the span of five violent hours on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed major Gulf Coast cities and flattened 150 miles of coastline. Yet those wind-torn hours represented only the first stage of the relentless triple tragedy that Katrina brought to the entire Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama.

Learn the science behind weather and weather prediction in this clear and straightforward new guide. Weather is everywhere, and while it's typically not thought about most of the time, it can get everyone's attention in an instant - whether it's the swirling destruction of a tornado, the wreckage from a hurricane, or the havoc of climate change on the environment.

An astonishing transformation over the last 20,000 years has seen our planet changed from a frigid wasteland into the temperate world within which our civilization has grown and thrived. This dynamic episode in our planet's history, right at the close of the Ice Age, saw not only a huge temperature hike but also the Earth's crust bouncing and bending in response to the melting of the great ice sheets and the filling of the ocean basins - dramatic geophysical events that triggered earthquakes, spawned tsunamis, and provoked a series of eruptions from the world's volcanoes.

Desert, forest, or prairies—droughts can happen anywhere. Discover how small shifts in rain amounts can cause big changes to the land. Learn about droughts, what causes them, and how living things adapt to survive.

Tornadoes tear through the land, skipping over one street and devastating the next. This account of some of the most extraordinary occurrences surrounding tornadoes combines their science and the personal stories of survivors and witnesses. This story will "blow away" the hardest to please listeners. Tornadoes is part of the Natural Disasters non-fiction series that will engage listeners of all ages, including English Language Learners.

Wildfires have been part of the American landscape for thousands of years. Forests need fire—it's as necessary to their well-being as soil and sunlight. But some fires burn out of control, destroying everything and everyone in their path.

Most people associate storms and other big weather with death - with the kind of force that makes each of us wonder about life, time, and the nature of our surroundings. Some people go out looking for bad weather or go to places where they're likely to encounter it. Others have the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, the stories in Storm have more to say than that.

It's hurricane season. Scientists have detected a storm at sea, and it's growing. Learn about how these monster storms form, how scientists track them, and how people respond to their destruction.