Why does it rain mainly on the plain?

December 29, 2008 12:42 AM

Please reccommend books of all kinds about weather forecasting and meteorology . . .

I live in the Alps and work in the ski industry, so weather is a pretty constantly pervading factor in my working life and daily routine. However, I have only a casually gleaned base of knowledge in this area, which I would like to extend.

Ideas on anything from a light hearted read (e.g.) to weighty reference tomes would be appreciated.

posted by protorp to Science & Nature (9 answers total)

I highly recommend The Cloudspotter's Guide, which is informative and quite funny at times.
posted by jquinby at 6:24 AM on December 29, 2008

I took an "Intro to Meteorology" class last semester, and the textbook we used was Meteorology Today. I thought it explained things very clearly, and had a lot of in-depth information on how the weather works.

It's pretty expensive, but you could get an older edition for a lot cheaper.
posted by spockette at 7:12 AM on December 29, 2008

Cliff Mass, famed meteorologist of the Puget Sound area, has a new book out. (It's sold out right now because of the wacky weather we've had this month, but they're frantically printing more.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:18 AM on December 29, 2008 [1 favorite]

I came here to recommend Cliff Mass's book. It's about the American Northwest, but his explanations are fantastic.
posted by proj at 7:58 AM on December 29, 2008

I'm a big fan of books written for people who need to know a subject in order to do a different job. As in, math texts written for engineers are invariably better than math texts written for mathematicians. With that in mind, the book Aviation Weather, published by the Federal Aviation Administration for pilot training, is dirt cheap and a really good overview of the subject.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 8:30 AM on December 29, 2008

My meteorology class used The Weather Book as a supplemental text, and the professor often used graphics from the book in his lectures.
posted by amarynth at 9:43 AM on December 29, 2008

I second Meteorology Today. This is a great book for the intermediate level knowledge of meteorology. I had an easy time finding beginning books about meteorology, and an easy time finding very technical books about meteorology, but not much in between. This book is a great book for that gap. It assumes that you know some basics of meteorology and it introduces a lot of the more technical aspects of meteorology. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a book for this level of knowledge.
posted by jefeweiss at 10:02 AM on December 29, 2008

Isaac's Storm is an account of the hurricane that destroyed Galveston in 1900. It focuses on the weatherman who was assigned to Galveston and on the history of the Weather Service, but also goes into meteorologic details about hurricanes and weather in general. More of a light read on the scientific side, but an interesting story well told.
posted by otolith at 11:46 AM on December 29, 2008

Perhaps a bit off topic but this book is a lot of fun.
posted by wittgenstein at 4:17 PM on December 29, 2008