“Touches eloquently on
such topics as windchill, avalanches, hypothermia, and Antarctica, with its six months of night and its overwhelming isolation.”   -Boston Herald

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with the author

Contents

BORN IN THE BELLY OF THE SUN
Snuff out the sun like a candle and what happens to the weather? (Hint: oxygen liquifies at -297 degrees Fahrenheit.)

PINWHEEL
Shakespeare on “red in the morning, sailors take warning.”

A LADDER TO THE SKY
“Why did you let the lady die on
the floor?” Lizzie Bourne and
other visitors to windy
Mount Washington.

FIRE IN THE SKY
Zeus gets mad.

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
The sounds of weather
(Zeus on percussion)

FRESH AIR
How much does
the atmosphere weigh?

CALLING THE CLOUDS NAMES
Luke Howard categories the clouds, and Ben Franklin makes a shocking discovery (but not the one you’re thinking of).

TIPTOEING THROUGH AUTUMN
Foehn, haboob and a dragonfly

WINTER
It’s cold. But Callie the sheepdog doesn’t care.

SNOW AND ICE
This chapter will give you goosebumps.

COLD SPRING
The Fujita scale, the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, and the “year without a summer”

THE INVASION OF SUMMER
Weather folklore

SPIRIT OF THE WINDS
“A hurricane is like a Maine divorce...either way, someone’s going to lose a trailer.” From Galveston to Hurricane Fran to the 1938 New England Hurricane.

TYING DOWN THE WIND
Danger at the Mount Washington Observatory

THE BIG WIND
Sal Pagliuca and the 231-mph word record suface wind

DANCING THE TANGO
WITH MOTHER NATURE
A hike up Mount Washington, with woodpeckers and rime

ADVENTURES IN WEATHER
Read an excerpt from
this chapter.

GOING TO EXTREMES
“What hypothermia does first
is steal your brain.” Mount Aconcagua, cerebral edema
and high-altitude peril

CHASING THE SUN
FROM POLE TO POLE
Sir Francis Drake and
the search for Antarctica

ANTARCTICA
Some people who visit Antarctica never go home.

Appendix
Glossary

Where can you find the worst weather on earth? The surprising answer in Tying Down the Wind is: everywhere! You don’t need to climb Mount Everest or voyage to the icy desert of Antarctica to witness both the beauty and the destructiveness of weather. The same forces are at work in your own backyard.

Tying Down the Wind takes readers on a voyage of discovery through the atmosphere, a swirling ocean of air that surrounds and sustains life. The journey begins in a sunny New England woodlot and ends atop the polar ice of Antarctica—where we learn, remarkably, that the two extremes are not so different.

What triggers changes in the weather? How are tornadoes, thunderstorms, heat waves, and blizzards all related? Tying Down the Wind supplies the answers, and invites you to experience the excitement of the world’s worst weather in the comfort of your own home...or car.

Drawing on the author’s experiences at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Tying Down the Wind revisits the devastating Northeast Ice Storm of 1998, takes readers on a snow-blind walk through a Berkshire blizzard, and describes the impact of a 54,000-
degree lightning bolt just a few yards away.

Excerpts from Tying Down the Wind
“Into Deep Slush” Wade through rivers of slush on the Mount Washington Auto Road during an Observatory EduTrip adventure gone very, very wrong. Sometimes, it’s the thaw that will kill you.

Looking for a heated debate? Try Celsius vs Fahrenheit.
(No pun unintentional.)

Or discover more about the Mount Washington Observatory
in Life at the Top and Sheep Football.