Tornadoes, nature’s most violent and unpredictable storms, descend from the clouds nearly one thousand times yearly and have claimed eighteen thousand American lives since 1880. However, the U.S. Weather Bureau--fearing public panic and believing tornadoes were too fleeting for meteorologists to predict--forbade the use of the word "tornado" in forecasts until 1938.
Scanning the Skies traces the history of today’s tornado warning system, a unique program that integrates federal, state, and local governments, privately controlled broadcast media, and individuals. Bradford examines the ways in which the tornado warning system has grown from meager beginnings into a program that protects millions of Americans each year. Although no tornado forecasting program existed before WWII, the needs of the military prompted the development of a severe weather warning system in tornado prone areas. Bradford traces the post-war creation of the Air Force centralized tornado forecasting program and its civilian counterpart at the Weather Bureau. Improvements in communication, especially the increasing popularity of television, allowed the Bureau to expand its warning system further.
This book highlights the modern tornado watch system and explains how advancements during the latter half of the twentieth-century--such as computerized data collection and processing systems, Doppler radar, state-of-the-art television weather centers, and an extensive public education program--have resulted in the drastic reduction of tornado fatalities.

Scanning the Skies: A History of Tornado Forecasting

History

Bradford, Marlene

Americas

University of Oklahoma Press

Organized alphabetically by disaster type, this natural-disaster reference describes each disaster in scientific terms. Special events follow in chronological order. The set contains photographs, a time line, lists of organizations and agencies, a glossary and an index.

Natural Disasters - 3 Volume set

Science & Math

Carmichael, Robert S.

Irons-Georges, Tracy

Earth Sciences

Salem Press

Arkansas is in the center of tornado activity in the United States. In spite of its relatively small geographic size and population, the Natural State ranks among the top 5 in the number of tornadoes and tornado deaths since 1880. This book focuses on superlatives: the deadliest tornadoes and outbreaks (multiple tornadoes on the same day) both before and after 1953 (the beginning of the modern era of tornado forecasting), the deadliest day, year, and decade, the longest tornado, and the largest number of tornadoes in one day. Also included are stories of twisters that did not earn a superlative but are historically important, tornadoes that struck schools, towns that suffered multiple tornado strikes, and tornado safety rules. These accounts encompass more than 50 counties and several hundred towns and communities on which these monsters of nature inflicted pain from 1898 through 2015.

Arkansas Tornadoes: The Natural State's Deadliest Twisters

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Tornadoes are not just a part of Texas culture; they are a part of many towns and communities throughout the state. The more than fifteen thousand tornadoes that have touched down somewhere within the boundaries of the Lone Star State have claimed more than eighteen hundred lives since 1880. Some have left behind such destruction that just the mention of them sends shivers up spines: Waco, Wichita Falls, Saragosa, Jarrell. Texas Tornadoes details all tornadoes and outbreaks that killed ten or more, achieved a rare F5 rating, were historically important, or exhibited unusual characteristics. The accounts encompass more than eighty counties and hundreds of communities, both large and small, that endured these monsters of nature from 1854 through 2015.

Texas Tornadoes: The Lone Star State's Deadliest Twisters

Scientific and historical overviews of 23 categories of natural disasters followed by a chronological survey of the 100 worst or most notable disasters in history, including such recent events as the 2004 tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Notable Natural Disasters combines clearly explained scientific concepts with gripping narrative details about memorable disasters. It focuses on events caused, at least in part, by uncontrollable forces of nature. So, though human error played a role in many iceberg collisions, natural conditions were clearly a cause.

Notable Natural Disasters, Volume 1 (Magill's Choice)

Notable Natural Disasters, Volume 2 (Magill's Choice)

On May 27, 1997, an F5 tornado ground its way through the Double Creek Subdivision in Jarrell, Texas, a community of about 400 people just north of Austin. The slow-moving twister left behind foundations scoured clean and twenty-seven fatalities. Especially heart-breaking was the number of children who were killed-14. Some in the severe weather community consider this tornado one of the fiercest ever to strike the United States. Stories usually have several characters or groups of characters. This one has six: the tornado itself (the weather), the first-responders and rescuers, the survivors, the victims and their families, those who wanted to help in the aftermath, and the community as a whole. All of their stories meld into one that exemplifies the best of the American spirit, the spirit of picking up the pieces and moving on but never forgetting.

Incredible Destruction in Central Texas: The Jarrell Tornado

Environment

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Books by Bradford, Marlene