Science Comics: Wild Weather: Storms, Meteorology, and Climate
The local news team is preparing viewers for a coming snow storm. When meteorologist Stormin’ Norman gets fed up with the vapid host and his “joke” about cold weather disproving global warming, he lets loose a ton of knowledge about how weather works. Science Comics: Wild Weather: Storms, Meteorology, and Climate is written by MK Reed (Science Comics: Dinosaurs, The Cute Girl Network) and illustrated by Jonathan Hill (Americus).
It’s the character interplay — and their simplified, expressive designs — that make this so readable. Seeing Norman spin Chase McCloud around in his chair to illustrate how the Earth’s orbit creates seasons is a hoot! We also learn
- why the study of weather is called meteorology
- how landscape and atmosphere affect temperature
- warm and cold fronts
- the formation and effects of tornadoes and hurricanes
- whether Chase should be afraid of “shark-filled cyclones” (I guess sharknado was trademarked)
- different types of precipitation and how they form
- the effects of climate change, particularly flooding
- how to make rainbows
The visuals are clever and imaginative, with air masses of different temperature represented by wrestlers and a walk underwater, among many other scenes. It’s a pleasure to see what’s coming over the next page.
This volume is a bit lighter on some of the deeper scientific concepts than some of the other titles in the series, which some readers may appreciate. There isn’t a lot of complicated terminology. This is more of a survey, touching briefly on a large number of topics, and surprisingly, it doesn’t deal much with how weather forecasting works. I was left with a few questions — including why they’re called the horse latitudes or whom Hadley cells are named after — and I would have liked to have seen much more about lightning and thunder, but the humor in the character interactions still made this worth reading.
The book also has a short glossary, a couple of pages on weather tools, a few pages on how to prepare for an emergency, and a fascinating text section on debunking weather myths. (The publisher provided a review copy.)