Books examine the fascinating -- albeit more often terrifying -- world of weather

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two rhinoceroses were mating under a tree in South Africa in 1989 when lightning struck the tree, knocking both of the giant animals unconscious. When they awoke they staggered to their feet, stared at each other for a long, contemplative moment, and ambled away in opposite directions.
Hundreds of such tales have been collected by Randy Cerveny in "Freaks of the Storm," a fun-filled and fascinating ramble through the strange and wonderful world of weather.
8,000 events
Cerveny, a geography professor at Arizona State University, culled the material for the volume from his database of some 8,000 bizarre weather events. What would you expect from a teacher who tells Weatherwise magazine that his favorite course is "13 Ways that Nature Can Kill You"?
Many of these events are visited in "Freaks of the Storm," as well as plenty of nonfatal weather encounters, weather trivia and, of course, appropriate safety tips.
Considering this past record year for tropical storms, many people may wonder how the practice of naming storms started.
Cerveny has the answer: In 1887 Australian forecaster Clement Wragge began naming weather disturbances, endowing the worst storms with the names of politicians he didn't like. That allowed him to issue reports that storm so-and-so was "causing great distress" or "wandering aimlessly" at sea.
A hand in discovery
While these storms are primarily destructive, they occasionally have had a hand in discovery and literature.
For example, Cerveny reports that a 1609 storm drove a group of English ships off course with one, the Sea Venture, running aground on the undiscovered island of Bermuda. Stories of the event captured the public imagination and contributed to the storm description in Shakespeare's play "The Tempest."
From the Bible to the Middle Ages there have been reports of rains of blood, causing great fear in people. Scientists studying red rains in the 20th century found they were caused by fine red dust blown into the sky during sandstorms and later washed out in rain.
And what about chicken plucking? That's right, reports abound of tornadoes leaving chickens naked. Today, many scientists believe the feather loss is caused by a stress reaction by the birds, Cerveny says.
But, he reports, 19th-century weatherman Elias Loomis performed an "experiment" to determine how much wind it would take to strip a bird of its feathers. Lacking modern-day equipment such as a wind tunnel, Loomis stuffed a dead chicken into a cannon and fired. Loomis calculated the bird was going 341 mph when it left the barrel, although, Cerveny reports, all he was able to retrieve were a few pieces of chicken shrapnel.