Dennis Mersereau - The Skies Above: Storm Clouds, Blood Moons, and Other Everyday Phenomena

THE SKIES ABOVE

STORM CLOUDS, BLOOD MOONS, ANDOTHER EVERYDAY PHENOMENA

DENNIS MERSEREAU

ILLUSTRATIONS BY REBECCA MATT

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ISBN (paperback): 978-1-68051-555-8

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-68051-556-5

T o appreciate our atmospheres beauty, we simply have to go outside. Were surrounded by incredible natural forces that make the sky a celebration of what it means to live on Earth and experience the environment that sustains us. Even hard-core nature lovers and enthusiastic weather geeks sometimes forget to admire the skys quotidian beauty. Weve seen it all beforefull moons, foggy mornings, and more sunny days than we can count. But theres a story behind each puffy cloud and raindrop. Even the clearest, calmest day is the product of raging winds and massive storms that lie unseen beyond the horizon.

Everyday weather inspires our plans, our travels, and our dreams. We yearn to travel to the vast expanse of sky and space above us, to the Moon and beyond, always visible but woefully underexplored. Throughout history, the skies have beckoned to brave explorers both on the ground and in the air.

Galileo Galilei lived under house arrest for daring to suggest that Earth revolved around the Sun rather than the other way around.

Centuries later, the simple act of predicting a tornado could end an American weather forecasters career for fear of inciting a panic. Tornado forecasts werent widely accepted until after 1948, when military meteorologists Ernest J. Fawbush and Robert C. Miller issued the first successful tornado forecast for Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.

Apollo 11 carried Neil Armstrong to walk on the Moon just six decades after Orville and Wilbur Wright accomplished the first powered flight. The first astronauts to orbit the Moon were also the first to be awed by the sight of Earth against the emptiness of space. We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth, astronaut William Anders used to say after the Apollo 8 mission. Thanks to weather satellites, everyone on Earth now has the opportunity to see that same view every 15 minutes.