As people continue to develop coastal areas, society's liability to hurricanes will dramatically increase, regardless of changes in the environment. This book addresses these key issues, providing a detailed examination of

Called the greatest storms on the planet, hurricanes of the North Atlantic Ocean often cause tremendous social and economic upheaval in the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean. And with the increasing development of coastal areas, the impact of these storms will likely increase. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of North Atlantic hurricanes and what they mean to society. It is intended as an intermediary between hurricane climate research and the users of hurricane information. Topics include the climatology of tropical cyclones in general and those of the North Atlantic in particular; the major North Atlantic hurricanes, focusing on U.S. landfalling storms; the prediction models used in forecasting; and societal vulnerability to hurricanes, including ideas for modeling the relationship between climatological data and analysis in the social and economic sciences.

Modern weather forecasting has made it possible to monitor, track, and predict the path of hurricanes like never before. Even so, they have the power to destroy homes, cities, and lives. Combining hurricane history, first-person accounts, and the basic hurricane science, this book takes a closer look at the most terrifying and devastating storms of the Caribbean and the Americas and the stories behind them and what made them so unique and memorable in the annals of the North Atlantic hurricane history. Witness nature's fury as some of the greatest and deadliest hurricanes come alive. Witness the rage of Hurricane Andrew, the great death toll of the Great Hurricane of 1780, the massive size and clean-up costs of Hurricane Sandy or the unbelievable flood waters of Hurricane Katrina batter Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. In this book--you will visit many of the greatest and deadliest hurricanes of the North Atlantic firsthand and their destructive aftermaths. Spanning more than five centuries and drawing on extensive archival research in Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean, this book emphasizes the continuing role of race, societal inequality, and economic ideology in the shaping of our responses to hurricanes. With the prospect of hurricanes becoming ever fiercer and destructive, this book offers a much-needed opportunity to understand and study these freaks of nature called hurricanes. For more than 15 years, meteorologist and bestselling author Wayne Neely has provided all the latest and up-to-the-minute coverage in the study of hurricanes both past and present. Wayne Neely is a well-respected authority on Bahamian and Caribbean hurricanes and has written nine previous books on hurricanes. In this book, he gathers together all of the latest hurricane research and the finest hurricane related stories detailing mankind's quest to understand and predict these awesome events related to the history and science of hurricanes. In the North Atlantic, on average hurricanes claim the lives of well over 5,000 people every decade and leave several billion dollars' worth of property damage to the impacted areas. Hurricanes are as terrifying and powerful as ever, but as this book will show, modern science has made amazing discoveries in the effort to predict where and when they will occur. Readers will also learn about the complex set of weather-related conditions that contribute to hurricanes. Here is a terrific read for weather and hurricane buffs, amateur meteorologists, students, and anyone interested in the science and history of hurricanes within this region.

Charts of major hurricane tracks from 1900-1972, with facts on each storm from Weather Service records.