Rainfall in India

✍ Scribed by P. R. Rakhecha

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 66 KB
• Volume: 57
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0043-1656
• DOI: 10.1002/wea.200257708

✦ Synopsis

ing the life and times of Howard, we are treated to a taste of life during the Enlightenment, including the growing disenchantment with science among some of the writers and poets at the dawn of the Romantic period.

Accompanying the biography, the history of clouds takes us ultimately to the present day. Although somewhat modified from Howard's original genera, including the addition of species, his system is the one which remains in use today and his notes on the development of clouds remain part of the weather observers' curriculum, in particular the changes of the sky as weather systems approach and pass by.

Sadly, there are a few errors in the book, the science not perhaps checked as thoroughly as the prose. In particular, the wind speeds correspond-ing to each of Admiral Beaufort's forces in Fig. 23 are headed Km/hour'', whereas they are m.p.h.; in the comprehensive Appendix, the accessory feature `mamma' is listed as associated with upper clouds; and, when the `new' cloud genus `stratocumulus' is introduced, it is oddly described as in the family of low pressure clouds'', something it most definitely is not! Despite the minor errors, I warmly recommend this book to all: meteorologists, those interested in history and those who simply enjoy a very good read.