In the course of his numerous talks and presentations to college and grade school students, civic clubs, and nursing homes, climatologist Randy Cerveny found that people of all ages are fascinated by the "unusual" and he seized on that fascination to tell them about strange weather. Now, in his first book, the rest of us can learn of real, documented stories such as:

• Odd occurrences of chickens losing all their feathers during tornadoes (so-called "chicken plucking")
• Strange stories of finding lightning victims who have been completely stripped of all of their clothes (through a process known as "the vapor effect")
• Weird stories of how past powerful hailstorms have both led to the ending of one war?and the complete prevention of another
• Bizarre uses of weather?such as the strange contraption called a ?windwagon? that literally "sailed" nearly 500 miles from Kansas to Colorado

Each chapter in Freaks of the Storm encompasses the oddities of a specific type of weather, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning, and hail. The author also divides specific conditions into a set of categories associated with the overall phenomena.

"Fish falling from the sky. Tornadoes plucking chickens. Lightning welding an unfortunate soldier into his sleeping bag when it struck the zipper. Weather is not only powerful and dangerous (as we've seen all too clearly of late) but just plain strange. This compendium of the weird drawn from climatologist Cerveny's database describes over 500 incidents, from lightning strikes to hurricanes, blizzards to dust devils. Cerveny groups the incidents by type of weather and then by type of occurrence. He gleefully jumps from the past (lightning burning the rings of six gold coins into the skin of a 19th-century victim) to the present (a young woman temporarily blinded when lightning struck her tongue stud), with little attempt to explain how weather works. This book is good for a quick read in a spare moment, but without any narrative to drive it, it turns into a mind-numbing procession of bizarre facts. But bring on tales of cross-shaped hail and a heat wave that roasted a town from 70 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees in a matter of minutes: Cerveny is here to remind us that if you need something interesting to discuss, you can indeed just talk about the weather. Agent, Andre Abecassis." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Cerveny's stories will captivate readers, or frighten them, or maybe a little of both." Booklist

"An entertaining survey of highly unusual happenings that situate humans rather low on nature's food chain." Kirkus Reviews

"[A]n entertaining diversion for weather nuts looking for a respite from the recent downpour of alarming climate reports." San Diego Union-Tribune