DK GUIDE TO WEATHER. By Michael Allaby. Dorling Kindersley pound;12.99. TES Direct pound;10.99.. The DK Guide to Weather is an exploration of unusual and extreme meteorological events. Through its spectacular photographs, Michael Allaby celebrates the magnificence and wonder of the elements, as well as their power and capacity for destruction.
Photographs are the hook - dramatic, alluring images which demand attention and draw the reader into the caption for an explanation. So consistent is the quality of these images that it is almost impossible to pass one by. Different qualities capture us: the colour of iridescent clouds; UFO shapes of lenticular clouds and the graceful swirl of hurricanes; the rare glimpse of ball lightning. Other images surprise. That grey mass behind homes in the American Midwest is no range of hills, but a huge dust storm about to engulf an entire town.
the DK Guide to Weather may not enable us to become amateur meteorologists, but it succeeds admirably in its objective of portraying the awesome energy and spectacular beauty of extreme weather.
Dennis Ashton
Dennis Ashton is director of the Stardome Mobile Planetarium, Sheffield
