> Skip to content
  • Published: 15 March 2014
  • ISBN: 9780307473585
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $34.99

Storm Kings

America's First Tornado Chasers



In Storm Kings, Lee Sandlin retraces America's fascination and unique relationship to tornadoes and the weather. From Ben Franklin's early experiments, to "the great storm debates" of the nineteenth century, to heartland life in the early twentieth century, Sandlin shows how tornado chasing helped foster the birth of meteorology, recreating with vivid descriptions some of the most devastating storms in America's history, including the "Tri-State tornado" of 1925 and the Peshtigo "fire tornado," whose deadly path of destruction was left encased in glass. Drawing on memoirs, letters, eyewitness testimonies, and numerous archives, Sandlin brings to life the forgotten characters and scientists--like James Espy, America's first meteorologist and Corporal John Park Finley, who helped place a network of weather "spotters" across the country--that changed a nation, detailing the almost invisible history of The National Weather Service, the settling of the Midwest, and how successive generations came to understand and finally coexist with the spiraling menace that could erase lives and whole towns in an instant.

With 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations

In Storm Kings, Lee Sandlin retraces America's fascination and unique relationship to tornadoes and the weather. From Ben Franklin's early experiments, to "the great storm debates" of the nineteenth century, to heartland life in the early twentieth century, Sandlin shows how tornado chasing helped foster the birth of meteorology, recreating with vivid descriptions some of the most devastating storms in America's history. Drawing on memoirs, letters, eyewitness testimonies, and numerous archives, Sandlin brings to life the forgotten characters and scientists that changed a nation and how successive generations came to understand and finally coexist with the spiraling menace that could erase lives and whole towns in an instant.

  • Published: 15 March 2014
  • ISBN: 9780307473585
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $34.99

Also by Lee Sandlin

See all

Praise for Storm Kings

  • [COVER] "A bible of sorts to a generation of tornado aficionados, storm chasers and Weather Channel addicts." --Chicago Tribune
  • "Compulsively readable.... Storm Kings is not simply a historical text about a problem that has been solved by technology; rather, it is a cautionary tale about the frequently unpredictable role that weather continues to play in our lives." -- The Christian Science Monitor