Big Weather

Following an eccentric band of storm chasers during tornado season, a writer delves deep into our fascination with catastrophic weather. Why is it that devastating weather--and tornadoes in particular--maintain a primal hold on our collective imagination? With his guide Matt Biddle, an Ahab-like veteran storm chaser, Svenvold draws a portrait of a culture enamored by extremes. Along the way, he encounters an assortment of characters out of a Fellini film, a subculture of catastrophilia. At the heart of the excitement are the awe-inspiring events themselves--a tornado that levels a small town, and the look back at the central Oklahoma tornado outbreak that included the single-most destructive tornado in US history.