Big Weather is a poet's book about storm chasing, one written by a professional poet in fact, so it is not inherently about the science, the technology, or the politics of weather, despite the subtitle's focus on tornado chasing. Mark Svenvold tells the story of his decision to spend a month chasing tornados in Oklahoma, a plan which grew from his terrified first, tornado-free experience of an Oklahoma storm.

Had this book stuck to this story a bit closer, it would have been a stronger book. Partway through the book Svenvold covers a lot of basic storm structure science, but only in prose and with no handy diagrams. Had Svenvold committed to actually systematically providing enough basic meteorology to allow readers a solid understanding of how tornadoes work, with a few basic diagrams or labelled photos of storm cells, this would have been a stronger book. And, further into the book, Svenvold shifts to the economics and politics of weather, but with about as much committment as with the science and with his storytelling. There is a lot to like about Svenvold's book, still, but overall it is unsatisfying, because it tries to take on too many different threads without enough depth or development in any one of them. I got the feeling that Svenvold the Poet was trying to be something other than a poet, with a bit of travel writing, a bit of academic research and a bit of popular science, while the author's true voice, the one that talks about Yevutshenko in chapter 1 and waxes poetic about stuff in much of chapter 4, that voice needed to be brought out and developed to incorporate the things he was trying to say.

In short, I liked the various different threads he tried to weave, but I wish Svenvold had picked fewer and done more with them. The book jumped around too much and changed style too much. But, it does raise some interesting perspectives on weather and how we interact with it. I would recommend this book, but be prepared to google your own diagrams and information if you want to know more about how tornadoes work. ( )