Clouds, Rain, and Storms

THE SCIENCE AND HISTORY OF CLOUDS AND RAIN

	Franklyn M. Branley’s Down Comes the Rain (HarperCollins, 1997), one of the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series, is an appealing picture-book overview of the water cycle. Readers learn all about evaporation, condensation, cloud formation, and precipitation. For ages 4-8.
	Anne Rockwell’s Clouds (HarperCollins, 2008), one of the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series, is a simple introduction to the different kinds of clouds and how they help us predict the weather. Included are instructions for making a cloud in a jar. For ages 4-8.
	Tomie dePaola’s The Cloud Book (Holiday House, 1984) covers ten different kinds of clouds (“Cumulus clouds are puffy and look like cauliflowers”), cloud mythology and traditional sayings, and ends with a short and silly cloud story. The illustrations are delightful. For ages 4-7.
	Scholastic’s The Cloud Book Teaching Plan has several science activities to accompany de Paola’s The Cloud Book, among them making a cloud in a jar and a model water cycle, collecting and graphing rainfall data, and measuring the size of raindrops.
	Lawrence Lowery’s Cloud, Rain, Clouds Again (NSTA Press, 2013), one of the I Wonder Why series, is a picture-book introduction to the water cycle with an included activity handbook. For ages 5-8.
	Melvin Berger and Gilda Berger’s Can It Rain Cats and Dogs? (Scholastic, 1999), written in interactive question-and-answer format, is an overview of weather divided into three main sections: Sun, Air, and Wind; Rain, Snow, and Hail; and Wild Weather. An interesting interactive read for ages 5-9.
	Seymour Simon’s Weather (HarperCollins, 2006), illustrated with gorgeous full-page color photographs, is an overview of the causes and effects of the world’s weather for ages 6-12.
	Seymour Simon has several other excellent weather-related books in the same format, among them Storms, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Lightning.
	Laura Lee’s Blame It on the Rain: How the Weather Has Changed History (William Morrow, 2006) is a fascinating and reader-friendly overview of the historical impact of weather, with such chapters as “Greenland’s Vikings,” “Gee, It’s Cold in Russia,” “Washington and Weather,” and “Rain Ruins Robespierre.” For ages 12 and up.
	Richard Hamblyn’s The Invention of Clouds (Picador, 2002) is the story of Luke Howard, the early-19th-century amateur meteorologist who came up with the cloud classification and naming system that we still use today. For teenagers and adults.

APPRECIATING CLOUDS/CLASSIFYING CLOUDS

	By John A. Day and Vincent J. Schaefer, the 128-page Peterson First Guide to Clouds and Weather (Houghton Mifflin, 1991) includes basic weather info and 116 helpful color photos for cloud spotters. For ages 6 and up.
	Other field guides for weather watchers include David Ludlum’s National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Weather (Knopf, 1991).
	Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotter’s Guide (Perigee, 2007) is a 330+-page account of the science, history and culture of clouds, filled with fascinating facts and helpful illustrated cloud-spotting charts.  Also by Pretor-Pinney, see The Cloud Collector’s Handbook (Chronicle Books, 2011) which is part cloud identification manual, part journal for recording your cloud sightings. For ages 12 and up.
	By Louis D. Rubin and Jim Duncan, The Weather Wizard’s Cloud Book (Algonquin Books, 1989) describes a “unique way to predict the weather” by reading the clouds. An appendix explains how to set up a home weather station. For teenagers and adults.
	Richard Hamblyn’s 144-page Extraordinary Clouds (David & Charles, 2009) is a collection of gorgeous color photographs of truly extraordinary clouds, each with accompanying explanation. Arranged in five sections: Clouds from the Air, Strange Shapes, Optical Effects, Theatrical Skies, and Man-made Clouds. For ages 12 and up.
	Are you a cloud lover? Join the Cloud Appreciation Society and fight blue-sky thinking!
	Listen to Cloud Appreciation Society founder Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s TED talk on clouds.
	Nephelococcygia is the practice of cloud-watching. See Cool Clouds is a great collection of photos of clouds that (more or less) look like things. Included is a gallery of clouds for viewers to make their own guesses as to what they look like.
	From NASA, S’COOL is a cloud observation program for students. Included are cloud schematics, background information, observation tips, lesson plans and activities, and a chance to participate in a citizen science project.
	The Clouds 365 Project aims to take a cloud photo every day of the year. (Try it on your own!)