Reeds Maritime Meteorology

Adlard Coles Nautical love weather books - they currently have ten on offer. This offering aims at budding professionals – trainee deck officers, students for certificates of competency in merchant ships, and fishermen.

I found its meteorological coverage weak. Cornish and Watts create an unnecessary air of mystery on p. 1 when they say that the atmosphere’s upper boundary has “not yet been positively defined”. That’s true, but it merely dwindles away. They say that atmospheric water vapour is important, but fail to say why. Water’s exceptionally high latent heat has, of course, a dominant influence on weather. It can turn cumulonimbus into monsters, for example. Then they say that Coriolis forces are “imaginary”. Try telling that to someone in the path of a hurricane! Coverage of depressions and fronts is deferred until p. 76. For those who really want to understand these topics, I would strongly recommend the same publisher’s How to Cope with Storms by D von Haeften. Cornish and Watts’ coverage of maritime matters is much better. It includes ocean currents (not tides!), sea ice, planning ocean voyages, tropical storms and the avoidance of their worst effects, and the care of cargo. However, I do not recommend this book. - Donald W Braben