Stormy Weather
Tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes, blizzards — weather affects us all in some way or another. This reading set focuses on the more intense weather events. It includes both fiction and nonfiction passages on different weather phenomena.
Have you ever been watching when a tv weatherperson points to a large, white spiral of storm clouds spinning over the Earth on their video screen? If so, then you’ve gotten a small look at what the most powerful storm in the world looks like: a tropical cyclone. Tropical cyclones start as…
Over the years, movies and books have used tornadoes to sweep their characters off to magical lands, to destroy entire cities, or to defeat a superhero’s dangerous super villain. All of these tornadoes have one thing in common: they are incredibly powerful. Tornadoes are large, destructive columns of spinning air…
The 1900 Great Galveston Hurricane made landfall on September 8, 1900. At that time, Galveston was the third largest city in Texas with an estimated population of 40,000 people. It was an important city on the Gulf of Mexico. By the time the storm passed, the hurricane and the resulting…
L. Frank Baum wrote “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in 1900. It’s the story of a girl named Dorothy who lives with her aunt and uncle on a farm in Kansas. Dorothy has a dog named Toto. This passage is from the beginning of the book. —————————– From the far…