What to Read in March

What to Read in March Not sure what to read this month? Try these suggestions based on   authors born in the month of March! Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917-September 12, 1977): Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet who inspired the confessional style of other poets such as Sylvia Plath. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and was a United States Poet Laureate. His own personal history and his family and friendships were important subjects in his poetry. Recommended: Life Studies (1959). Ralph Ellison: (March 1, 1914- April 16, 1994): Ralph Waldo Ellison was an American literary critic, scholar, and novelist. He won the National Book Award in 1953 served on The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Recommended: Invisible Man (1952). Elizabeth Barrett Browning: (March 6, 1806- June 29, 1861): Elizabeth Barrett was an important English Romantic poet. Many do not know that Brownings family was part-Creole and spent much time in Jamaica, where they owned sugar plantations (kept by slave labor). Elizabeth herself was highly educated and was vehemently opposed to slavery. Her later works are dominated by political and social themes. She met and married the poet Robert Browning after a long epistolary relationship. Recommended: Poems (1844) Garbriel Garcà ­a Mrquez (March 6, 1928-April 17, 2014): Gabriel Josà © de la Concordia Garcà ­a Mrquez was a Colombian author of plays, short stories, and novels. He is considered one of the most important writers of the twentieth-century, having won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. Garcia Marquez was also a journalist who criticized national and international politics, but he is best known for his fiction and magical realism. Recommended: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). Jack Kerouac: (March 12, 1922- October 21, 1969): Kerouac was a pioneering member of the 1950s Beat Generation. He originally went to college on a football scholarship, but upon moving to New York City he discovered Jazz and the Harlem scene, which would change his life, and the American literary landscape, forever.   Recommended: On the Road (1957). Louis L’Amour (March 22, 1908-June 10, 1988): Louis Dearborn grew up in North Dakota during the sunset years of the American frontier. His interactions with traveling cowboys, the great Northern Pacific Railroad, and the world of cattle ranching would shape his later fiction, as would the stories of his grandfather, who fought in civil and Indian wars. Recommended: The Daybreakers (1960). Flannery O’Connor (March 25, 1925-August 3, 1964): Mary Flannery  OConnor was an American writer. She flourished in the essay, short story and novel genres and was also a significant contributor to literary reviews and commentaries. Greatly inspired by her Roman Catholicism, her works often explored major themes of ethics and morality. She is one of the greatest Southern writers in American literature. Recommended: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955). Tennessee Williams: (March 26, 1911- February 25, 1983): Thomas Lanier Williams III is one of Americas greatest playwrights and an important presence in the history of homosexual writers. His works are heavily inspired by his own life, especially is unhappy family history. He had a great string of successful plays in the late 1940s, before shifting to a more experimental style which was not as well-received by audiences. Recommended: Suddenly, Last Summer (1958). Robert Frost: (March 26, 1874- Jauary 29, 1963): Robert Frost, perhaps Americas greatest and most successful poet, first explored a variety of careers, such as cobbler, editor, and teacher, before publishing his first poem (My Butterfly) in 1894. Frost spent some time living in England during the early 1900s, where he met such talents as Robert Graves and Ezra Pound. These experiences had a profound influence on his work. Recommended: North of Boston (1914). Anna Sewell (March 30, 1820- April 25, 1878): Anna Sewell is an English novelist, born into a Quaker family. When she was a girl, she severely injured both of her ankles, which confined her to crutches and limited walking for the rest of her life. Recommended: Black Beauty (1877). Other Notable Classic Writers Born in March: Theodore Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss (March 2, 1904-September 24, 1991)Tom Wolfe (March 2, 1931-  Ã‚  Ã‚   )Douglas Adams (March 11, 1952-May 11, 2001) Albert Einstein (March 14, 1879-April 18, 1955)John Updike (March 18, 1932-January 27, 2009)Philip Roth (March 19, 1933-  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   )Lawrence Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919-  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ) Gloria Steinem (March 25, 1934-  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   )John Fowles (March 31, 1926-November 5, 2005)

Why September is Atlantic Hurricane Season

Why September is Atlantic Hurricane Season The Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1, but an equally important  date to mark on your calendar is September 1- the start of the most active month for hurricane activity. Since official record keeping of  hurricanes began in 1950, over 60% of all Atlantic named storms have developed in the months of August or September. What is it about late August and September that produces a  flurry of tropical cyclones within the Atlantic Ocean? Generation of Storm Seedlings One of the reasons why cyclone activity climbs is the hyperactive African Easterly Jet (AEJ). The AEJ is an east-to-west oriented wind, much like the jet stream that flows across the US. As you may remember, temperature contrasts drive weather, including the flow of wind. The AEJ flows across Africa into the tropical Atlantic Ocean, thanks to the contrast in temperature between the dry, hot air over the Sahara Desert and the cooler, humid air over the forested areas of central Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. Since the flow near the AEJ goes faster than that further away in the surrounding air, what happens is that eddies begin to develop due to these differences  in speed. When this happens, you get whats called a tropical wave- an unstable  kink or wave in  the main flow pattern that is visible on satellite as clusters of thunderstorms. By providing the initial energy and spin needed for a hurricane to develop, tropical waves act like seedlings of tropical cyclones. The more seedlings the AEJ generates, the more chances there are for tropical cyclone development. Sea Temperatures Still in Summer Mode   Of course, having a storm seedling  is only half of the recipe. A wave wont automatically grow  into a tropical storm or  hurricane, unless several of the  atmospheres other conditions, including  sea surface temperatures (SSTs),  are favorable. While temperatures may be cooling off for us land-dwellers as fall begins, SSTs in the tropics are just reaching their peak. Because water has a higher heat capacity than land, it heats more slowly, which means the waters that have spent all summer absorbing the suns warmth are just reaching their maximum warmth at summers end. Sea surface temperatures must be 82 °F or warmer for a tropical cyclone to form and thrive, and in September, temperatures across the tropical Atlantic average 86 °F, nearly 5 degrees warmer than this threshold. Seasonal Peak   When you look at hurricane climatology, youll see a sharp increase in the number of named storms forming between  late August into September. This increase typically continues until September 10-11, which is thought of as the seasons peak. Peak doesnt necessarily  mean  multiple storms will form at once  or be active across the Atlantic on this particular date, it simply highlights when the bulk of named storms will have occurred by.  After this peak date, storm activity typically declines gently, with another five named storms, three hurricanes, and one major hurricane  occurring on average by the seasons November 30 end. Most Atlantic  Hurricanes at Once Although the word peak doesnt necessarily point to when the greatest number of cyclones will happen at once, there are several occasions when it did. The record for most hurricanes to ever occur at the same time in the Atlantic basin occurred in September 1998, when as many as four hurricanes- Georges, Ivan, Jeanne, and Karl- simultaneously spun across the Atlantic. As for the most tropical cyclones (storms and hurricanes) to ever exist at one time, a maximum of five  occurred on September 10-12, 1971. Peak Locations   Cyclone activity not only heats up in September but the activity in places where you can expect cyclones to spin up increases, as well. In late summer and early fall, theres generally an increased chance that storms will develop in the Caribbean Sea, along the Eastern Atlantic Seaboard, and in the Gulf of Mexico. By November, cold fronts and increasing wind shear- two disrupters to tropical development- penetrate into the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic, and sometimes into the western Caribbean Sea as well, which spells the end of the peak August-October period.