Nancy Mathis is a Washington-area resident and former journalist whose first book, “Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado” is the true story of a massive storm that hit her native Oklahoma in 1999.

 

Why this storm and this book?

This storm was the most powerful storm ever recorded. At the time, there were University of Oklahoma professors, chasing around behind it with powerful Doppler radar on a flatbed truck. They clocked it at over 300 mph. Just to give you an idea – and really, there is way too much mathematics in meteorology – but a 300-mph tornado is nine times more powerful than a 100-mph tornado.

 

So Doppler radar is a real thing and not just a local TV weather gimmick?