The Children’s Book Made By Storm Chasers

When Zach Roberts was five years old, he witnessed his first tornado. He was visiting his grandmother in Denver at the time and before she ushered him into the basement for safety, he ran outside and stared up at the swirling clouds in the sky.

“It was terrifying in the moment but afterward I was always curious, wondering why it happened and how it happened. I kept thinking about how the clouds looked that day,” Roberts told me.

Now Roberts, who calls himself Mr. Twister and spends his ti​me chasing, studying, and photographing storms, is about to publish a book intended to spark that same sense of awe in other children.

A financial planner by trade, Roberts runs his own business, giving him the freedom to drop everything and rush out to a storm with his team. He’s documented storms from Canada to Texas and wanted to share the knowledge he’s gained about severe weather events in a way anyone can understand.

“There are books, but they’re so technical that they’re not good for the general public or the novice weather enthusiast out there. There’s really a lack of this type of thing,” he told me.

Titled The Anatomy of Severe Weather, Roberts’s book will feature photographs of real storms overlayed with simple diagrams to describe how severe weather like lightning and tornadoes form and function, from identifying a shelf cloud to explaining how air masses move.

Given the reaction—his Kickstarter cam​paign raised the $30,000 he needed to self-publish the book within a matter of weeks—there’s clearly an appetite for an easy-to-understand guide for kids and adults alike. The first orders will be headed for print in the fall, giving Roberts a chance to collect some more photographs during the spring storm season.

Roberts started chasing storms as soon as he was old enough to drive. He started out solo, with hardly any knowledge of how to safely observe and document a storm, something he now realizes was very dangerous. He wants his book to serve as a good foundation for future chasers to learn the science behind the storm, especially children.

“That’s kind of how I started. I would be at the library looking at books, trying to figure out how it happens and why it happens. This book blends together my passion with trying to make a difference out there for kiddos,” he said.