Snow! What's up with this weather?

The first fall of snow is not only an event, but it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up to find yourself in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment, then where is it to be found?
--J.B. Priestley

Perhaps in a snow day with no classes?

Wondering about this wacky weather--surprisingly warm January and snowbound February? Check out some media resources at Bracken that can help you learn more about the weather and climate. Try these videos (from the Videos (All) Media Finder) or perhaps you're more interested in getting the scoop on global warming from Al Gore's An inconvenient truth or some of our other videos on climate change. We also have videos on all sorts of extreme weather events like tornadoes, hurricanes, storms, and floods (from Noah's flood to the fatal 1899 Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood to the 1993 flooding along the Mississippi).

For a more dramatic approach, try some disaster films from the Movies & TV Programs (fiction video) Media Finder (not all are weather-related, but we do have Twister and The day after tomorrow). Although not exactly in the disaster genre, The Wizard of Oz makes a great tornado film.

You may wish to use these CD-ROMs to learn more about weather (from the Software & Electronic Games Media Finder) or we even have meteorological instruments if you want to do your own investigating.

Check out these pictures and posters featuring weather and meteorology. Or here are some wintry scenes (From an upcoming Media Finder--stay tuned for details).

For entertaining the wee ones, try bundling up with some blankets, hot chocolate, and a good story. Search for snow or winter on the Fiction & Literature Media Finder (check youth under audience to narrow your search). You might like Ezra Jack Keats' Snowy day or Lois Ehlert's Snowballs or an illustrated version of Robert Frost's Stopping by woods on a snowy evening.

And if by chance, by the time you read this, the snow has melted, don't despair--just check out our snow globe to get back in the winter mood.