Join us for a conversation between author Thomas E. Weber and Lakeville Journal / Millerton Times Editor at Large, John Coston, about Weber's new book, Cloud Warriors: Deadly Storms, Climate Chaos—and the Pioneers Creating a Revolution in Weather Forecasting (2025).

A reception with refreshments and book sales and signing will follow the presentation.

(rescheduled from July 31st)

Registration is required for this free event. Please scroll down and click the registration button.

In an era where extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense, understanding and predicting the weather is more critical than ever. Weber takes us behind the scenes, telling the story of dedicated individuals and groundbreaking technologies that are transforming our ability to foresee and respond to deadly storms, wildfires, and heat waves. 

Cloud Warriors will change the way you think about treacherous weather—and the power of being able to see it coming.

Presented by the Scoville Library in partnership with the Salisbury Association Land Trust. A reception with refreshments and book signing will follow the presentation.

Copies of CLOUD WARRIORS will be available for purchase at the event and are also available in advance at Oblong Books in Millerton, NY.

Thomas E. Weber is a veteran writer, editor, and newsroom executive with a lifelong interest in how science and technology shape society. He served as The Wall Street Journal’s first internet columnist and, later, as a bureau chief, and was executive editor of TIME.  

John Coston is Editor at Large of The Lakeville Journal / The Millerton News and a veteran newspaper editor. During his 30 years at The Wall Street Journal, Coston served as deputy foreign editor, markets editor and national news editor.

About the book

A fascinating, vivid, and enlightening book. 

Cloud Warriors sets a standard in storytelling about our era's most advanced technology, and highest-stake global (and local) trends, in clear and gripping terms. I will never look at the skies, or a weather forecast, in the same way again.

—James Fallows, author of Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey into the Heart of America

Cloud Warriors is the unprecedented inside story of the people pushing boundaries of science and technology to build better weather forecasts—providing life-saving warnings and crucial intelligence about nature’s deadliest threats.

From killer tornadoes and catastrophic hurricanes to lethal heat waves and raging wildfires, extreme weather events bring an unending torrent of death and destruction. One tool offers the ability to help reduce the impact of these calamities: the weather forecast. A new wave of advances, including artificial intelligence and data-gathering drones, makes it possible to more accurately predict these fearsome events. Better forecasts provide critical time to prepare and get people out of harm’s way—an undertaking made ever more urgent by the effects of climate change.

In a remarkable tale of innovation and perseverance, veteran journalist Thomas E. Weber takes readers into the world of the pioneers creating these game-changing forecasts. From storm chasers racing to hunt twisters to physicists unraveling the secrets of the atmosphere, Weber goes behind the scenes to show how predictions keep getting better and explain what’s needed to turn these forecasts into actions that prevent tragedies.

About the author

Thomas E Weber is a veteran writer, editor, and newsroom executive with a lifelong interest in how science and technology shape society.

Tom was The Wall Street Journal’s first internet columnist, explaining the digital world to readers at a time when it was first emerging as a force in business and everyday life. He went on to become a bureau chief and a founding editor of the Journal’s Saturday edition. Later he joined Newsweek/The Daily Beast as managing editor. As executive editor of Time, he supervised the magazine’s feature journalism.

A native of Michigan, Tom began his professional journalism career while in high school as a stringer for the Oakland Press in Pontiac. After graduating from Princeton University, where he was elected chairman of The Daily Princetonian, he covered local government for the Daily Item of Clinton, Mass. He has taught journalism as a Ferris Professor at Princeton. He has also served as director of the magazine program at New York University’s Summer Publishing Institute and as an adjunct at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He serves as president of the board of trustees for The Daily Princetonian. Tom lives with his wife in New York City; they have two adult daughters.

For more information about Cloud Warriors and Tom Weber, please visit Thomaseweber.com.