Tropical cyclones in popular culture
The appearances of tropical cyclones in popular culture spans many genres of media. It includes both fictional tropical cyclones,[1] and real ones used as the basis for a fictional work, and has proven to be of enough interest for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ("NOAA") to maintain a webpage on the topic.[2]
Purpose in fiction and literature
Although many forms of natural disaster appear in fiction and literature, tropical cyclones serve a number of useful literary functions because they are both extraordinarily powerful and, to those who have some experience with them, their occurrence can be portended several days in advance. The NOAA page notes that:
There is undeniable drama to hurricanes; their massive scale affecting the lives of thousands, the foreshadowing of impending doom, and their ponderous pace as they approach the shore. This has made them ideal plot elements in many fictional works.
The strength of the tropical cyclone has made it a device by which authors explain the upending of characters' lives, and even transformations of the personalities of those who live through such an event. Their somewhat hazy predictability also makes them a useful MacGuffin, an impetus for characters to set to action. In some instances, the storm provides cover for characters to engage in covert behavior.
Early history of tropical cyclones in literature
One of the earliest uses of a tropical cyclone as a plot device occurs in a William Shakespeare play, The Tempest, first performed in 1611 or 1612. There, a storm (raised by the sorcerer Prospero) blows key characters to the island to which Prospero had been exiled many years before. The theme is said to have been inspired by Shakespeare's knowledge of a real-life hurricane which had caused the shipwreck of the Sea Venture in 1609 on the islands of Bermuda, while sailing toward Virginia.[2]
Edgar Allan Poe, in his 1841 story, "A Descent into the Maelström", has the main character describe how "the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens" forced the boat manned by himself and his brothers into a gigantic whirlpool.[3] The trauma of surviving the storm and the whirlpool (and seeing the death of his brothers) is asserted to have a profound effect on the character, causing his hair to turn white. However, since the story is asserted to occur off the coast of Norway, it is unlikely that the event described could have fallen within the formal definition of a hurricane, as such storms form almost exclusively in the Maritime Tropical air masses of tropical regions of the globe.
Joseph Conrad, in his acclaimed 1903 book Typhoon, uses a tropical cyclone as a more direct element of the story, centering the plot on a ship captain's stubborn insistence on going into the heart of such a storm.[2]
Fictional tropical cyclones
Works predominantly focused on the occurrence of a fictional tropical cyclone
Books and plays
- (Unnamed) A High Wind in Jamaica (U.S. title: The Innocent Voyage). In this 1929 novel by Richard Hughes, horrific incidents are described from a child's point of view, beginning with the destruction of the family's house by a hurricane. "If Emily had known this was a Hurricane, she would doubtless have been far more impressed, for the word was full of romantic terrors...."[4]
- (Unnamed) In Hazard, a 1938 novel by Richard Hughes. A single-screw turbine cargo steamer encounters a hurricane off the coast of Cuba. Reviewers compared it to Joseph Conrad's Typhoon, admired the weather descriptions, complained of "puppet-like" characters.
- Tropical Storm Barney: In the book, Category 7: The Biggest Storm in History, this artificially enhanced tropical storm strikes Barbados with winds of up to 75 mph (120kmh).[5]
- Hurricane Claude: A team of scientists try to use an EMP burst to destroy a powerful hurricane following the track of the Long Island Express. Preceded by Hurricane Barbara. [6]
- Hurricane Faith: Category 5 hurricane which hits New York City with full force. Proceeded by five very short lived hurricanes in six weeks, of which only hurricanes Anthony(Category 1), Barbara, Christopher & Eric are named. [7]
- Maria: The name of the storm in George R. Stewart's bestselling 1941 novel, Storm. Although not, strictly speaking, a hurricane, the storm is highly notable for receiving a woman's name, the first widely-known example of such personification. In the novel, a character referred to only as "the Junior Meteorologist" gives storms women's names as a private mental game. Stewart said that he was inspired by reading that "a certain meteorologist had even felt storms to be so personal that he had given them names."[2] Stewart's book in turn inspired Lerner and Loewe's song "They Call the Wind Maria."[2] It is widely thought to have influenced U.S. Navy meteorologists, who gave female names to Pacific tropical storms during World War II.[8]
- Hurricane Simone: Also in Category 7: The Biggest Storm in History, this artificially created storm hits New York city head on with at a strength of above category 5. Reference is made to Hurricanes Mitch & Ivan as being the products of trial runs of the technology used to create Simone, which was originally developed and tested during the 1971 Pacific typhoon season by the U.S. Government.[5]
- (Unnamed) The Mystery of the Double Double Cross A 1982 novel by Mary Blount Christian prominently features a hurricane hitting Galveston, TX. [9][10]
Television
- Hurricane Eduardo: Hit the United States east coast, particularly Florida, in Category 7: The End of the World, and later merged with a destructive non-tropical system near Washington, D.C. The resulting storm was more powerful than either of the other two. The NOAA website sums up the somewhat shoddy science as follows: "Falling chunks of the mesosphere combine with urban heat islands to spawn global spanning superstorms."[2]
- Hurricane Gill: Hit Miami on a November 9, 1991 multiple crossover episode of The Golden Girls, Empty Nest, and Nurses, forcing characters from each show to take refuge in the locale of the other two shows.
- Hurricane Hilda: Massive storm based on Hurricane Camille hits the town of Cassier, Mississippi causing great devastation.[11]
- Super Typhoon Viper: a massive storm makes a direct hit on Hong Kong causing death and destruction in the Discovery Channel series 'Perfect Disaster'.
- (Unnamed) The made-for-BBC movie Superstorm, starring Tom Sizemore and Nicola Stephenson, involves efforts of scientists to combat the larger, more devastating hurricanes spawned by global warming.[2]
Music
- Jimmy Buffett has penned a number of songs describing the effects of unnanmed tropical cyclones. In his A1A song Trying to Reason with the Hurricane Season he describes a storm in the Gulf Stream with winds greater than 60 mph. The storm produces rough seas and grey skies in southeastern Florida.[12] In Nobody Speaks to the Captain No More on his Floridays album, a fugitive captain loses his mind during a hurricane when a coconut hits him in the head.[13] Buffett describes a sailor who goes through several hurricanes and typhoons in his Christmas Island song A Sailor's Christmas."[14] Finally, several hurricanes affect the fictional Caribbean island of Kinja in the Jimmy Buffett song Don't Stop the Carnival.[15]
- (unnamed): Hugh Prestwood dreams of a hurricane in his song Savannah Fare You Well. The hurricane produces heavy rainfall which kills the songwriter.[16]
Works in which a fictional tropical cyclone is a key event
Books and plays
- (Unnamed) A hurricane striking the South Carolina setting is a major turning point of the 1925 novel, Porgy, and its later adaptation, the subsequent 1935 opera, Porgy and Bess, as well as the 1959 movie version.[2] The storm causes the death of key characters, causing a sudden change in the direction of the story.
- (Unnamed) The Cay. A pivotal point of the story involves the hurricane that strikes the small island where the two main characters are marooned.[17] Phillip, a prejudiced, blind, white child, is stranded with the elderly black Timothy. The pair deals with a hurricane that passes across the island by lashing themselves to a sturdy palm. The storm injures the eighty-year-old Timothy, who slowly dies afterwards.
- Hurricane Adele: The name of the storm in Thomas Clancy's Clear and Present Danger.[18]
- Cyclone Alpha: In the 1972 novel (Set somewhere between 1959 and 1965.) The Moonraker Mutiny by Anthony Trew, a ship's captain drunkenly applies his experience of typhoons to a Category 3 Indian Ocean cyclone. As a result the ship sails into the heart of the storm and is crippled, triggering the mutiny of the title.[19]
- Amanda: The name of the storm in Clive Cussler's Raise the Titanic. The Soviet Navy used the storm as cover to board the newly raised ship in an attempt to sabotage the retrieval of a rare (fictional) mineral, byzanium, for use in an anti-ballistic missile defense system.[20]
- Hurricane Ben: The name of the storm in G.M. Hagues Ghost Beyond Earth. This hurricane prevents NASA from sending a space shuttle to the crew of Space Station Freedom until the end of the novel.[21]
- Typhoon Bernard: Delays the arrival of Soviet ships coming to pick up a sabotage party in Shuttle Down by Lee Correy. [22]
- Hurricane Herman: In The Wide Window (the third book of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) this hurricane demolishes Aunt Josephine's home. Later on in the book, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire endure the brunt of the storm while searching for their aunt. [23]
- Hurricane Joyce: Monstrous, continent spanning storm triggered by the impact of the asteroid Hermes into the North Atlantic.[24]
- Hurricane Juanita: The hunt for a boy kidnapped by a madman is complicated by a Category 4 hurricane on a course to strike Houston.[25]
- Hurricane Little Eva: The name of the storm in Clive Cussler's Cyclops. The storm strands the heroes on an island used by the Soviets as an electronic intelligence post. [26]
- Hurricane Mabel: The name of the storm in Desmond Bagley's Wyatt's Hurricane. The titular scientist predicts the hurricane will strike a small Caribbean island despite what the models show. Local rebels use it to help overthrow the island's dictator. Mabel is described at the start of the novel as having a central pressure of 870 millibars and an outside pressure of 1040 millibars and winds strong enough to classify it as Category 5. Reference is also made in the novel to Hurricane Ione as proof of the difficulties of forecasting where a hurricane will go. Preceded by Hurricane Laura.[27]
- Hurricane Odin: category 5 hurricane, that forces the hero's plane to crash near a small Caribbean island being used by nuclear smugglers. Preceded by Hurricane Nicky and followed by Hurricane Sheila (after two unnamed storms).[28]
- Hurricane Queenie: The name of a category 5 hurricane that strikes New York City on the night of 4 August 1970 in the opening of the novel Summer of Storms by Judith Kelman. The 17th storm in a season that had seen 12 hurricanes, half of which were over category 3, Queenie's furious arrival in New York City provides the cover for a brutal murder. (Using the 1970 name list the name for this storm would have been Rena)[29]
- Typhoon Rose: Strikes Hong Kong in the novel Typhoon by John Gordon Davis. Triggers massive landslides and kills several of the novels main characters. [30]
- Hurricane Sigrid: Attempts to deal with a madman's home-made nuclear weapon over Washington DC are complicated by the approach of a Category 5 hurricane. [31]
- Hurricane Simone: Category 4 hurricane that strikes Florida south of Sanibel island as a category 3 storm, triggering a chain of events that lead to a bloody shootout at an illegal geophysical laboratory in the Florida Everglades.[32]
- Hurricane Tricia: The name of the storm in James Follett's novel Ice. Its arrival complicates attempts to tow a gigantic iceberg away from a collision with the North American continental shelf. [33]
- (several): Hurricane Punch, a comedic thriller by Tim Dorsey in which a misanthropic serial killer and his bumbling partner-in-crime take an impromptu storm-chasing trek across Florida with a kidnapped journalist in tow.
Television
- (Unnamed)- Only Mentioned in the Simpsons episode "Hurricane Neddy", in 1978. Blew down Hall of Records, never officially confirmed.
- Hurricane Anthony: A couple trying to escape this hurricane strikes a man with their car in the CSI: Miami episode Hurricane Anthony.
- Hurricane Barbara: Hit Springfield in The Simpsons episode "Hurricane Neddy." Destroyed Ned Flanders's house, picked up Barney Gumble's Bowlerama and dumped it on a nearby hill.
- Hurricane Elizabeth Artificially created Category 5 hurricane targeted at Los Angeles in the film Storm. The films opening reveals that Hurricane Andrew was the result of an earlier test of the same technology.[34], [35]
- Hurricane Eve: Hit Miami, Florida on the premiere episode of Invasion. Believed to be cover for extraterrestrial activity. Had a pressure of 936 mbar; according to TV Guide, a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. The NOAA website notes that "[t]he series was cancelled after its initial season, with no resolution to the question, 'Does global warming cause more squid people?'"[2]
- Hurricane Lenore: Shown in the Nip/Tuck episode "Conor McNamara". Struck Miami.
- Tropical Storm Renee: Shown in the Seinfeld episode "The Checks." Struck before 1981, experienced by umbrella salesmen Teddy Padillac and Jerry Seinfeld. The storm dropped heavy rainfall, resulting in good business for the two salesmen.[36]
- Hurricane Robert: Shown on the Family Guy episode "One If By Clam, Two If By Sea." Hit Quahog, Rhode Island with downed power lines, several damaged buildings, and downed trees and brush. , also a Hurricane Robert is mentioned in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air having wiped out half of Miami and Hilary refers to it as Bobby to ease the seriousness.
- Hurricane RuPaul: Massive storm headed for Quahog in the Family Guy episode "The Perfect Castaway".
- Hurricane Sarah: Strikes the US east coast causing damage to the US fleet in the The West Wing episode The State Dinner[37]
Theatrical films
- (Unnamed): In the 1948 film, Key Largo, gangsters who have taken over a small hotel in the title locale are delayed in their planned getaway by a hurricane.[2] In one exchange, a gang member asks another, "what all happens in a hurricane?" to which the other replies, "The wind blows so hard the ocean gets up on its hind legs and walks right across the land." Later, the leader of the gang is shaken by the presence of the storm, leading Frank McCloud, the protagonist of the film, to say, "You don't like it, do you Rocco, the storm? Show it your gun, why don't you? If it doesn't stop, shoot it."
- (Unnamed): The 1999 film Virus had a tugboat crew seek refuge during a typhoon onboard a Russian research ship only to find it occupied by aliens who view humanity as a virus that they try to exterminate.[2]
- (Unnamed, but referred to as Typhoon Eighteen) Strikes Japan during the events of Welcome to Pia Carrot: Sayaka's Love Story. Causes the title character to develop a fever and triggers waves that sweep the main characters into the ocean.
- Hurricane Alma: The storm that delays the launch of the rescue mission in Marooned.[2]
- Hurricane Clarissa: In The Lost World. It wiped out the facilities on Site B.
- Hurricane Jezebel: Hit New Jersey, in the Brian De Palma film, Snake Eyes, on the night of a prize fight.
- Hurricane Noelani: Massive hurricane in the East Pacific in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. It never made landfall, but was called the strongest hurricane on record.
Games
- Hurricane Hermione: At the beginning of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, this hurricane was forecast to hit Vice City in 1986, forcing officials to close all bridges, keeping the player confined to the city's eastern-most island. As the game progresses, the bridge closures are lifted as it is announced that the hurricane has missed Vice City.
- Hurricane Gordy: At the beginning of the prequel of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, namely Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, this hurricane was forecast to hit Vice City in summer 1984, with officials closing off all bridges, keeping the player confined to the city's western-most island. After a while the bridge closures are again lifted.
Fictional accounts of real tropical cyclones
Works predominantly focused on the occurrence of a tropical cyclone
Books
Television
Theatrical films
Music
Works in which a tropical cyclone is a key event
Theatrical films
- (Hurricane Carmen): A pivotal scene in Forrest Gump occurs when Gump and his former commanding officer, Lieutenant Dan Taylor, ride out the storm in Gump's shrimping boat; having been the only such boat to remain at sea, theirs is the only one not wrecked by the storm, allowing an unwitting Gump to monopolize the shrimping industry and become a millionaire. During the storm, Lieutenant Dan - in an alcoholic depression since the loss of his legs in the Vietnam War - challenges God, who is embodied in the fury of the hurricane. After surviving the event, Lieutenant Dan finally makes peace with his fate.[41]
Real tropical cyclones impacting popular culture
References
- ^ Depending on their location and strength, tropical cyclones are referred to by various other names, such as hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, and tropical depression.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m NOAA FAQ: What fictional books, plays, and movies have been written involving tropical cyclones?
- ^ Wikisource: A Descent into the Maelström.
- ^ Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica (The Modern Library, 1932), p. 60.
- ^ a b Bill Evans & Marianna Jameson. Category 7: The Biggest Storm in History. ISBN 0765356710
- ^ Hilbert Schenck. Hurricane Claude. Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1983
- ^ Max Marlow. Her Name Will Be Faith. ISBN 0450501019
- ^ George R. Stewart. Storm. ISBN 0803291353
- ^ http://www.lib.muohio.edu/multifacet/record/mu3ugb1696058
- ^ http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Double-Cross-Blount-Christian/dp/0807553743
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071638/ Hurricane (1974)
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5]
- ^ Theodore Taylor. The Cay. ISBN 0440416639
- ^ Thomas Clancy. Clear and Present Danger. ISBN 0006177301
- ^ Anthony Trew. The Moonraker Mutiny. ISBN 000615008X
- ^ Un-Official Raise The Titanic! Novel-Concordance Page
- ^ G M Hague. Ghost Beyond Earth. ISBN 1865156337
- ^ Lee Correy. Shuttle Down(Pt 4). Analog Magazine Vol.101 Nº3, March 1981
- ^ Lemony Snicket. The Wide Window. ISBN 0-06-440768-3
- ^ John Baxter. The Hermes Fall. ISBN 0586046100
- ^ Kathryn Casey. The Killing Storm. ISBN 978031237952
- ^ Clive Cussler. Cyclops. Sphere. 1987. ISBN 0722127561
- ^ Desmond Bagley. Wyatt's Hurricane. ISBN 0006153984
- ^ Dick Francis. Second Wind. ISBN 9780718144081
- ^ Judith Kelman. Summer of Storms. ISBN 051513290X
- ^ John Gordon Davis. Typhoon. ISBN 00552111856
- ^ John J Nance. Medusa's Child. ISBN 033035428
- ^ Jonathon King. Acts of Nature. ISBN 9780451224200
- ^ James Follett. Ice. Mandarin. 1989. ISBN 0749301104
- ^ IMDB:Storm (Video 1999)
- ^ Storm: Review at Million Monkey Theater
- ^ Seinfeld scripts: The Checks
- ^ The West Wing Episode Guide: The State Dinner
- ^ Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island (2003).
- ^ Robin White. Hungers in the Sea. ISBN 9781407226217
- ^ [6]
- ^ David Savran, Taking It Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture (1998), p. 302.
- ^ Al Kamen (1997-07-18). "Hawaii Hurricane Devastates Kauai". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/weather/hurricane/poststories/iniki.htm. Retrieved 2006-03-13.
See also