Earlier this month, a young weather fan’s mother contacted our offices at NOAA’s Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) to see if we had a high-resolution shot of Hurricane Laura for her to frame; she said that it was one of the few things her son, Gabriel Spanbroek, wanted for Christmas. The request moved us at NESDIS so much that we decided to give an added bonus that could edify young minds as well as satisfy the hard-core storm watchers this holiday season: The Twelve Days of Storm and Stress (from the German term ofSturm und Drang).
As you may know, the original phrase was first derived from Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger’s 1776 play of the same name, but can also allude to the romantic (as opposed to analytical) effect that nature and our surroundings have on our spirits.
Without further ado (about nothing), here are the 12 Days of Storm and Stress, all taken from 2020 weather events that best matched the rhythm of the featured poems:
1. William Shakespeare
"A plague upon this howling! They are louder than
the weather or our office."
2. Clement Clarke Moore
Excerpt:
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky-
3. Sir Thomas Wyatt
Excerpt:
The high mountains are blasted oft
When the low valley is mild and soft.
Fortune with Health stands at debate.
The fall is grievous from aloft.
And sure, circa Regna tonat [it thunders around the realm] …
- V. Innocentia Veritas Viat Fides Circumdederunt Me Inimici Mei
4. Hilda Doolittle
You crash over the trees,
you crack the live branch?
the branch is white,
the green crushed,
each leaf is rent like split wood.
You burden the trees
with black drops,
you swirl and crash?
you have broken off a weighted leaf
in the wind,
it is hurled out,
whirls up and sinks,
a green stone.
- Stone
5. Jean Toomer
Thunder blossoms gorgeously above our heads,
Great, hollow, bell-like flowers,
Rumbling in the wind,
Stretching clappers to strike our ears . . .
Full-lipped flowers
Bitten by the sun
Bleeding rain
Dripping rain like golden honey—
And the sweet earth flying from the thunder.
6. Naomi Shihab Nye
Excerpt:
The snow bit into my face, prickling the rim
of the head where the hair starts coming out.
And it was a big one. It would come down and down
for days. People would dig their cars out like potatoes.
- Snow
7. Victor Hernandez Cruz
Excerpt:
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don't worry about the noise
Don't worry about the water
Don't worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
8. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Excerpt:
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
9. John Greenleaf Whittier
Excerpt:
Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow:
And ere the early bed-time came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
10. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Excerpt:
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm.
12. Peter Gizzi
Excerpt:
A cornerstone. Marble pilings. Curbstones and brick.
I saw rooftops. The sun after a rain shower.
Liz, there are children in clumsy jackets. Cobblestones
and the sun now in a curbside pool.
Happy Holidays, from the team at NESDIS!