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WeatherMatrix
AccuWeather Meteorologist and Social Media Manager Jesse Ferrell covers extreme weather and the intersection of meteorology and social media.
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Weather Blogs / WeatherMatrix
Weather is making a comeback in search and books
Weather terms are making a big comeback in internet searches, and in mentions in books.
By Jesse Ferrell, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior weather editor
Published Mar 26, 2022 4:45 AM EDT
This piece is an addendum to an article that I've written for AccuWeather.com this week entitled "Best-selling author, weather enthusiasts explain allure of California weather."
The genesis of the idea for the article came after reading dozens of best-selling author Dean Koontz' books over 40 years. I noticed, time and time again, he mentioned the weather, whether it was snow, rain, or even fog. And he didn't just mention the weather, he intertwined it with his characters and let it set the scene. I suspected this was because of a fascination with California weather. I was recently lucky enough to interview him on that topic for the article.
Author Dean Koontz enjoys the sunny California weather at his home overlooking Newport Beach, California, in 2003. (Paul Harris/Getty Images)
Researching the idea before the interview, I took to Google Books Ngram to quantify my assumption. According to that database, he mentions weather terms a total of 168 times in his book Midnight, 165 times in The Taking and 158 times in the aptly titled Lightning. The data for all of his other best-sellers is shown in the chart below.
Mentions of common weather terms in Dean Koontz books on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, via Google Books Ngram Viewer, compiled by AccuWeather
Weather has, of course, always played an integral role in all types of art, but the interest in writing about – and searching for – weather appears to be increasing. Google Trends shows a significant increase in searches for weather terms like “storm,” “rain,” and “lightning” since the search engine started tracking data in 2004.
Google Trends searches for rain (blue), storm (red) and lightning (green) between 2004 and 2021.
Weather in books is making a comeback too, after a lull in those same weather terms between 1920 and 1980, usage has surged in the last 40 years, according to Google Ngram.
Google Ngram search for rain (blue), storm (red) and lightning (green) between 1800 and 2021.
What does all this mean? I'm not sure, but it's probably a good time to be working for a weather news company.
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