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Where can you find the difference between a wind ridge and a wind ripple? What is blue snow, pink snow, and green snow? How can you know a shaluk from a simoom? Hi. I'm Dave Thurlow and this is the Weather Notebook.

You can find these terms, and 12,000 more, in the Glossary of the American Meteorological Society, just released in its the second edition. The book was first published in 1959, building on some lists already compiled by the weather services of the U.S. and England. The AMS glossary soon became a standby for professionals as well as hard-core weather nuts. But time has a way of catching up with books.

By 1990 it was clear that the glossary needed a once-over. Some new topics had sprung up: global warming, the ozone hole, the Fujita scale. With a grant from the National Science Foundation, the AMS spent years carefully crafting the new edition, guided by an editorial board of 41 distinguished scientists and the participation of over 300 contributors Unlike its predecessor, it's available in hardcover and on a CD rom. But like the first edition, this second generation glossary is a mix of technical and popular terms.

You might bump into a few equations, but you'll also find a wealth of colorful terms for local weather. A simoom, for instance, is a strong, dusty wind across the Sahara and Middle East. It can send temperatures close to 130 degrees. It got the name simoom, or "poison wind," because its sudden temperature spikes have been reported to cause heat stroke.

Thanks today to contributing writer, Bob Henson, of Boulder, Colorado. The Weather Notebook is supported generously by the National Science Foundation and Subaru.. For more information on the AMS glossary and The Weather Notebook, check out mountwashington.org.