In his new book, When the Sirens Were Silent: How the Warning System Failed A Community, award-winning meteorologist Mike Smith takes a journey into the fearful and fascinating vortex of a tornado, explaining how the government’s early warning system has saved countless lives over the last 50 years. He’ll also talk about the system’s failures – such as last year’s Joplin twister which claimed 161 lives.

Smith has known he wanted to study the weather since age 5, when a twister moved through his neighborhood. He is senior vice president of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions and the author of Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather.