Force Ten (song) worked with Rush on their song "Tom Sawyer", had sent Neil Peart some lyrics for the song, and Peart would add more verses to it. Lyrically, the song describes the "storms of life," making a reference to a very high level of the Beaufort scale ("force ten" is defined as a 'storm', being near the scale's maximum of 12) as an analogy, according to the book "Rush and Philosophy: Heart and Mind United". Musically, "Force Ten" is composed in A minor, with changes into A major scale occurring in the song. The song is set in common time at a
Great Storm of 1975 In all, approximately 58 people died from effects of the blizzard and over 100,000 farm animals were lost. The combination of snowfall totals, wind velocities, and cold temperatures made this one of the most severe blizzards the Upper Midwest has experienced. This storm system had, in part, a large effect on the weather in the entire eastern half of the country. A number of different weather records (at the time) were set during the four days of this storm, especially in daily high temperatures, wind gusts, low barometric pressure readings, and number of tornadoes. Great Storm of 1975 The Great