Book excerpt: Praise for the First Edition:""I recommend this book, without hesitation, as either a reference or course text...Wilks' excellent book provides a thorough base in applied statistical methods for atmospheric sciences.""--BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society)Fundamentally, statistics is concerned with managing data and making inferences and forecasts in the face of uncertainty. It should not be surprising, therefore, that statistical methods have a key role to play in the atmospheric sciences. It is the uncertainty in atmospheric behavior that continues to move res.