The Man Known as Mr. Tornado

Tetsuya Fujita was born in Kitakyushu City, Japan on October 23, 1920 (Notable).  He displayed critical thinking at a very young age (Rosenfeld 24). Supposedly his teacher one day in class discussed a picture of a monk, who spent 30 years digging a tunnel (Rosenfeld 24). Fujita cleverly stated that he would have spent 15 years building a burrowing machine and the other 15 years digging that tunnel (Rosenfeld 24). This would have left a tool for humanity along with the tunnel (Rosenfeld 24). Little did he know that someday he would generate great advancements in Meteorology.

            Fujita received his collegiate schooling from Meiji College in Kyushu(Notable). Although he majored in engineering, Fujita really enjoyed the sciences (Notable). This love for geology,weather, and math benefited the atmospheric science field forever (Notable).

          Fujita’s discoveries were part of a process that developed over a long period of time. He began to examine severe storms at the age of 27 (Rosenfeld 20). This was when he started plotting the direction of cloud-to-ground lightning (Rosenfeld 20). He would also record the time between the lightning flash and its thunder (Rosenfeld 20). This study concluded that thunderstorms had three lightning coordinates of activity (Rosenfeld 20).  The next study was over his analysis of the severe thunderstorms theory. Fujita began to graph paths of storms and taught himself how to draw many different kinds of cartography figures (Rosenfeld 20). He would immerse himself in the storm to record barometric pressures (Rosenfeld 21). Low barometric pressures are associated with storm activity while higher-pressure readings correlate with calmer atmospheric conditions. His study found that barometric pressure rose during the dissipating stage of a thunderstorm, which correlates with higher pressure (Rosenfeld 21). This went against the initial theories that stated storms were mostly composed of low pressure (Rosenfeld 21).  This find grabbed international attention, especially from meteorologists in the United States. His graphing skills along with basic weather tools led to the “Thundernose Concept”, which took the American Thunderstorm Project millions of dollars to understand (Rosenfeld 21).

            After his move to Chicago, Ted Fujita and Morris Tepper developed Mesoscale Meteorology (Rosenfeld 21). This is the research and analysis of atmospheric fronts up to the size of 600 miles wide (Rosenfeld 21). This focused his studies on the complexity of thunderstorms along with squall lines (Rosenfeld 21). Squall lines are a specific type of thunderstorm that usually contain very high wind speeds. He would graph these systems and analyze the positioning of the dots with mathematical equations (Rosenfeld 21). These extensive studies led him to pioneer updraft and downdraft radar (Rosenfeld 21). Downdrafts indicate a weakening or final stage of the storm system. Sometimes high winds are associated with downdrafts. Updrafts indicate unstable air that lead to cumulonimbus clouds and storm development.

            This new sub-field of meteorology contained the theories of downbursts and microbursts. He first encountered this concept during his investigative research into the Atomic bombings of Japan (Rosenfeld 22). He theorized of straight-line vertical winds hit the earth’s surface and forcefully made it’s way through the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Rosenfeld 23). Atmospheric downbursts and microbursts are scaled down versions compared to the atomic bomb (Rosenfeld 22). He named this a sub-category of wind due to its intensity and potential danger to the public. Naming microbursts and downbursts as a form of wind promoted greater awareness of the phenomena.

            In 1971, Fujita’s interest in tornados led to the creation of the Fujita Tornado Scale, which was  his biggest contribution to atmospheric science (McDonald 63). This scale was needed to create both a database of tornados as well as to earmark extreme velocities of tornados. This understanding would aid  in making buildings more wind resistant (McDonald 64). Fujita decided to separate tornadoes into six different categories. F0/F1 tornados represent light to moderate damage with winds between 18-50m/s (Fujita Scale). F2/F3 tornados represent considerable to severe damage with winds between 51-92m/s (Fujita Scale). F4/F5 tornados are the most catastrophic, with winds starting around 93m/s and top out at up to 142m/s (Fujita Scale).

            A tornado is a very difficult weather phenomena to track. The small sizes of these storm systems make them nearly impossible to record with weather stations. Before the contributions of Fujita, the only tornado climatology studies conducted were mappings and calculations of the number of tornadoes per year for counties, states, and regions (Forbes 74).  Fujita compiled physical descriptions of damage and debris that correlated with wind speeds of a tornado (McDonald 65). These descriptions were then used to create a tornado database (Forbes 75). Fujita, along with his staff, went back as far as 1916 to begin the classification of cited tornados as well as their mapped paths (Forbes 74).

            The development and perfection of the Fujita scale was a time consuming process. Fujita, the weather detective, admitted that there are potential flaws to the system (McDonald 66). The variables include the damage assessment of a tornado in an open field and the quality of building structures (McDonald 66). He also noted the maximum F-scale wind only effects a small percent of the total damage area (Forbes 75). In order to understand wind speed velocities Fujita, along with his colleges, conducted aerial surveys where they would take photographs of the damage area (Forbes 74). Fujita and his staff conducted over 300 aerial damage trips (Rosenfeld 23). He then applied photogrammetry to the pictures he took on these surveys (Forbes 73). Photogrammetry is the art of making maps and calculations from photographs and even satellite imagery (Forbes 73). From these calculations Fujita developed a table that represented the F-scale damage percent of each F-scale tornado (Forbes 75).

            One of the notable tornado outbreaks Fujita researched was the Palm Sunday Outbreak of April 11-12, 1965 (Snow). This was when the multiple vortex tornado theory was developed (Snow). The multiple vortex tornados contain a system of smaller tornados wrapping around a common central point (Snow). This storm outbreak killed 260 while injuring another 3,400 people (Palm Sunday Outbreak). There were a total of 51 tornados that brought a damage toll to over 200 million dollars (Palm Sunday Outbreak).

            Once the Fujita scale was implemented there was a drastic rise in tornado frequency (Forbes 75). He and many others credit the spike in tornado frequency along with the decreased fatality rate to the drastic increase in public awareness of tornado activity (Forbes 75).            

            Fujita’s meteorological innovation spanned his whole life. His thought process consistently produced ideas such as Mesoscale meteorology, downbursts, and microbursts, which ultimately led to the Fujita Scale system. He had strong math, critical thinking, and graphing skills. Unlike most meteorologists Fujita did not rely on computers to do the analysis (Chicago). He was quoted for saying, “Computers don’t understand these things” (Chicago). He contributed 43 years of service to the field of meteorology. He was a brilliant inventor that continued to do research until his death in 1998 (Chicago).

Works Cited

 

• Forbes, Gregory S., and Howard B. Bluestein. "Tornadoes, Tornadic Thunderstorms, and Photogrammetry: A Review of the Contributions by T. T.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 82.1 (2001):73. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.
• “Fujita scale." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th Edition (2010): 1. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.
• McDonald, James R. "T. Theodore Fujita: His Contribution to Tornado Knowledge through Damage Documentation and the." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 82.1 (2001): 63. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 23 Jan. 2011.
• “Palm Sunday Outbreak.” Nationalgeographic.com. 1996. National Geographic. Web. Feb 9. 2011.
• Rosenfeld, Jeff. "Mr. Tornado." Weatherwise 52.3 (1999): 18. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 20 Jan. 2011.
• Snow, Justin. “T. Theodore Fujita.” Britannica.com. Web. Feb 9. 2011
• “Tetsuya Fujita.” Notablebiographies.com. Advameg, Inc. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.
• “Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, 1920-1998.” Uchicago.edu. Jun 14. 2000. University of Chicago. Web. Jan 24. 2011.