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.
