John Park Finley is one of my weather heroes. He was the first tornado expert in the United States. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on April 11, 1854. Finley attended where he studied meteorology and climatology.
In 1877, Finley wanted to become a part of the newly formed U.S. Army Signal Corps. The Signal Corps was responsible for taking simultaneous weather observations each day across the country. Warnings for mariners could be transmitted and lives saved. But there was a tremendous backlog of candidates for the Corps. Finley enlisted the help of his college professors and administrators in a letter writing campaign. He was chosen.
Finley was greatly influenced by the book Storms, their Nature, Classification and Laws by William Blasius. He began a systematic study of tornadoes. Sent to study some particularly damaging tornadoes in 1879, Finley proposed that a tornado forecasting office be staffed at Kansas City during the prime tornado months of May, June and July.
Finley received permission to study the nature of 600 tornadoes. It was the first exhaustive study of the nature of tornadoes. Based on this study, Finley believed that forecasting tornadoes was possible. Finley established spotter networks across tornado alley.
It was on this date in 1884 that Finley issued the first experimental tornado prediction using the parameters he had discovered. Many of these same criteria are still used by operational forecasters today. But use of tornado forecasts would be banned just a few years later, a ban that would remain in place until 1952.
