Dr. Theodore Fujita is known as “Mr. Tornado. And with good reason. Fujita’s body of research has probably done more to advance the study of the disastrous storms. Born in Japan in 1920, he studied at the Kyoto Institute, where he became a professor. In 1953, he was invited to come to the University of Chicago.
Fujita’s most important contributions include:
…extensive aerial documentation of over 300 damage paths between 1965 and 1991.
…the Fujita Intensity scale came out of research into the potential vulnerability of nuclear power plants to tornado winds. Fujita
introduced it in a paper he released in 1971. It is still the standard damage scale used to this day.
…identification and explanation of the phenomenon known as suction vortices after studying the Palm Sunday outbreak of 1965. These small vortices inside a larger tornado funnel explain some of the extreme and often capricious damage found in tornado paths. Fujita proved that many large and powerful tornadoes are actually composed of these smaller vortices.
…identified the fact that tornadoes occur in families, dropping from the same parent thunderstorm
…the concept of overshooting cloud tops
…the incredible analysis of all 148 tornadoes in the April 3, 1974 Superoutbreak
…the discovery of the microburst, a small downburst inside the larger downburst of a thunderstorm that can be disastrous to planes. His controversial research eventually led to the installation of Doppler radars at airports around the country. Airplane crashes from wind shear have become virtually non-existent.
…toward the end of his life, Dr. Fujita turned his focus to hurricanes and typhoons
Dr. Fujita died on November 19, 1998 after a long illness. To his memory…
