"Estimation of Tornado Wind Speed from Characteristic Ground Marks," by Fujita, Tetsuya; Bradbury, Dorothy L.; and Black, Peter G.; SMRP Research Paper Number 69, 1967.

Abstract

Tetsuya Theodore Fujita (1920-1998) was born in Kitakyushu, Japan. After receiving his doctorate from Tokyo University in 1950, he began a career as an associate professor at the Kyushu Institute of Technology. In 1953, he began to teach at the University of Chicago, at which he served as a professor until his death in 1998. During his career, Ted Fujita researched meteorology, focusing on severe storms such as microbursts, tornadoes, and hurricanes. He pioneered new techniques for documenting severe storms, including aerial photography and the use of satellite images and film. He also created the Fujita Scale for assessing tornado strength based on a given storm's wind speed and the amount of damage it caused.The Dr. T. Theodore Fujita Collection contains published manuscripts, draft manuscripts, charts, graphs, maps, photographs, photographic negatives, slides, and miscellaneous other materials pertaining to his four decades of meteorological research. A complete set--over 200--reports from Satellite and Mesometeorology Research Project (SMRP) are present. This was his most significant project, documenting for the first time such phenomena as downbursts, multiple-vortex tornadoes, and other groundbreaking meteorological observations and discoveries. Publications, conference proceedings, and research materials from the SMRP, as well as from the National Severe Storms Project (NSSP) and JAWS (Joint Airport Weather Study), comprise the bulk of the collection.Exclusive of these projects is a geographically and chronologically diverse collection of newspapers documenting such events as 1974’s tornadic Superoutbreak, the F-5 Lubbock tornado of 1970, the large Joplin, Missouri tornado of 1973, and dozens of other incidents. Charts--both printed and hand-drawn with attendant graphs, hundreds of photographs, and a wide variety of other research material formats documenting these occurrences is also present.The audio/visual portion of the collection contains such items as the first full-motion satellite images of the Earth, the use of which he pioneered as a meteorological assessment and prediction technique. Audio cassettes and CDs, VHS tapes, 8mm and other sizes of film, and a handful of diskettes are a part of the audio/visual component as well.Access Restrictions: Open for Research.Box 13, Folder 5