"As a tornado nerd growing up in Minnesota in the 1980s, Fujita was a supernatural figure. I consider myself an heir of his scientific legacy. No matter which line of scientific inquiry I make in my tornado research, I always seem to come back to Fujita's books and papers. [...] Even today with mobile Doppler radars, accurate wind measurements in tornadoes are exceedingly rare. Fujita recognized that the only consistently available indicator of a tornado's wind speed is the damage path that it leaves behind. By studying hundreds of tornado damage tracks, he was able to correlate damage to a standard indicator (a well-built house) to wind speeds, thereby creating the Fujita scale that is the basis for the Enhanced Fujita scale that we use today. All of this research was done without the aid of Doppler radars, drones, or machine learning."
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Ted Fujita
Tetsuya Theodore Fujita (October 23, 1920 – November 19, 1998) was a Japanese and American meteorologist whose research primarily focused on severe weather. His research at the University of Chicago on severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and typhoons revolutionized the knowledge of each. Although he is best known for creating the Fujita scale of tornado intensity and damage, he also discovered downbursts and microbursts and was an instrumental figure in advancing modern understanding of
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