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The Fujita Scale is a tool used to estimate wind speed by looking at the damage tornadoes cause. It was developed by Dr. Tetsuya Theodore (Ted) Fujita (1920-1998), who began studying tornadoes and thunderstorms in the late 1940s at the Kyushu Institute of Technology in Japan and later at the University of Chicago. While Dr. Fujita visited more than 300 sites from 1965 to 1991, the 1970 Lubbock tornado was significant in confirming his data. Shortly after his visit, he published the Fujita Scale.
A combination of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale and the Mach Number Scale, categories on the scale determined wind speed as seen by the damage left behind. F0 tornadoes were described as ‘light damage’ while F5 tornadoes were ‘incredible damage,’ as confirmed by the May 11, 1970, Lubbock Tornado. Shortly after its introduction, the National Weather Service and the meteorology community adopted the Fujita Scale as a means of describing tornadoes after the fact.
Although the Fujita Scale was widely used, it had limitations. The scale did not take structural integrity into account and damage could be misleading. In 2000, researchers from Texas Tech University’s Institute for Disaster Research began to study ways to improve the Fujita Scale. In 2006, the researchers submitted their findings to the National Weather Service. The result was the Enhanced Fujita Scale, adopted on February 1, 2007. The new scale added metrics for the quality of construction and economic impact from damages. Other countries have adopted the Enhanced Fujita Scale or modified versions of the original. It continues to be a valuable tool for identifying safer construction methods and materials, as well as planning for severe weather events. |
