What Stands in a Storm by Kim Cross Page B

severe-weather mode as they braced for the storm’s arrival, predicted between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. Aircraft were moved to hangars, loose objects were tied down, and people prepared to retreat to safe places. At 6:00 p.m., as if following marching orders, the week’s second large tornado struck the base, causing another $6 million in damage—but less than it would have without preparation.
    This warning paved the way for a civilian program in the 1950s and beyond. Miller and Fawbush became pioneers in the field, creating the Air Force Military Warning System, a team that eventually forced the United States Weather Bureau to change its policy of forbidding tornado warnings and to create the Severe Local Storms (SELS) unit in 1953. It was the beginning of modern tornado forecasting.
    The research meteorologist who would establish the field, Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, a diminutive Japanese, came to the United States in 1953 specifically to study tornadoes. A professor at the University of Chicago, Fujita had meticulously surveyed the damage of the atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The starburst pattern in which trees fell in bomb-struck areas showed remarkable similarities to the trees downed by certain thunderstorms, inspiring his theory of microbursts, the sudden powerful downdrafts that could knock airplanes out of the sky.
    Nicknamed “Mr. Tornado” among colleagues and friends, Fujita spent years walking the damage paths left by tornadoes, looking for patterns that might yield insight into their power and formation. He studied tens of thousands of photographs of tornadoes forming, frame by frame, a technique called photogrammetric analysis. His approach was unique, fresh, and often outside the established norms of meteorological research, and some members of the scientific community frowned on his unorthodox methods. Yet even his critics had to admit that he arrived at groundbreaking conclusions that evaded other researchers.
    In 1971 Fujita developed the Fujita Scale, or F-Scale, which enabled scientists to categorize the magnitude of tornadoes through assessment of the damage they left behind. Using indicators of damage to vegetation and man-made structures, the F-Scale ranked tornadoes on a scale of F0 (little damage) to F5 (foundations of well-built houses swept clean of debris). In 1974 he spent hours flying over Alabamaand other states to study the tornado tracks of the Super Outbreak. This was “the pinnacle of his analysis of a tornado outbreak,” wrote one colleague. “For many of the 148 tornadoes, he was able to map the entire path in Fujita Scale-Intensity contours.” He also mentored a fresh crop of meteorology students who are among today’s leaders, including Dr. Greg Forbes, the tornado expert at The Weather Channel, and Dr. Roger Wakimoto, who became the director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
    Years after Fujita’s death, the F-Scale was revised to better account for new variables such as the quality of construction of the buildings damaged by the storms. The Enhanced Fujita Scale, or EF-Scale, was adopted in 2007 by the United States (in 2013 by Canada) with the same basic six categories, EF0 to EF5. It is still in use today.
    And April 27, 2011, the biggest of all—an EF5—was forming near Smithville, Mississippi—the second of four to strike the South that day.

    As Johnny and Chloe sat in class at Smithville High, the atmosphere began recharging. The morning storms had wrung moisture from the air, depleting the storms of their fuel. The rain had cooled the air as it fell. These slight and subtle changes threw off the recipe for supercells, and the atmosphere relaxed, cleared, and brightened into a deceptive, menacing calm.
    Now, as the midday sun heated the Mississippi River Valley, the ingredients were once again shifting into dangerously perfect proportions. The morning storms had left behind a wake of