8/24/2010
By ERIN MATHEWS Salina Journal

On television, solving mysteries and saving lives is the work of detectives, police investigators and medical researchers.

But professional meteorologist Mike Smith, of Wichita, said it's time to give some of the members of his profession the credit they deserve.

Meteorological forecasting has had a profound effect in saving lives that might otherwise have been lost in tornadoes and other hazardous weather, Smith told members of the Salina Noon Rotary Club on Monday at the Bicentennial Center.

The sleuthing work of one extraordinary weather detective has saved thousands of lives since the 1980s by making pilots aware of a dangerous weather phenomenon that had been causing planes to crash during take-offs and landings, he said.

CSI of weather

"I like to call him the Horatio Caine of meteorology," Smith said in a presentation titled "CSI: The Phantom Crashes."

Smith, founder of WeatherData Services, described the pioneering work of the late Ted Fujita, a meteorologic researcher with the University of Chicago and discoverer of the downburst, a forceful downward burst of air that occurs in some thunderstorms and creates uniquely hazardous conditions for modern jets.

When Fujita first began his research in the late 1970s, jets were falling out of the sky at a rate of one crash every 18 months or so, Smith said. The cause of the crashes, which were occurring in thunderstorm conditions, was not clear, but Fujita developed a theory about them.

Fujita thought that planes were being destroyed by violent downward bursts of wind that hit the ground with such force they created an upward draft on the outer edge of the storm.

The effect, Smith said, was that a plane coming in for landing would suddenly be thrown off course when it hit upward winds and attempt to correct its steering, only to be smashed into the ground when it hit the downdraft.

Downbursts, also known as microbursts if they are less than 2.5 miles in diameter, are widely recognized now to create unusually high wind speeds and can cause damage similar to a tornado, Smith said.

But at the time, Fujita's theory was not widely accepted by meteorologists, some of whom seemed to be exhibiting professional jealousy, Smith said.

"Most thought Fujita was wrong," he said. "A headline in Science News in 1979 was 'Are Downbursts Just a Lot of Hot Air?' "

In a 1982 Pan Am crash at New Orleans International Airport, Smith said, a Boeing 727 that was taking off entered a microburst and immediately sank, crashing into a residential neighborhood where its 8,000 gallons of jet fuel created an inferno. All 145 onboard died, along with eight people on the ground.

On Aug. 2, 1985, Fujita was investigating the crash of Delta Flight 191 at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. As the plane crossed Texas Highway 114 north of the airport right before it crashed, one of its engines clipped a car.

"The downburst, a phenomenon that the majority of meteorologists of the time thought didn't exist, killed 137 people on the plane, as well as a motorist headed to his 28th birthday party," Smith said.

Theory confirmed

Fujita's theory was confirmed by storm footage Smith himself captured that showed rain on the edge of the storm defying gravity and being pushed back into the air. Eventually, Fujita's theory became widely accepted and has been upheld by other researchers.

It has resulted in pilot training and wind-sheer alarm systems that have prevented an estimated 17 plane crashes and saved 2,300 lives, Smith said.

Weather tales

Fujita's story is among several recounted in Smith's book, "Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather," which was published this year.

Smith said his business, WeatherData Services, was the first company to provide customized severe weather warnings directly to businesses such as railroads, airlines and other industries that could be affected by weather-related damages.

He said the night of the Greensburg tornado, his company alerted Union Pacific Railroad 40 minutes before it occurred that a tornado was going to cross its tracks.

Four trains were stopped, and the crews in the two lead trains on either side of the storm watched the tornado cross in between them illuminated by lightning flashes.

"Without our information, their system models showed they would have had two trains derailed by the tornado," he said.

n Reporter Erin Mathews can be reached at 822-1415 or by e-mail at emathews@salina.com.

---

Discuss This Story:

---