Many tornado researchers have a strong childhood memory of viewing dramatic damage from a storm. Tom Grazulis was twelve when one of the deadliest twisters ever to strike New England plowed through Worcester, Mass. -- only a mile from his home. It was an early-summer day in 1953, and the youngster was later amazed at the sight of all the sturdy homes reduced to lone-standing walls and strewn boards.
As an adult, after a stint teaching high school science, he began seriously investigating tornadoes. Whereas research meteorologists have devoted careers to resolving mysteries of wind flows and other technical matters, Grazulis is best known for his long-view historical work. He has compiled a detailed database of more than 50,000 tornadoes that have struck the U.S. in the last century or so.
From this arose quite an ambitious work: the 1,400-page Significant Tornadoes 1680-1995. On its pages, Grazulis painstakingly (and with the aid of photos) traces a sort of history of the United States through its most violent storm. For aficionados, the encyclopedic book proves both a revelation and delight; it is dense with facts, comprehensive, and sure-handed in its method.
Grazulis has gone on to other projects: a set of informative, must-have videotapes on the tornado, and most recently, a collection of posters to illustrate the F-scale (this standard measures damage with a ranking from F0 to F5). This spring, his update of the 1950s book Tornadoes of the United States will be released through the University of Oklahoma Press. Amid the many tornado titles to come out recently, his work is expected to stand out as the authoritative text for years to come.
In an ironic "twist," Grazulis, who lives in Vermont with his wife Doris, went for years without every having seen a tornado firsthand. Last spring, though, he journeyed to Oklahoma to chase storms on the Southern Plains.
His reward? A videotaped sighting in the Tulsa, Okla. metro area of his very first tornado.
For more info, visit The Tornado Project Online (run by Tom and Doris Grazulis) or look up the Weatherwise magazine article "A Twist of Fate" in the June/July edition.