50 Years on Tornado Watch Saves Millions of Lives

With reams of atmospheric data and a radar scope designed for a World War II airplane, Capt. Robert Miller and Maj. Ernest Fawbush did something 50 years ago last week that was unheard of: They issued a tornado warning.

“They proved that you could, with a certain degree of accuracy, predict when a tornado was going to hit, which in retrospect has saved untold millions of lives,” said James Crowder, chief of history for the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker Air Force Base.

On March 25, 1948, the two Air Force weathermen at Tinker determined that the air flow and atmospheric conditions were nearly identical to those five days earlier when a tornado caused more than $10 million in damage at the base. Several air traffic controllers were cut by flying glass.

The two weathermen predicted that a tornado would strike that day and would follow a similar path.

Miller and Fawbush typed out the warning. Commanders alerted their subordinates. People were evacuated to safety, controllers left their towers, and airplanes were tied down. Everyone waited for the storm.

The warning was issued during the afternoon. By the time Miller went home at the end of the workday, nothing had happened. He thought he and Fawbush had made a career-ending mistake.

Then, between 5 and 7 p.m., the storm hit. It packed wind over 155 mph and caused about $6 million in damage but no injuries.

The Air Force eventually decided to give Miller and Fawbush responsibility for severe weather forecasts for all domestic military installations.

By March 1952, four years and more than 100 civilian deaths after the two Air Force men issued the first successful warning, the Weather Bureau--the forerunner of the National Weather Service--was under political pressure to issue similar forecasts for civilians.

In a Weather Bureau memo from the early 1950s, the meteorologist in charge warned that predicting tornadoes was a guessing game at best and that telling the public that a tornado could hit would cause “near-panic.” The bureau instead issued high wind warnings.

But the bureau found itself in the embarrassing position of explaining why military personnel were being warned and civilians weren’t.

“The Air Force was putting these things out, and the weather service people looked like fools,” said Joseph Schaefer, director of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Finally, on March 21, 1952, the Weather Bureau issued its first successful tornado watch, warning of conditions favorable for development of a twister.

Today, forecasters use complex computer systems, advanced Doppler radar and satellites to make their forecasts.

The figures testify to the importance of the warnings. There were 1,176 deaths attributed to tornadoes in the 1940s, an average of 179 per year. From 1987 to 1996, there were 427 deaths, or an average of 42 per year.

With technological improvements, the question now isn’t necessarily whether to issue a warning but how precise to make it.

“Some of the media gives people the impression that this is very exact,” said Jim Purpura, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norman. “We’re not that good that we can do that.”

And the fear among forecasters is not so much panic but complacency from the public, which can be slow to react to tornado warnings.

Before twisters ripped through central Florida a month ago, killing 42 people, there had been a tornado watch, but Jerry Rivera and Marianne Ott felt safe going to bed.

“It was just another night, another warning, another storm,” said Ott. “I mean, when did you ever hear of a tornado hitting Walt Disney World?”

Rivera and Ott were injured, their motor home and cars were destroyed, and their neighbors across the road were killed.