Thomas P. Grazulis
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| Tom Grazulis | |
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| Born | 1942 Worcester, Massachusetts, USA |
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| Residence | St. Johnsbury, Vermont, USA |
| Fields | Meteorology |
| Institutions | The Tornado Project |
| Alma mater | Florida State University |
| Known for | tornado history, statistical, and climatology research |
| Influences | Snowden D. Flora, David M. Ludlum |
Thomas P. Grazulis (b. 1942 in Massachusetts) is a meteorologist who has written extensively about tornadoes and is head of the Tornado Project.
He grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts and first confronted the power of a tornado during the Worcester Tornado of 1953 which killed 94 people. He received a bachelor's degree in meteorology from Florida State University and was briefly a broadcaster.
After teaching in New Jersey, he and his wife Doris moved to St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
In 1979 he began working for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in creating a history of tornadoes. Specifically he worked on updating the databases of historic storms maintained by the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, Missouri as well as the database of Theodore Fujita. The National Tornado Database work was important enough so that it was followed by five years of funding from the National Science Foundation. In the process Grazulis was to chronicle 50,000 tornadoes in a 1,400 page book. Grazulis amassed one of three authoritative tornado databases, those being the National Tornado Database assembled and maintained by NOAA agencies, the University of Chicago database founded by Fujita which ended at his retirement in 1992, and the Grazulis Tornado Project database.
In the early 1990s he and Doris formed the Tornado Project to market tornado videos, posters, and books.
In 1997 he became a storm chaser noting that despite his fascination with storms he had never actually seen a tornado. He saw his first tornado, a very large one near Tulsa, Oklahoma on Memorial Day of that year.
Grazulis is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and was on the Fujita Scale Forum of the Fujita Scale Enhancement Project; which developed the Enhanced Fujita Scale to supplant the original Fujita Scale.
[edit] Major works
- The New Jersey Shoreline (1967 educational film)
- Approaching the Unapproachable (1972 documentary film)
- Tornado Video Classics I
- Tornado Video Classics II
- Tornado Video Classics III
- Secrets of the Tornado (documentary)
- (1984), Violent Tornado Climatology, 1880-1982. NUREG/CR-3670, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, 165 pp
- Significant Tornadoes 1680-1991
- Significant Tornadoes Update 1992-1995
- The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm
