Meteorologist Kelly Serr grew up in Eureka, where her parents ran a tractor and implement dealership. Hanging out at the family business after school developed her curiosity for meteorology. “Over the years, day in and day out, farmers came in and talked about the weather,” says Serr. “Nice weather or bad weather, and unfortunately all too often bad weather for the farmers.”
Serr graduated from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks and has been a meteorologist for 15 years. For the last five years, Serr has served Aberdeen’s National Weather Service (NWS) office as the Warning Coordination Meteorologist. She and her colleagues issue warnings, watches and advisories for 26 counties in central and northeast South Dakota and two in west-central Minnesota.
As a student, Serr was well aware of Ted Fujita’s (aka Mr. Tornado’s) work and his system for ranking tornadoes. She first put Fujita’s F-Scale into practice at the NWS, where employees are responsible for documenting tornadoes and ranking them by wind speed and wind type. Fujita’s original system was enhanced in 2007 and is now called the EF Scale: Enhanced Fujita Scale. “Anytime there’s a tornado, we actually visit the site, if possible,” says Serr. “If we can’t, then we rely on talking to people on the phone and getting pictures. We look at the damage that’s occurred, whether it’s a tree, home, or property, and then we have damage indicators. It opens up degrees of damage. Are the shingles damaged? Are the windows broken out? Is an entire outside wall missing? From there we assign a wind speed that it takes to create that amount of damage to that property.”
Fujita’s scale is primarily used after the fact, and can be used frugally with forecasts if conditions exist. “We can say this environment is explosive,” says Serr. “That we could expect violent tornadoes, EF3 or greater. But we never give or assign the scale. Doppler radar, one of our primary tools for issuing warnings, does give us some clues about rotation within a storm, but it can’t tell us what the actual wind speed in a tornado was.”
The NWS works closely with fire departments, law enforcement, emergency management and the public to teach weather spotter courses so people may – safely – spot and relay information about storms. “The key is always knowing your distance, knowing where you are in relation to that storm, and knowing when it’s time to go inside,” says Serr.
Fujita also discovered microbursts, which are sudden patterns of extremely strong, straight-line winds. Serr says microbursts can occur with any storms and can catch folks unexpectedly. She relates her own intimate encounter. “In 2010, a microburst moved over my house. It picked up a piece of wood, put it through the living room window. Glass was embedded in the wood floors and the couch cushions. Rain came through the window and it was a huge disaster. They don’t have to be massive storms to be very destructive.”
With the onset of severe weather season, Serr reminds folks to think about where to shelter from strong straight-line winds or tornadoes. “Now that we’re able to start gathering this summer, at concerts, outdoor activities or camping, it’s important to pay attention to forecasts and do some advanced planning. Sometimes, especially when we’re camping, there won’t be a safe place. You may have to get in your vehicle and drive someplace else. That’s why it’s so important to think about it in advance and keep track of the forecast.”
Serr recommends weather.gov, the NWS website. The NWS does not have a cell phone app, due to rules and regulations. “But we’re also on Facebook and Twitter. And we recommend having other ways of getting alerts: if we’re issuing warnings this summer, they’ll go out over radio, TV, FEMA – they all have apps. These are good, reliable sources so you can know immediately what’s going on.”
American Experience
Mr. Tornado
Ted Fujita was a Japanese-American engineer turned meteorologist. In 1945, a young Fujita was 130 miles from the atomic blast in Nagasaki, Japan. The 24-year-old engineer’s study of the damage began his life’s work on understanding destructive forces. After World War II, Fujita studied meteorology at the University of Chicago and immersed himself in research on tornadoes, including meticulous documentation of the destruction both on the ground and from airplanes. He introduced the “Fujita Scale” in 1971, a six-point scale that classifies degrees of tornado intensity. His lifelong work on severe weather patterns earned Fujita the nickname “Mr. Tornado.”
Watch American Experience Mr. Tornado on SDPB1 Tuesday, June 29, at 8pm (7 MT).