John Park Finley (April 11, 1854 – November 24, 1943) was an American

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

and Army Signal Service officer who was the first person to study

tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...

es intensively. He also wrote the first known book on the subject as well as many other manuals and booklets, collected vast climatological data, set up a nationwide weather observer network, started one of the first private weather enterprises, and opened an early aviation weather school.

Biography

John Park Finley was born on April 11, 1854 in

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...

. In the late 1860s into the early 1870s, he attended Michigan State Agricultural and Mechanical College, now

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. He graduated with a Bachelors in Science in 1873, specializing in climate impacts on agriculture. In 1877, he enlisted in US Army Signal Service, and was subsequently assigned to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania signal office, where he kindled an interest in severe weather and tornadoes. Finley was soon stationed in Washington, where he was frequently ordered by the service to survey nearby tornado damage.http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2008/alm08may.htm In subsequent years, Finley authored several books, including his ''Tornadoes: What They Are and How To Observe Them''. He died on November 24, 1943 in

Battle Creek, Michigan Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, Michigan, Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo River, Kalamazoo and Battle Creek River, Battle Creek rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle C ...

Selected works

The

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...

holds a large collection of Finley's publications. Here are some selected works, which may or may not be contained in said collection: * Finley, J. P. (1881). The tornadoes of May 29 and 30, 1879, In Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Iowa. Prof. Paper No. 4, U.S. Signal Service. * Finley, JP, WB Hazen (1884). Charts of Relative Storm Frequency for a Portion of the Northern Hemisphere. U.S. Army Signal Office. * Finley, Jno. P. (1884). Tornado predictions. ''American Meteorological Journal'', 1, 85-8 * Finley, JP, (1884). Report of the character of six hundred tornadoes. Prof. Paper No. 7, U.S. Signal Service, 116 pp. * --- (1887).
Tornadoes: What They Are and How to Observe Them
'. Insurance Monitor Press, New York, 196 pp. * --- (1889). State Tornado Charts. ''Amer. Meteor. J.'', 5.

References

External links

John Park Finley: Early Tornado Forecasts
(Bio by Keith C. Heidorn) {{DEFAULTSORT:Finley, John Park American meteorologists United States Army officers 1854 births 1943 deaths

Biography

Selected works

See also

References

Further reading

External links