i agree, but its important to make the distinction that the UB damage descriptor exists for more than the sole reason of proving EF5 intensity, while it may be rare for EF5s to encounter a UB home, plenty of UB structures are hit by weaker tornados, and the existence of the UB damage descriptor helps provide more accurate ratings in those tornados as well
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anchor bolts every 18 inches def is wellbuilt, wellbuilt enough for an EF5 rating, however there is more to construction than just anchoring, and by insanely wellbuilt, i mean you have to go out of your way and spend large amounts of money for a home to be well constructed enough to be upper bound. iirc that home did have structural flaws preventing it from an EF5 rating, let alone being upper bound, although i personally think it shouldve gotten rated 205 regardless. as previously mentioned, for a home to be upperbound, it has to be multi story, have extensive anchoring, proper connections not only to the foundation but also walls and roofs, properly nailed sillplates, extremely thick concrete or brick walls, a very sturdy frame, no garage or large windows, etc. as said in this thread, very little homes of these types exist in the US (although greenfield did hit one with the edge of its windfield iirc), homes with UB construction are a lot more like whats seen in other regions of the world, especially europe.
i mostly agree with this paragraph, all though i think u kinda missed my point that its hard to put accurate windspeeds for certain contextuals. you cant really assign different windspeeds for different degrees of car damage, as there is too many variables, which is one of the reasons vehicle damage only goes up to EF3 on the revised scale.
a contextual being added to the scale that can be used to assign an EF5 rating is massive progress in bridging the gap between tornado intensity and rating. the whole thing about the EF scale underestimating winds is a whole other thing. the benefit of EF5 tree DIs getting added is that stronger tornados can obtain an EF rating that more accurately reflects their rating, what windspeeds are assigned to the rating doesn't really matter in that context. im sure once the scale has more accurate windspeed estimations, all the DIs will be changed to reflect that
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"a contextual being added to the scale that can be used to assign an EF5 rating is massive progress in bridging the gap between tornado intensity and rating."
The. EF. rating. does. not. matter. It's a scale where the derived measurements are consistently off by orders of magnitude. It's the least accurate when its measurements are the most important (violent tornadoes). It's junk and needs to be trashed ASAP. Do you have any idea the amount of irreparable harm the NWS has done to tornado research with this scandal? We've lost years of progress. 17 years to be exact. An entire generation of false information. I hope NOAA has enough sense to reach the same conclusion, remove those responsible, and reimplement the Fujita scale until a suitable replacement is created..
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The. EF. rating. does. not. matter. It's a scale where the derived measurements are consistently off by orders of magnitude. It's the least accurate when its measurements are the most important (violent tornadoes). It's junk and needs to be trashed ASAP. Do you have any idea the amount of irreparable harm the NWS has done to tornado research with this scandal? We've lost years of progress. 17 years to be exact. An entire generation of false information. I hope NOAA has enough sense to reach the same conclusion, remove those responsible, and reimplement the Fujita scale until a suitable replacement is created..
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joshoctober16
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so your saying every ef5 damage from Moore and Joplin never got hit by any debris impact??
i think u are being a little dramatic, as ive said, the EF scale is only off in its windspeed estimations. in terms of ratings, the strength of different degrees of damage relative to each other, the variety of different degrees of damage, the consideration of construction, etc are all much better than in the original Fujita scale. while yes, the windspeeds are wrong, it doesn't matter too much as long as those incorrect windspeeds are consistent throughout the scale. while the artificial windspeed number might be wrong, its correct in most other aspects, and going back to the original Fujita scale would be a regression that would harm tornadic research much more than the current EF scale does
no? i think ur missing my point. debris impacts arent enough to cause significant damage to homes, but they are enough to chip away at concrete, which is what happened in this scenario. it wasnt the debris impacts that created the majority of damage in moore and joplin, while it was the main factor with this home
joshoctober16
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again most EF5 got this situation do we have to now downgrade them ?
1:greensburg
2: Parkersburg (while in the town)
3:smithville
4: Phil campbell
5:rainsville
6:Joplin
7:moore 2013
would all not be EF5 (execpt 2 areas for Parkersburg) because debris have impacted there homes
moore and joplin had so much debris form other homes on the EF5 damage that it makes what your saying not a good reason without downgrading joplin and moore 2013 , my point is do not use something to downgrade a tornado but ignore it for past tornadoes , if we have to use it , use it on all tornadoes , if you want to use it then you have to downgrade moore and joplin.
joshoctober16
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lets not forget the most stupid one of them all , trees that are more then 35 to 100 yards away
but then when its pre 2013 its fine to let a tree within 30 yards.... rainsville had it even worse then this.
wait wasn't it 306-318 mph? or am i getting confused
Shakespeare 2016
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I guess the numbers don't matter whether it is 306 to 318 mph or 308 to 319 mph for the Greenfield tornado. I swear these people who survey the damage forget what multiple vortices are.
joshoctober16
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post 2013 EF scale issues
VS past F scale issue
i think its clear the EF scale has more flaws then the old F scale , at least you don't rate possible EF3 damage as weak EF0 damage or EF4 damage as EF2 damage just remember
the lowest you can go with a swept clean home is 165 mph .... or 160 mph on the new scale , so why did to go with.... 120 mph (i think its 120, its 120-129 mph something) that's litterly going off the books and breaking the scale , and why is it they never do the other way around? the ef scale is too full of using contextual for downgrading but none for upgrading post 2013.
also isn't all this messed up data also feed for weather data or climatoligy data? that means all of that is sadly junk because nws looks at a tree 50 yards away that was clearly missed by the main vortex and tells them to not rate it higher.... what bothers me the most is im worried this could make deaths for the future because we are never taking tornadoes too seriously and keep taking all of NWS surveys as fact , we might never get better home quality's or better warnings until we stop defending the poor surveys they do for tornadoes.
they need to pick what is most likely ... not the minimum (ef scale) .. not the maximum (f scale a bit) but the average likely wind speed for that di to fail.
remember a spot with only EF0 damage had a 150+ mph wind measurement form a mesonet.
a high end EF1 damage point of a power pole leaning had a wind measurement of 138-164 mph at that location, from the dominator.
andover was only able to remove the whole roof and a few walls with 264 mph winds , its to extra note the tornado winds were there for over 12 seconds and the core was over that house for more then 8 seconds.
i just want better acurate damage data that matches up with the wind speed and not be all skewd , i want it to be more accurate for better homes and models so less people would die.
also extra note nws is backwards for one thing in particular ... before sub vortexes were a known thing they would use that excuse that the damage was made by one , but when we all knew sub vortexes are a common thing all the surveys act as if sub vortexes can not be a reason for sharp damage spots....
Shakespeare 2016
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The house in Elie that was was swept away was very well built. I do not think there was any debris left anywhere near the property.
joshoctober16
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oh elie was one of the few that didnt suffer from debris issue at least for the main F5 damage , it only became a debris mess from the F5 damage flying all over the place, would be pretty stupid to say (we wont rate this a F5 rating because the home that got F5 damage hit it self and made the damage worse)
HOWEVER ... elie suffers form trees standing within 35-100 yards away issue
edit(honestly you can see some bushes standing within 10 yards from elie so it would not be rated EF5 today for sure, pink arrows are trees or bushes standing)
Shakespeare 2016
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I also really doubt that it would be rated EF5 today. That skinny tornado sure packed a punch before it completely completely dissipated.
dude you are still completely missing the point. a concrete house and traditional home arent comparable. the dome house didnt get impacted by 200mph winds, the only reason it suffered damage at all was due to debris. the houses in all the other tornados you mentioned were slabbed because of the winds, the dome home barely suffered any damage and likely only received ef1 - ef2 windspeeds. also im not even going to bother with the whole image you posted above, because while its not as bad as the extended version, everyone ive talked to laughs at ur schizo speculation based ramblings. there is more logical flaws in that image then there is structural flaws on a mobile home lmao
Sawmaster
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I've seen properly bolted code-inspected homes built which I honestly believe could be largely swept away with much less than this. I've also helped build homes which might mostly survive those winds. Two uncommon extremes with the average home built today maybe needing that level of wind to be swept away. It also bears remembering that a structurally damaged home will be weaker, and that debris impacts occur in nearly every case which could cause that without necessarily leaving any evidence behind. Even with studying every detail in a survey with multiple engineering tests backing it, you'll never be able to accurately interpolate winds from studying damages because IRL every case will be different. And I'm not sure that you can really assign UB or LB limits any more accurately.
One of my biggest beefs is contextuals, especially when used this way. I think this was already happening by 2013 as a lot of the tornadoes of the 2011 outbreak saw this happening. I also question the validity of some contextuals based on simple logic. If it takes "X" speeds minimum to defoliate a shrub or debark a tree for instance, then isn't that a DI instead? And here again, these could be instances where some shielding from winds happened. You cannot know if some debris was thrown shielding the indicator from most of the winds, only to have that debris swept away again. If they're not accurate enough to use as a DI then why would you use contextuals at all? You supposedly already have the proof in whatever the surveyed structure showed you, so why would you even look for contextuals unless what you're seeking is confirmation bias? And clearly that is how contextuals have come to be used, or more accurate to say misused.
I've often said the problem is systemic, and it is. I've often said that it's the mindset of Engineers being involved which is the problem. An improperly folded map is as good as a properly folded one unless you're an Engineer...
that first thing was prob just a DAT issue. the whole second point about surveys getting people killed is just stupid, u guys are just trying to find a validation for ur issues with tornado surveys. anyone who knows enough about tornados to know about how they are surveyed knows enough about tornados to not get killed by them. an instantaneous mesonet measurement isnt comparable to 3 sec gusts present on the ef scale, when accounting for the duration the windspeeds equate to ef0 - ef1 level winds, and regardless, there wasnt any nearby strcutures that could get rated above an ef0 level my knowledge. the andover argument is just objectively wrong. those 264mph winds were calculated using photogrammetry, a method whose accuracy cant really be confirmed. also, even if it was calculated using an accurate method, those winds were 60+ yards off the ground, its very obvious those winds were present at surface level. that is a non argument once again
we all want the scale and ratings to be mroe accurate, but it isnt impacting how many people survive from tornados.
also idk why u keep bringing up this argument? ive never argued that the NWS windspeeds are right, literally everyone knows they are wrong? ur just shfiting the goalposts kinda.
the subvort thing i agree with, they seem to use sharp damage gradients as a limiting fact in tornado ratings far too much
Sawmaster
Member
Every mobile home I've ever worked on, and that's at least a hundred of them, was nothing but structural flaws throughout
this is just objectively wrong lol, elie would get rated F/EF5/IF5 on any scale. it was likely the best constructed home ever hit by an EF5 tornado, and its damage gradients are obviously easily explainable due to its width compared to larger wedges. this is such a flawed argument lmao
exactly my point lol
joshoctober16
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1:for the whole instantanous wind speed talk just convert it into 3 second gust and see where its at, then again look at the IF scale
2:as for photogrammetry i mean evreything has errors in some way , whats the min max error range for it.
3:as for height well that depends but look at the IF scale
the mesonet measurement would be a IF2.5 , and for mobile radar and photogrammetry 0-59 meters counts
also i never stated i think the dome house should or shouldn't be rated EF5 , all im complaining about is rating it the lowest as possible just cause debris hit the home ... you know like .... 90% + of all tornadoes ever ....
at least you agree that the sharp damage downgrade does need to go away
im fine with if its something 5 yards away but pass 20+ yards is a bit too strict