No, because each tornado is an individual case. Therefore surveyors look at the bigger picture. Vilonia's rating I will agree to is very egregious and odd. But to use that as an argument to say that the EF5s we have had rated would not get the rating is unfounded. Especially when the likes of Tim Marshal have explicitly stated otherwise.
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Significant Tornado Events
- Thread starter locomusic01
- Start date
slenker
Member
Tim Marshall may explicitly have said that any of the EF5s would get the rating if they happened today, but hindsight is 20/20; it’s hard to say if they actually would. For example, if Rainsville happened by itself or from a separate outbreak than 4/27 nowadays, I really don’t know if it would get an EF5 rating due to the “EF0 damage occurred 30 yards away from the Robinson home” reason. And if it did receive EF5, then there’s even more reason to believe the scale is inconsistent.
There are a few that would most definitely receive an EF5 rating if they did happen today - Hackleburg, Smithville, and Parkersburg, but I find it very difficult to believe that Greensburg would.
Greensburg would definitely, Marshal has stated as such. Rainsville and Philadelphia I agree with you there, neither hit homes that would qualify for an EF5 rating.
Vilonia was a classic example of well built, properly bolted, structures being completely destroyed in addition to high-end contextual damage. All the other tornadoes are the same - well built structures destroyed with high-end contextual damage. If you apply those same standards Little Rock (and there are other similar offices) to the list of tornadoes you mentioned earlier, a good number of those (even approaching all) would also get EF4 ratings - reference to @joshoctober16 's post above which highlights the inconsistencies in detail.
I'm not trying to say that *none* of those tornadoes would get EF5 if they occurred today, It's possible some would. What I mean by the original post is that the EF scale is so inconsistent and flawed that you take the exact same damage from those tornadoes, put them in another office - or even change the date it occurred (i.e now and then), and in a fair few cases you get a completely different rating. A well working scale should not have that issue.
Josh's post that highlights reasons why certain tornadoes did not get an EF5 rating do not apply uniformly. That is the major detail to point out. Rather they are circumstantial.
Sure they are circumstantial, but its pretty reasonable to assume that one surveyor who justifies a rating with a certain argument would use the same justification for a different tornado? Which goes back to the emphasis on certain offices during a certain time period.
Just take the Vilonia "Just one structure" (bogus) argument: suddenly El Reno 2011 loses its one EF5 DI if that same logic applies. You can do the same for other arguments too.
Its easy to say what tornado would get what rating when the ratings already been given - but no-one can completely deny the possibility that many of the 2007-2013 EF5 tornadoes would not get the same rating if they were surveyed by different offices at a different time.
That just goes back to the main point which is the application of the EF Scale is severely inconsistent and arguably quite flawed.
100% agreed, the variation in application is a huge mitigating factor indeed. However there are some tornadoes that even the experts still hold firm to as being EF5 even today, El reno piedmont is one of them. The oil rig at cactus-117 was not the only indication of exceptional EF5 intensity. Just a major factor. But I agree that the application is poor. This is best demonstrated by the NIST survey on Joplin, which compiled data from many other surveyors including Marshal and found that the ratings differed often by a factor of 2 for certain structures. For instance, Marshal gave the Joplin High School Low EF3, others gave it high EF4. Etc. This is partly due to the vague nature of the DODs and their descriptions. Which is something that is getting fixed in the revision.
Also agreed
joshoctober16
Member
that's why i wish they would rate them all equally , as in if this tornado gets downgraded for that reason... then they all do... and if one keeps that type of rating... they all do....
i find the biggest problem is Rainsville vs Vilonia in particular....
what bothers me more is... even if there is a flaw with just that one home with Vilonia, then why not just say it had a flaw ... and not bring up a tree 100 yards away... and one di only rule???
also there are multiple homes that they never surveyed form Vilonia. and it threw a heavy tanker like Moore 2013
there's also a video posted recently that it seems there was... a non official di that likely had a 240+ mph winds needed ....
seen here...
if this fact is true.... then should we upgrade greenfield for 5 different parking concrete stops (note Joplin had this rated as EF5). or downgrade el reno 2011 for it having one unofficial di..... (its to note el reno had a second area of unofficial EF5 di but this was shown by tornadotalk and not nws)
or be super unscientific and keep el reno as EF5 and greenfield as EF4.
personally base on this video i now say greenfield should be rated EF5.
they cant do the whole: we cant rate it EF5 because its not a official di...
since they use tones of unofficial di to DOWNGRADE all the time...
Important to note is that even Ethan himself notes how idealised his calculations are. They are far from perfect, and those concrete stops were very poorly made. The stops alone are not enough to merit an EF5 imo.
joshoctober16
Member
not sure why i suddenly have this in my head but...
has there ever been any evidence of a tornado got a di rated (number) mph but had a wind measurement that showed it was infact weaker?
cause there's so much case of they measured winds being much stronger then what the damage was ...
the el reno 2011 mesonet wind of 150 mph ... was only in a EF0 damage area....
the dominator that was hit by that one EF1 rated wedge (there was a di beside the dominator a high end ef1 rating of a pole leading to the side) however the wind speeds were in the EF3 range in that spot 140-160 mph
greensburg definitely would, it hit some homes with very impressive construction, and had clear ef5 contextuals
the problem with this logic is that a 1.9 million pound oil rig with 200,000 pounds of downforce, drilling 17k ft deep into the earth, being completely lofted, suspended mid air, and rolled, is a much more certain example of EF5 damage. the parking stops in greenfield have plenty of variables and factors that could impact the windspeeds required to do the damage. as june first says, the calculations are in idealised scenarios that might not be accurate to real life. there is no world in which anything other than a EF5 tornado does the damage seen at the cactus drilling rig, where as there is a world in which winds lower than the EF5 threshold perform the damage to the parking stops seen in greenfield.
also, surveyours have said that some of the damage to homes in piedmont, such as the trenched home, are "undeniable EF5 intensity", language i've never really heard said about any other tornado, langauge that shows how confident they were about its intensity. if piedmont didnt hit cactus, im fairly confident that some of the damage to homes wouldve been bumped up an extra 5mph so that the tornado receives and EF5 rating regardless. i dont really see a world in which piedmont doesnt get an EF5 rating
joshoctober16
Member
interesting to hear what exact homes are you talking about?
Sawmaster
Member
Excuse me? Those stops weren't 'poorly made' as best I can tell from the pics. How many of them have you installed, removed, or handled personally to be able to judge their quality by? That's probably around just over a dozen of them handled by me, with seeing maybe a hundred up close and personally prior to installation. I've seen a few poorly made ones but the defects were mostly aesthetic and wouldn't significantly affect their strength. You clearly don't know anything about what you're speaking of here.
It's arguments like Hawkmoon is making which cause a lot of people to consider everyone who thinks EF ratings are flawed to be stupid or loony. Get your facts right before making an argument for or against anything if you expect anyone to believe and support you.
The concrete is poor quality, you can tell by the way it cracked and segmented. These are the words of my friend studying forensic engineering.
SpotlightForRareTornadoes
Member
Are you sure the tornado itself didn't cause those cracks?
Yes it did, my point exactly, the concrete was poor quality.
The rebar was not bent by the concrete parking stops, rather the concrete was broken through by the rebar when force was applied possibly showing a weakness in the concrete. Possibly quickrete. Which given their age seems possible. But most of these parking stops weren’t necessarily moved in a traditional way but rotated about one of their anchoring points. Not the same case as Joplin. EF ratings have only really been flawed for about 3 tornadoes: Vilonia Chickasha and Goldsby (by the criteria of the EF scale), not saying that other tornadoes were not of Ef5 intensity, but strictly applying the EF scale, that is the reality. Now in practise the EF scale itself is flawed, hence it is getting a revision (the revised version was actually used in the Greenfield survey by the way).
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