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I'd actually love to hear what about the survey specifically is nitpicked and badly done, if you have the time to go over it. I definitely believe it considering certain offices and how they conduct surveys. Like, what specifically makes the nitpicking they did "pedantic" or unnecessary? I don't think I've ever seen imagery of the damaged homes from Chapman before either so I can't make any specific remarks about it myself. Was it anchor bolted?
It was also rated F5 based on the damage it did to the corn crop in conjunction with extraordinary vehicle lofting and damage, which also cemented it as such a rating. Plus, you had prior high end F4 damage coinciding with noticeably less intense contextual damage. I think that's a great use of context to give a tornado a high-end rating, and it should be something being incorporated more into the process 100%. Also, vortex constriction coinciding with this damage probably helped give the final rating for Plainfield as well.
Mayfield is kind-of an example of this. The most impressive structural damage, AKA the church in Mayfield and the 190 DI in Bremen, did not coincide with the tornado's maximum contextual damage. If that's the case, it becomes absolutely completely reasonable to assume that the tornado was at a higher intensity in the areas of more extreme context, even without the help of structures. And it isn't like the tornado didn't impact structures at these locations either, it did what an EF5 was supposed to and slabbed everything in the most intense damage contour. To me, that makes it entirely reasonable to grant it an EF5 rating.
Also, this isn't a super important point because it's not a part of my argument for why Mayfield deserves EF5, but it's a small little side comment that hopefully gives more clearance to my opinions on the tornado: The fact that this storm was on the ground for 165 miles, did what it did to multiple communities, slabbed well-built structures, left behind the contextuals supportive of a maximum-intensity tornado, and still was not granted the rating just completely erodes my confidence in the scale as something that accurately portrays tornadic intensity. This thing was, without a shadow of a doubt, an EF5 at maximum intensity. Radar data supports it, context supports it, and structural damage coinciding with context supports it too. I agree that it is borderline unscientific to not take these features into account when attempting to accurately portray these things.
I can see the other side of the argument, absolutely - you make a scale, you abide by its rules. But when the scale has had a precedent set where context was used far more heavily, and to a completely reasonable degree, why are we all of the sudden stopping that? (This next point is a little off topic from what we were discussing, but while I'm ranting, I'm gonna just air it out) It's no coincidence at all that EF5s disappeared when this happened. Tornadoes are not "getting weaker" at all, I strongly disagree with that take, and people on twitter suggesting that climate change is responsible for weakening tornadoes is a strange hypothesis. Where's the proof of that? You're going to need a lot of research on that topic before even coming close to making that something that sounds realistic. I could believe it to be the case, but before jumping to a very bold conclusion like that, I want to see scientific papers on it. A lot of them. Definitely not evidence based on the fact that the scale is becoming more strict.
The scale may be purely based off damage in its purest and most contingent form, but the ultimate goal of the scale is to determine tornado intensity. We've seen in the earlier days multiple examples of context being used in conjunction with structures (Rainsville), even sometimes pure context (Philadelphia, El Reno, Joplin), but for some reason there's a sentiment among many wind engineers and surveyors nowadays to simply omit that idea, unless it's to downgrade the tornado. I literally cannot understand why.
Sorry for the rant.
Absolutely perfectly stated! Excellent points about the Plainfield tornado, the logic used, and how it applies to Mayfield. It is strange people are starting to make the argument climate change is weakening tornadoes. It's a convenient form of denialism, masked as support. Those people are basically saying, "Well if the effects of climate change are good then I guess it is real!" There have been several studies that have concluded global warming contributes to increases in frequency and severity of storms, and none that state the opposite.
I said before this tornado season started my completely unsubstantiated, crackpot theory is that Tim Marshall doesn't believe in climate change and the lack of EF5s is his form of confirmation bias. The timing of the start of the EF5 drought also perfectly coincides with the most serious we ever got as a country about reversing climate change. Definitely straying too far into politics now, but it's a real head scratcher.
Back to the scale, you've summarized the dilemma with contextuals and their overall importance better than I ever could, so I have nothing to add. Thank you for the rant!