Ah yes, the Nick K incident. Truly Talkweather's whatever the opposite of a finest hour is.
The contextual damage was quite extreme at the farmstead that was obliterated and at the Parsons plant, but no structures were cleanly swept away in true F5 fashion, including the farmhouse that took a direct hit. High-end F4 feels like an appropriate rating.
If my memory is right, the Parsons facility was a very well-built manufacturing facility where parts of the foundation slab(s) were cracked. Failure modes of such buildings are also, obviously, different from something like a wood-frame (even a well-anchored one). More bending, crumpling, collapsing, and, in this case (again, if memory serves me right - I feel like I saw pictures of that foundation on this forum), even compromises to the foundation. A clean sweep likely couldn't happen there - again, from my understanding. I'm not sure I agree a tornado has to leave a postcard-perfect slab to be F (not EF)5, especially when it's doing what that tornado did to that facility. I'll acknowledge I don't recall the farmhouse in question.
My reference to a lack of a clean sweep was in reference to the farmhouse rather than the plant. A tornado cleanly sweeping away an entire factory isn’t realistic and just isn’t something I would expect to see at any intensity level.
I have always been uncertain of the rating for this tornado. The vehicle damage is extremely violent but not a definite indication of F5 winds.
I don't mind erring on the side of what I guess I'd call, liberality, in that era simply because of what we know about the innate, head-scratching conservatism of that era. Of course, I don't know what the culture was like in NWS Lincoln (I assume Roanoke is in the area of said office).
I thought what happened was very unseemly even though I'll generally defend the right of people to post what they want so long as it's civil (a line that probably was crossed). I haven't seen any other forum moderation strategy work successfully. But I also thought he could have made a gentler introduction himself. He's a nineteen year old who while obviously well read isn't so accepting of uncertainty or differing reasoning.
To put it more comprehensively, multi-vortex tornadoes or those with a high swirl ratio have rotation that is disproportionately strong compared to the radial inflow intensity. However, this actually makes it harder for high-swirl-ratio tornadoes to produce extreme damage. Instead, their most intense destruction is usually caused by subvortices, unlike tornadoes with moderate or low vortex ratios, where the main vortex itself is capable of generating devastating damage. In fact, the vast majority of tornadoes capable of extreme destruction have low or moderate swirl ratios which is a result of the balance among various parameters.
Those people would be right. I'm fairly certain there was NO damage from that tornado that was anything above an F4.
The colors confuse me.
Another valuable, high-effort contribution from the examiner.
I’ll leave. Bye.Another valuable, high-effort contribution from the examiner.
Maybe a key/legend would be helpful @Lake Martin EF4? This might actually be a really valuable tool for grading offices!
Might be a few days before I can get to it but I'll overlay this onto a map of each office's "jurisdictions".
Edit: I've also been scouring this site for pics of the EF5s from your list to verify that I agree with them and am planning to make more collages like the ones I posted a few pages ago.
Yellow - EF3. This is tornadoes that were either officially downgraded from EF4 or tornadoes I downgraded from EF4.
