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Severe Weather 2025

DAT came out for the Gary tornado, definitely violent based on the photo of the swept house, particularly the tree damage.
Stripped, denuded, and debarked.

The home itself was rated 165mph, no visible anchor bolts, simply was nailed onto wooden studs. The shattered concrete would be more impressive if weren’t a century old.

Honestly though the contextual damage around the structure suggests violent intensity. Could’ve gone either way I suppose.

IMG_1470.jpeg
 
jiharris0220 said:
DAT came out for the Gary tornado, definitely violent based on the photo of the swept house, particularly the tree damage.
Stripped, denuded, and debarked.

The home itself was rated 165mph, no visible anchor bolts, simply was nailed onto wooden studs. The shattered concrete would be more impressive if weren’t a century old.

Honestly though the contextual damage around the structure suggests violent intensity. Could’ve gone either way I suppose.

View attachment 44742
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Yeah, that one tree on the far right seems to have been totally stubbed and suffered pretty severe debarking. Definitely a sign of a violent tornado.
 
jiharris0220 said:
DAT came out for the Gary tornado, definitely violent based on the photo of the swept house, particularly the tree damage.
Stripped, denuded, and debarked.

The home itself was rated 165mph, no visible anchor bolts, simply was nailed onto wooden studs. The shattered concrete would be more impressive if weren’t a century old.

Honestly though the contextual damage around the structure suggests violent intensity. Could’ve gone either way I suppose.

View attachment 44742
Click to expand...
I personally would have gone with EF4 170, but yeah you are right, it's really only a 5 mph difference and it could have gone either way.
 
That was not an EF3 tornado. No, it was not an EF5, mostly because of the construction flaws noted in the house it destroyed but also because the context doesn't seem to suggest that.

But: it completely destroyed and swept away a house (not a perfectly built house, with engineered anchoring, but also not a "s***box"); it lofted a Silverado 300 yards and ripped the axle off; it snapped, uprooted, and de-barked trees (including one that was at least fully debarked); it fully sheared off fence posts at ground level; it drove debris into the ground. It was a persistent, relatively long track tornado that lofted multiple heavy objects, debarked trees, and swept away a house. The context suggests wind speeds well into the EF4 category (edit: though, of course, pretty far from EF5) and, I'm sorry, but that house was not crummy enough to remotely suggest EF3.

I don't guess it did major ground scouring - some cycloidal marking, of course - which is about the only contextual knock on "violence".

Even reading the dry DAT overview screams EF4.

I don't get it, folks.

Edit: yes, I know - the house was definitely a slider (still not a "s***box"). I get it. But I think there was more to this tornado than that one instance, you know?
 
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Aaron Rider said:
That was not an EF3 tornado. No, it was not an EF5, mostly because of the construction flaws noted in the house it destroyed but also because the context doesn't seem to suggest that.

But: it completely destroyed and swept away a house (not a perfectly built house, with engineered anchoring, but also not a "s***box"); it lofted a Silverado 300 yards and ripped the axle off; it snapped, uprooted, and de-barked trees (including one that was at least fully debarked); it fully sheared off fence posts at ground level; it drove debris into the ground. It was a persistent, relatively long track tornado that lofted multiple heavy objects, debarked trees, and swept away a house. The context suggests wind speeds well into the EF4 category (edit: though, of course, pretty far from EF5) and, I'm sorry, but that house was not crummy enough to remotely suggest EF3.

I don't guess it did major ground scouring - some cycloidal marking, of course - which is about the only contextual knock on "violence".

Even reading the dry DAT overview screams EF4.

I don't get it, folks.

Edit: yes, I know - the house was definitely a slider (still not a "s***box"). I get it. But I think there was more to this tornado than that one instance, you know?
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Im fine with the rating of the house, I just which more of these NWS offices used contextuals more.

If this was any one of the survey teams in the southeast, this tornado would’ve easily gotten an ef4 rating based on the tree damage.
 
Aaron Rider said:
That was not an EF3 tornado. No, it was not an EF5, mostly because of the construction flaws noted in the house it destroyed but also because the context doesn't seem to suggest that.

But: it completely destroyed and swept away a house (not a perfectly built house, with engineered anchoring, but also not a "s***box"); it lofted a Silverado 300 yards and ripped the axle off; it snapped, uprooted, and de-barked trees (including one that was at least fully debarked); it fully sheared off fence posts at ground level; it drove debris into the ground. It was a persistent, relatively long track tornado that lofted multiple heavy objects, debarked trees, and swept away a house. The context suggests wind speeds well into the EF4 category (edit: though, of course, pretty far from EF5) and, I'm sorry, but that house was not crummy enough to remotely suggest EF3.

I don't guess it did major ground scouring - some cycloidal marking, of course - which is about the only contextual knock on "violence".

Even reading the dry DAT overview screams EF4.

I don't get it, folks.

Edit: yes, I know - the house was definitely a slider (still not a "s***box"). I get it. But I think there was more to this tornado than that one instance, you know?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I am getting used to tornadoes like this being rated high-end EF3 but it is only to obvious this tornado should have been rated at least a mid EF4 with winds around 175 to 185 mph. I am even inclined to say like you said that this tornado was probably well into the EF4 category and likely reached EF5 intensity.
 
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Shakespeare 2016 said:
Yeah, I am getting used to tornadoes like this being rated high-end EF3 but it is only to obvious this tornado should have been rated at least a mid EF4 with winds around 175 to 185 mph. I am even inclined to say like you said that this tornado was probably well into the EF4 category and likely reached EF5 intensity.
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I'm not saying it reached EF5 intensity. And I admit that the structure - that is, if you went by structure alone - is no worse than EF3.

But when you put everything together, EF4. Not more, not less.
 
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