Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

[SweptSlab5]

The image I posted previously makes a case for Smithville going from EF0-5 in at least 6 seconds based on the size of its core and the forward speed. If you want to claim that Smithville didn’t do that in 6 seconds and that is erroneous, that’s fine and honestly I do think it took longer than 6 seconds. But at the same time you can’t say it took minutes - that’s a completely wrong take, objectively. The image I posted clearly shows tornado damage going from EF0-weak EF1 transitioning to extreme gouging/trenching coincident with grass scouring that hit a steady state afterwards. Directly after hitting this steady-state, it inflicted EF5 damage, full-stop. I’m pretty sure that the official NWS damage contours also highlight the trench as the beginning of the EF5 path, and it’s very believable for that to be the case.

And again, if you want to make the argument that Smithville wasn’t that impressive structurally (which I haven’t seen any sources of, only people repeating this statement) the contextuals are very difficult to deny for being some of the most violent ever seen, and it’s absolutely comparable to any of the tornadoes you mentioned as being “certified stronger.” The grass scouring is impossible to deny and it’s clearly some of the most violent we’ve ever seen. Smithville checks every single box you can think of when it comes to inflicting EF5 level damage.

Debris impacts argument is very silly. I suppose every single high end tornado that went through a semi-populated area should have a consideration to be looked at in a lower light because of this. Did debris play a role? Yes, but is it solely responsible for the extraordinarily consistent streak of grass ripping that began outside of town? Is it solely responsible for the historically violent forestry damage that occurred after the granulated funeral home? Is it responsible for the extremely upper-echelon vehicle damage? Probably not. And if you’re going to say that, that’s highly dismissive of this tornado’s power.

Again it’s all subjective, so if you believe Jarrell or Loyal Valley or Bridge Creek is stronger, then that’s a completely fine take because those are the highest end events you can get. But the fact of the matter is that Smithville certifiably deserves to be mentioned alongside those monsters, with zero doubt in my mind.

June first/ Ethan made a video a while ago talking about Ef5s and how you could invalidate them all except Parkersburg, but why would you? You could just decide to nitpick everything to death, but what is the point. I’m agreeing with you by the way!

 

[SweptSlab5]

Brick veneer and actual brick masonry have differences, veneer is a singular layer, but actual masonry is pretty much just more than one layer, they were also used in current times if I remember, typically for structures like schools, as seen with Plaza Towers.

But what about house construction? What kinds of houses have brick masonry in the modern US?

 

[Tokai.Ryu]

The image I posted previously makes a case for Smithville going from EF0-5 in at least 6 seconds based on the size of its core and the forward speed. If you want to claim that Smithville didn’t do that in 6 seconds and that is erroneous, that’s fine and honestly I do think it took longer than 6 seconds. But at the same time you can’t say it took minutes - that’s a completely wrong take, objectively. The image I posted clearly shows tornado damage going from EF0-weak EF1 transitioning to extreme gouging/trenching coincident with grass scouring that hit a steady state afterwards. Directly after hitting this steady-state, it inflicted EF5 damage, full-stop. I’m pretty sure that the official NWS damage contours also highlight the trench as the beginning of the EF5 path, and it’s very believable for that to be the case.

And again, if you want to make the argument that Smithville wasn’t that impressive structurally (which I haven’t seen any sources of, only people repeating this statement) the contextuals are very difficult to deny for being some of the most violent ever seen, and it’s absolutely comparable to any of the tornadoes you mentioned as being “certified stronger.” The grass scouring is impossible to deny and it’s clearly some of the most violent we’ve ever seen. Smithville checks every single box you can think of when it comes to inflicting EF5 level damage.

Debris impacts argument is very silly. I suppose every single high end tornado that went through a semi-populated area should have a consideration to be looked at in a lower light because of this. Did debris play a role? Yes, but is it solely responsible for the extraordinarily consistent streak of grass ripping that began outside of town? Is it solely responsible for the historically violent forestry damage that occurred after the granulated funeral home? Is it responsible for the extremely upper-echelon vehicle damage? Probably not. And if you’re going to say that, that’s highly dismissive of this tornado’s power.

Again it’s all subjective, so if you believe Jarrell or Loyal Valley or Bridge Creek is stronger, then that’s a completely fine take because those are the highest end events you can get. But the fact of the matter is that Smithville certifiably deserves to be mentioned alongside those monsters, with zero doubt in my mind.

This is actually a fair and reasonable point. I respect your opinion. Atleast we didn't have to cause an insultfest like last time. These takes are very reasonable, most of mine's were mostly just inaccurate, (especially with the intensify part.)

 

[ColdFront]

Unfounded and completely inappropriate sockpuppetry allegations are certainly something. If you're going to accuse someone of sockpuppeting, at the very least back it up with a shred of evidence that isn't "well, they disagree with my opinion, so they must automatically be the same person!" It makes you look bad (and it's not the first time I've observed this attitude towards newcomers).

To clarify I'm not one of their "sockpuppets" or whatever, I'm just going on the defense because the attitudes towards them are absolutely insane over such a simple disagreement.

You and I don’t see eye to eye on much of anything so I’m not going further on this.

Why is simply asking people to back up their opinions bad? Especially when they’re essentially restating claims that were discussed on the previous page? This person has the exact same grammatical style as @GrenadinesDes, they also essentially said the same thing word for word that he did yesterday. Maybe I’m wrong, I’ll happily eat crow, but it’s a funny coincidence they essentially continued the furor on both threads after @GrenadinesDes just stopped posting. This didn’t happen in a vacuum, just go look at the blow up from the significant tornado thread.

You are someone that consistently has an axe to grind with seemingly everything with this site, so I’m not going back and forth with you. Feel free to DM if you want to continue.


There is a whole bit of context behind these “allegations” and trying to put tornados “ranked” over another is just an exercise in futility. However, this downplaying of Smithville, which you also took part in, is Just bizarre. You legitimately nitpick every Tornado damage opinion on here.

 

[SweptSlab5]

This is actually a fair and reasonable point. I respect your opinion. Atleast we didn't have to cause an insultfest like last time. These takes are very reasonable, most of mine's were mostly just inaccurate, (especially with the intensify part.)

your takes are not necessarily inaccurate, just not what I’m talking about. I respect your opinion too. I see how one could place jarrel higher as well, but I think the foreward speed of smithville is what does it for me.

 

[SweptSlab5]

You and I don’t see eye to eye on much of anything so I’m not going further on this.

Why is simply asking people to back up their opinions bad? Especially when they’re essentially restating claims that were discussed on the previous page? This person has the exact same grammatical style as @GrenadinesDes, they also essentially said the same thing word for word that he did yesterday. Maybe I’m wrong, I’ll happily eat crow, but it’s a funny coincidence they essentially continued the furor on both threads after @GrenadinesDes just stopped posting. This didn’t happen in a vacuum, just go look at the blow up from the significant tornado thread.

You are someone that consistently has an axe to grind with seemingly everything with this site, so I’m not going back and forth with you. Feel free to DM if you want to continue.

There is a whole bit of context behind these “allegations”

Why don’t we just stop focusing on this and move on? Eh? Anyway, what are some tornadoes you think should definitely have gotten Ef/F/If status?
Edit, I meat to say Ef5, the 5 part got left out.

 

[tornado examiner]

Wth….

 

[Tokai.Ryu]

You and I don’t see eye to eye on much of anything so I’m not going further on this.

Why is simply asking people to back up their opinions bad? Especially when they’re essentially restating claims that were discussed on the previous page? This person has the exact same grammatical style as @GrenadinesDes, they also essentially said the same thing word for word that he did yesterday. Maybe I’m wrong, I’ll happily eat crow, but it’s a funny coincidence they essentially continued the furor on both threads after @GrenadinesDes just stopped posting. This didn’t happen in a vacuum, just go look at the blow up from the significant tornado thread.

You are someone that consistently has an axe to grind with seemingly everything with this site, so I’m not going back and forth with you. Feel free to DM if you want to continue.

There is a whole bit of context behind these “allegations”

Ooh. Alright I understand. I thought you were just randomly accusing me because I arrived at the most random times already. But yea, I only just said grenadine's takes because some of them were actually correct, especially with E.E. Pickle Home. But I'll move on, I don't want to argue anyway.

Why don’t we just stop focusing on this and move on? Eh? Anyway, what are some tornadoes you think should definitely have gotten Ef/F/If status?

Violent Status? Hm..
Polesella 1892. It was rated F2 despite having great damage towards the church.
Robecco Pavese, 1957. It was rated F3, although it does have damage comparable with the likes of an IF4.
If you want me to name some IF5 candidates..
Venezia, 1970. The shipyard is an IF5 candidate basically.
Valle Scuropasso, 1957. Explanatory enough, it's the most worthy to be IF5 if i remember.
Ivanovo, 1987. Explanatory either.
Estacion Lopez, 1997. A church and a building with 40CM+ thick walls was annihilated, it was properly nailed and anything.
I could send photos of them if you want to see, I've been researching about these SHEM/EURO tornadoes and trying to find more IF5 worthy candidates.

 

[ColdFront]

Ooh. Alright I understand. I thought you were just randomly accusing me because I arrived at the most random times already. But yea, I only just said grenadine's takes because some of them were actually correct, especially with E.E. Pickle Home. But I'll move on, I don't want to argue anyway.

All good! You all both had similar styles, and he caused a pretty big blow up in another thread yesterday. So if I was completely out of bounds, lets start fresh.

I actually agree with you on some fronts. There is hyperbole in some of the aspects around Smithville. However, I feel it’s going too far in the other direction now. Which honestly is a little head scratching.

 

[slenker]

June first/ Ethan made a video a while ago talking about Ef5s and how you could invalidate them all except Parkersburg, but why would you? You could just decide to nitpick everything to death, but what is the point. I’m agreeing with you by the way!

Yeah. I’m of the opinion that Smithville and Parkersburg are the two most bulletproof EF5s, even when considering the unbearably high engineering standard imposed upon tornado damage from 2013-2025. Looking specifically at Vilonia here.

I believe LaDue and Marshall gave a talk this year that explores this, and it was right after Enderlin was upgraded (and justifiably so). A home doesn’t need to be a fortress to determine whether or not EF5 is able to be applied. It’s a gross misuse of the EF scale, and there’s an undeniable link between the EF5 droughts that occurred being coincident with significant rating controversies.

 

[TH2002]

Considering this forum is still on the verge of chaos and instability, I'll be at the gun range if anyone needs me...

 

[joshoctober16]

I think there’s a misinterpretation of my point here - I never said that the tornado touched down and went from EF0 to EF5, I’m saying that it already touched down, moved to the east for a bit fluctuating in intensity, then went from EF0 to EF5 after said fluctuations. If anyone claims that 6 seconds after touchdown Smithville was an EF5, that’s just flat out incorrect, and it’s a misrepresentation of the tornado’s behavior. Perhaps I should’ve been more clear on my end.

the EF0 to EF5 part like others stated sort of isn't true ... however the EF1 to EF5 does seem to be a less then 6 seconds

and the EF2 to EF5 seems to be a one second change thing as well

zoom in of the tornadotalk survey


as for worse forest damage , there are 2 tornadoes to note ... one is ... smithville tornado it self ... as it seems to have been 2 tornadoes that make the whole track , the second one (alabama part) seem to have done such severe tree damage that it looks like there's no trace of some parts of the forest.

the second tornado to note is the white lake EF3 2007 tornado , there's barely any zoom in images , however there seems to be miles of no traces of tree left from this tornado.

here is one of the only images i can find , some spots have not a single tree stump left in its track when looking in google earth.

 

[tornado examiner]

the EF0 to EF5 part like others stated sort of isn't true ... however the EF1 to EF5 does seem to be a less then 6 seconds

and the EF2 to EF5 seems to be a one second change thing as well

zoom in of the tornadotalk survey
View attachment 49337

as for worse forest damage , there are 2 tornadoes to note ... one is ... smithville tornado it self ... as it seems to have been 2 tornadoes that make the whole track , the second one (alabama part) seem to have done such severe tree damage that it looks like there's no trace of some parts of the forest.

the second tornado to note is the white lake EF3 2007 tornado , there's barely any zoom in images , however there seems to be miles of no traces of tree left from this tornado.
View attachment 49338
here is one of the only images i can find , some spots have not a single tree stump left in its track when looking in google earth.

One of your images lays evidence that not even smithville would be spared enough from the nitpicky surveying tactics down to EF4 of the 2010’s era of bad surveying by some offices. Which, is unfortunately true. I can think of a few offices that would have hit it with 200MPH EF4 and never look back.

 

[Grand Poo Bah]

If we could just pull a switcheroo on these debates to their correct threads that'd be great. Rochelle debate belongs here and Smithville belongs in the Sig Tor thread. We were having some really good and productive discussion before this derailment too.

 

[slenker]

I don’t think the Smithville conversation here is out of this thread’s depth, as we discussed structural damage and the ratings they deserved, but I agree with the Rochelle discussion belonging here.

I don’t know much about the structural aspect of Rochelle’s damage, but if you give that tornado an EF5 rating, it’s easily the most borderline case of any officially rated EF5. The contextual damage in Deer Creek just manages to have that look to it IMO, structural quality notwithstanding.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

the second tornado to note is the white lake EF3 2007 tornado , there's barely any zoom in images , however there seems to be miles of no traces of tree left from this tornado.

I'm not sure that picture is as impressive as it appears at first glance. Though that path looks like a more or less complete blowdown, the quality of the photo is so poor that the further off areas look like a big brown expanse.

 

[ColdFront]

I'm not even the same account? I just got here, but I only said some stuff due to the fact that some parts of smithville (the intensifying within 6 seconds part) is being said, which they are myths indeed so without evidence.

But anywho, heres some stuff I found already, Smithville's funeral home was made of brick veneer, and it wasn't anchored basically. E.E Pickle home is pretty well exaggerated, but once you look more into it, you'd see major flaws, heres the wood frames that were windrowed away from E.E. Pickle Home.View attachment 49331View attachment 49332I wouldn't say much about E.E Pickle home, because most EF5 DIs today are brick veneer, we don't know much about E.E Pickle home other than that its just made of brick veneer and it wasn't anchored/properly nailed. It's one of the few areas that are being mythologized for strength.

As for the few homes, I've found the EF5 DIs, seems to me they are extremely well built and pretty solid for their rating. View attachment 49333View attachment 49334View attachment 49335
In these aerials, you could also see some of the EF4 DIs that were slabbed, which they were said to be "solid EF5", but they were improperly nailed, About 5-6 of them to be exact were actually solid EF5. Properly nailed, anchored, and everything.
I wouldn't say this is jarrell level, but its definitely upper echelon.
I may be downplaying smithville much, but I wouldn't say it's tied with piedmont as the strongest of all time, tri-state and new richmond exist.
A few of smithville's feats were very great, but I wouldn't say its at jarrell's level in damage, nor is it stronger than tornadoes like M13.
In anyway, its also likely that smithville's homes were hit by debris impacts.
Structurally, smithville isn't even close, its the contextuals and speed that warrant it a great spot, not its structural, most of them had flaws or hit by debris, even improperly nailed.
About the post, that was talking about smithville's solid EF5 DIs, which were excellently well built in any way possible, not the entire town, if it was talking about the entire town, then all of smithville's EF4 DIs would've became EF5, no?
Anywho, I really do not want to argue right now, would be a waste, especially since I'm being called someone's alt.

I appreciate you taking the time to post all this.

Like I said previously, I agree with you on some aspects. The mythology around Smithville is full of hyperbole. For example, the “it was so powerful it almost collapsed in on itself” which just seems like conjecture that I saw on Reddit. Same thing with the “sonic boom” hyperbole that others bring up.

I’m not going to “debate” rankings of individual tornados. As I’ve stated many times, it’s completely subjective and I have zero interest in doing it since you can’t 100% prove why tornado A should be above B. It’s impossible. However, your list is your list and I’m not objecting to you having one. What I’m objecting to is this new attitude of downplaying Smithville. It’s like we are swinging too far in the other direction.

You know what else? I agree with you on the funeral home. It wasn’t necessarily a well built structure. The tornado sweeping it away isn’t what’s impressive to me. However, the “grinding” of the brick to reddish dust as well as the overall damage to the forest as it left town at its forward speed is what’s impressive to me. People are missing the forest for the trees and hyper focusing on the construction of the funeral home.

I also never said the entire town was well built. You can’t find me an EF5 (save for a contextual based EF5) where every single home built was upper bound and above code. There’s not a place in the world where every single structure would get rated EF5. What I did state was a lot of the newer homes were very well built. Those are the ones that rightfully earned their EF5.

Spare me the debris impact crap. If there was a bulldozer parked outside one of the homes that got EF5 that was thrown into the home then I would listen. This new debris impact argument more and more users are making on here is completely asinine. Large object we can conclusively proved smashed into the home? Sure let’s have that conversation, I’ll listen. However, a tornado in a populated area is going to have debris in it. When people use this, it makes me want to completely invalidate their overall argument.

The “most of them had flaws” argument is true everywhere. Again, most homes aren’t constructed well and every neighborhood in America will have homes with flaws. However, as LaDue stated recently, a home doesn’t need to be a fortress to get an EF5.

However, I’d love more information on the anchoring/quality of the Funeral home
Specifically.

Hopefully this resets this debate somewhat.

 

[SweptSlab5]

Ooh. Alright I understand. I thought you were just randomly accusing me because I arrived at the most random times already. But yea, I only just said grenadine's takes because some of them were actually correct, especially with E.E. Pickle Home. But I'll move on, I don't want to argue anyway.

Violent Status? Hm..
Polesella 1892. It was rated F2 despite having great damage towards the church.
Robecco Pavese, 1957. It was rated F3, although it does have damage comparable with the likes of an IF4.
If you want me to name some IF5 candidates..
Venezia, 1970. The shipyard is an IF5 candidate basically.
Valle Scuropasso, 1957. Explanatory enough, it's the most worthy to be IF5 if i remember.
Ivanovo, 1987. Explanatory either.
Estacion Lopez, 1997. A church and a building with 40CM+ thick walls was annihilated, it was properly nailed and anything.
I could send photos of them if you want to see, I've been researching about these SHEM/EURO tornadoes and trying to find more IF5 worthy candidates.

Can you provide photos? I would love to see the potential candidates.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

Polesella 1892. It was rated F2 despite having great damage towards the church.
Robecco Pavese, 1957. It was rated F3, although it does have damage comparable with the likes of an IF4.
If you want me to name some IF5 candidates..
Venezia, 1970. The shipyard is an IF5 candidate basically.
Valle Scuropasso, 1957. Explanatory enough, it's the most worthy to be IF5 if i remember.
Ivanovo, 1987. Explanatory either.
Estacion Lopez, 1997. A church and a building with 40CM+ thick walls was annihilated, it was properly nailed and anything.

Some comments:

Robecco Pavese and Valle Scuropasso were the same tornado, ESWD has them split up for unclear reasons (and Valle Scuropasso may have been actually upgraded to IF5 recently). Robecco Pavese also likely met the IF5 criteria, in fact that area seems to have had a stronger IF5 case than Valle Scuropasso
Ivanovo was actually an F5 originally, but was downgraded due to there not being enough evidence for an F5 rating (it also happened in 1984, not 1987)
I'd like to know more about Estacion Lopez

 

[SweptSlab5]

One of your images lays evidence that not even smithville would be spared enough from the nitpicky surveying tactics down to EF4 of the 2010’s era of bad surveying by some offices. Which, is unfortunately true. I can think of a few offices that would have hit it with 200MPH EF4 and never look back.

I hate that 200mph is even given out. It makes NO SENSE! At that point, you are 1mph from Ef5. 1! That 1 mph isn’t doing crap. Expected bound should be able to be upgraded to 201 if contextual damage is present.