• Welcome to TalkWeather!
    We see you lurking around TalkWeather! Take the extra step and join us today to view attachments, see less ads and maybe even join the discussion.
    CLICK TO JOIN TALKWEATHER

Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

buckeye05 said:
It was actually NWS Louisville that surveyed and rated Bowling Green. They are absolutely up there with the worst offices when it comes to ratings as well. Louisville, Memphis, Springfield, Nashville, Lubbock, Goodland, and sometimes Dallas/Fort Worth are the ones you really gotta watch out for. They all tend to follow the “how low can we go” mindset and ignore contextual evidence.

Regarding Lake Village, I honestly wasn’t expecting them to go with EF4 after taking a closer look at the construction quality, but EF2 is kind of a slap in the face. The contextual damage simply was not consistent with an EF2 tornado, and they could have at least gone with EF3 based on the tree/vegetation damage alone. At least the tornado itself is in the books as an EF3 though which is fair given the awful construction quality, but I personally would have gone with high-end EF3 given the contextual evidence.
Click to expand...
I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that Nashville was a decent WFO. Have they had some questionable surveys in the past few years? I was very impressed with their Cookville/Nashville surveys from 2020.
 
speedbump305 said:
I might be mistaken, but I was under the impression that Nashville was a decent WFO. Have they had some questionable surveys in the past few years? I was very impressed with their Cookville/Nashville surveys from 2020.
Click to expand...
They have a tendency to overuse very high-end EF2 and very high-end EF3 in situations where they should just upgrade. For example, in his damage surveying techniques presentation last year, Jim LaDue actually low-key ripped them a new one by showing a house totally destroyed by the Clarksville EF3 that NWS Nashville rated a high-end EF2 slider, when in reality it should have been rated well into the EF3 range.
 
buckeye05 said:
They have a tendency to overuse very high-end EF2 and very high-end EF3 in situations where they should just upgrade. For example, in his damage surveying techniques presentation last year, Jim LaDue actually low-key ripped them a new one by showing a house totally destroyed by the Clarksville EF3 that NWS Nashville rated a high-end EF2 slider, when in reality it should have been rated well into the EF3 range.
Click to expand...
Ah I was not aware of this. Good to know! Honestly, the more you realize it, every WFO has their screw ups from time to time. The most consistent WFO right now is without a doubt LZK. Which is crazy to say ( ifykyk )
 
speedbump305 said:
Ah I was not aware of this. Good to know! Honestly, the more you realize it, every WFO has their screw ups from time to time. The most consistent WFO right now is without a doubt LZK. Which is crazy to say ( ifykyk )
Click to expand...
Though anything ever done wrong by NWS Grand Forks has been forgiven for going above and beyond to get that Enderlin rating.
 
Ah Vilonia 2014, the OG terrible precedent survey that launched the artificial "EF5 drought." I remember tracking that on GR Level 3 on my laptop at my parents' house, since I happened to be visiting them at the time. The high risk issuance that day had been rather underwhelming to that point, then that absolutely textbook hook and debris ball along with Greensburg/Tuscaloosa-esque velocity couplet appeared. It was also the first time I tracked a violent tornado with a correlation coefficient debris signature, since dual-pol was not operational for 4/27/11 and I was in a class when Moore occurred the year prior. Come to think of it I might have been home for Shawnee and Granbury, but IIRC in 2013 I had an older version of GR Level 3 that I don't think was capable of displaying the CC product. Or else it had become operational so recently I wasn't aware of/didn't think to use it.
 
Central Ohio Wx said:
While we're on the topic of tanks, I've been mapping out five liquid fertilizer tanks from the Vilonia tornado that were displaced to the east and northeast by the tornado.
View attachment 49572
Tank A: Displaced 3,705 feet (0.7 miles)
Tank B: Displaced ~1,865 feet (0.35 miles)
Tank C: Displaced ~1,823 feet (0.35 miles)
Tank D: Displaced ~1,375 feet (0.26 miles)
Tank E: Displaced ~1,709 feet (0.32 miles)

Surprised these have never been looked into outside of Marshall's survey. I cannot find a single drag mark from any of the five tanks, meaning these were possibly sustained in the air. Might reach out to someone who's good with calculating things like this specifically on the 0.70-mile tank since we have rough details of it.

There's also this one presumably near Vilonia which I found in a Facebook post, but I couldn't find where it originated/landed.
View attachment 49574
Click to expand...
Piggybacking off this amazing research by @Central Ohio Wx I went and found all the EF5 evidence I could from the surrounding areas of his fertilizer tanks. This was massively time consuming, but I've got accurate locations now. I cross referenced everything in the DAT.

Here are the final locations

1. Cody Lane Homes
2. Fertilizer Tank A landing location.
3. United Methodist Church Parking Stops that were displaced
4. The majority of the vehicle carnage and tree debarking.
5. Fish Hooks Restaurant.
6. E Wicker Street EF5 Home.

1773439186290.jpeg

And here's a link with 31 detailed images of all the surrounding area.

 
Last edited:
buckeye05 said:
Sorry to distract from more important things, but you guys want to read some unfathomably stupid bull***t real quick? Nick found this wonderful little morsel of brilliance in a recent survey of a brief North Carolina tornado. Unreal…
View attachment 51781
Click to expand...
And if they weren't out in the open the damage would've been "likely enhanced by debris".
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
And if they weren't out in the open the damage would've been "likely enhanced by debris".
Click to expand...
Not only that, how in the world is lack of obstruction “enhancement”? Wouldn’t that just mean the trees experienced the full intensity the winds? And for another layer of stupid, try to find me just one example of genuine, real deal tree debarking within the immediate vicinity of EF1 structural damage. Good luck, because it simply doesn’t happen. Hell, EF2 tornadoes rarely ever cause debarking, and you typically only start to see partial debarking once you are well into the EF3 range. It’s like a layer cake of stupidity and poor logic.

Weak tornadoes don’t debark trees, period.
 
"completely in the open and wind was likely enhanced here"

Also known as, the most accurate place to truly measure the wind without obstacles/minimal frictional effects...
 
buckeye05 said:
Not only that, how in the world is lack of obstruction “enhancement”? Wouldn’t that just mean the trees experienced the full intensity the winds? And for another layer of stupid, try to find me just one example of genuine, real deal tree debarking within the immediate vicinity of EF1 structural damage. Good luck, because it simply doesn’t happen. Hell, EF2 tornadoes rarely ever cause debarking, and you typically only start to see partial debarking once you are well into the EF3 range. It’s like a layer cake of stupidity and poor logic.

Weak tornadoes don’t debark trees, period.
Click to expand...
So, basically, there was a brief EF3 tornado in North Carolina but it's going down as EF1 essentially because "reasons"?

Edit: should say EF2 to EF3 range, not trying to definitely call it EF3
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
Piggybacking off this amazing research by @Central Ohio Wx I went and found all the EF5 evidence I could from the surrounding areas of his fertilizer tanks. This was massively time consuming, but I've got accurate locations now. I cross referenced everything in the DAT.

Here are the final locations

1. Cody Lane Homes
2. Fertilizer Tank A landing location.
3. United Methodist Church Parking Stops that were displaced
4. The majority of the vehicle carnage and tree debarking.
5. Fish Hooks Restaurant.
6. E Wicker Street EF5 Home.

View attachment 51759

And here's a link with 31 detailed images of all the surrounding area.

Click to expand...

i made a survey for the vilonia tornado , the points are all the spots for possible EF5 damage.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1xrCIb-vqLDCX04FWFpp7ZTnRlY6fkdE&usp=sharing
 
Linton IN from last year was another horrendous survey that generally gets overlooked.



There precisely zero tornadoes that look like this...

1773545806189.png

...and produce tree damage like this that should ever be rated EF2.
 
andyhb said:
Linton IN from last year was another horrendous survey that generally gets overlooked.



There precisely zero tornadoes that look like this...

View attachment 51828
Yeah one of several poorly surveyed and rated tornadoes from last year unfortunately. In addition to what you have above, there was a small house in the Linton area

...and produce tree damage like this that should ever be rated EF2.
Click to expand...


Yeah Linton was one of a handful of poorly rated tornadoes from last year. In addition to what you’ve shown above, there was a small house that was totally slabbed and was just completely skipped by the survey team; left unrated full on Vilonia style. This is the same survey team that from what I understand found EF4 tree damage in a forest that was decimated by the 2023 Stinesville tornado, acknowledged that it was EF4 level tree damage, and rated it EF3 citing some vague “geographic enhancement” rationale.

Generally, NWS Indianapolis is not one of my favorite survey teams.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top