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Let's say Lyza and team are ready to start their project. What offices' ratings would you guys recommend they examine first? NWS Memphis is the obvious choice, but where else has a long history of questionable ratings? I'm very interested in what their methodology will be. The rabbit hole is unbelievably deep. There's so many lesser known pictures and stories that entirely reframe certain tornadoes and DIs
WeathermanLeprechaun
Member
The funniest thing about this is this post comes from the community that usually shitposts about tornadoes, yet it's higher quality than the ACTUAL subreddit.
Bowling Green has always felt a odd one to me. I feel like that probably deserved EF4 at mininum.
WeathermanLeprechaun
Member
Also, what's the thoughts on the Spiritwood car? Was it another situation similar to the Oklahoma tornado this year where a very intense vortice hit the car or was that as violent as the car suggests? I don't hear it being brought up often in question to 6/20 (for obvious reasons)
CheeselandSkies
Member
Is Robinson-Sullivan 3/31/23 still considered an egregiously underrated "EF3" or did we retreat on that upon closer analysis? The general consensus seemed to be that the most heavily-damaged residences, containing possible EF4 indicators, were not surveyed as thoroughly as they should have been, if they were surveyed at all.
Would be really interesting to know how that outbreak (along with 12/10-11/21 in particular) would have been rated had it occurred from the 1970s through '90s. Based on the video I've seen, at its peak the Farson/Hedrick/Martinsburg, IA tornado was, if anything, even bigger, meaner-looking, and possibly more intense than its Keota successor that I saw.
Would be really interesting to know how that outbreak (along with 12/10-11/21 in particular) would have been rated had it occurred from the 1970s through '90s. Based on the video I've seen, at its peak the Farson/Hedrick/Martinsburg, IA tornado was, if anything, even bigger, meaner-looking, and possibly more intense than its Keota successor that I saw.
WeathermanLeprechaun
Member
I've always wondered about this one. The most convincing evidence people bring up is the cycloidal estimations. Do we buy those? Background environment had extreme low level shear and I'm not surprised in the least it provably reached EF4 intensity but I don't know about EF5.
I'm still kinda skeptical of the cycloid analysis, rubs me as a bit of a pseudoscience. I know Fujita used them but considering Belmont IA's rating they don't have an amazing track record.
(Goessel also got an F5 because of them, but Goessel also slabbed a well built house.)
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Eoline
Member
I no longer buy them; I've still seen nothing regarding the paper and very little besides self-made graphs and heresay "proving" they're correct. Robinson does not strike me as an extremely strong tornado; the tree damage is very arguably high 4-very low 5 and even then I've seen other EF4s (including New Harmony, funny enough) do worse.
WeathermanLeprechaun
Member
Yeah, probably more EF4ish than what people claim
Has there been any tornadoes in nonzero instability that probably breached EF5 winds? Only a question I throw out, because what can a environment do to its limits?
I hard bought it as an EF4 cause that shoddily built house wasn't documented by the survey. Past that I would agree with the analysis.
slenker
Member
Would like @A Guy input on cycloid stuff, very knowledgeable on this topic. I believe cycloid analysis has very legitimate merit fwiw, but only when carried out in a careful manner (and not applied in every circumstance) Can’t go into much details here atm but I might in a later post
EDIT: also, I would absolutely not designate it as pseudoscience, that’s a massive stretch to me.
EDIT: also, I would absolutely not designate it as pseudoscience, that’s a massive stretch to me.
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WeathermanLeprechaun
Member
Agree. It has backing, it has faults too but it's not pseudoscience
Ozonelayer
Member
Thats tough.
Memphis with Lake City, Bowling Green, aw hell even New Wren would probably qualify for upgrades. Likely far more too.
Springfield has all of SE Missouri from 3/14 to re-look over (Bakersfield included obviously). I remember seeing a few of the other EF-3s in that area and thinking they could be upgraded.
OKC has Chickasha and Goldsby, though im not as well versed in these two.
Ahhh Paducah. With the single tornado I have the most extensive knowledge on: Mayfield. Outside of this I believe theyve done good on surveys, but Mayfield alone qualifies it.
Same goes for Little Rock. They are good now, but Vilonia alone qualifies it to be in this conversation.
Honestly if I had to choose, either Memphis or Springfield.
jiharris0220
Member
Yea, Im scratching my head on where the merit of that claim came from.
Science at its fundamentals is making an observation, come up with a hypothesis to explain said observation, if the hypothesis makes an accurate prediction consistently, or at the very least has math that makes sense, it becomes a theory, and then you can further improve upon it.
Cycloidal analysis is obviously in the prediction making stage, it’s testable, the math make sense, it just needs to be rigorously tested to the point that it can prove to be an accurate way to measure tornadic winds.
It’s not even in the realm of pseudoscience.
the fact that Vilonia was so egregious makes it pretty reasonable that there could have been other questionalbe ratings from that period that happened to fly under the radar.
Not every bad rating is an EF5 snub- sometimes its a 2 that should be 3, and such.
WeathermanLeprechaun
Member
i think that we focus a bit too much on what should've been a 5 sometimes. if Lyza's research hasn't already proved on a sidenote that should've been 3s or should've been 4s matter as much as the higher end debates, i don't know what does. all significant ratings matter in a database, and the process to correct it is admittedly looking extremely promising. no guarantee on old habits, but i trust that this change will be net with good response by many offices. maybe some struggle at first, but that's fine, all at their own pace. mass revision will help us correct past mistakes and i am hopeful for this future ahead of us.
discouraging to hear that a certain Little Rock surveyor is still rocking and rolling in this area of forte despite him being the restarter of this cautious, extremely nitpicky mindset that has held offices still for over 10+ years. this issue has already arose since La Plata so I'm not saying that John Robinson is the sole "grim reaper" of all of this, but moreso a already hurting issue was worsened but him. This new future doesn't guarantee perfect ratings but i would hope it means more expansive branches of thinking when considering a rating. There's so much to damage we haven't considered yet. We've closed the door and locked ourselves in, whilst not considering all these new, subtle ways to achieve higher ratings.
There is no reason to single out any one office in this process. That is an easy way to needlessly anger people and push them away from the project.
Yeah, going in chronological order probably makes more sense than state by state.
I think the offices will be singled out regardless when their ratings come into question. There's no way it won't get a little controversial at points. However, It does sound to me like there's several offices who want to have their ratings re evaluated. It might be good for them to hit paydirt in a major way early on to really show the value of what they're doing.
Eoline
Member
HUN and BMX stick out to me as offices who are attempting or are actively doing re-analyses. Memphis wants to as well but can't due to the current issues.
As far as I know, Belmond was not rated F5 based on cycloid analysis, but a single house that was swept off its basement at the edge of town. You might be confusing it with Charles City. No offense, but you’ve made several claims regarding various DIs from several different historic tornadoes that seem to be a a result of confusion, or at the very least you haven’t elaborated on your claims. For example, you mentioned the Washington, IL EF4 lofting parking stops despite almost the entirety of its path being in residential areas with no parking lots besides an automotive business and an apartment complex. We never got clarification on where the alleged lofting of parking stops occurred despite us asking about it. Not trying to attack you or anything, and you could very well be correct, but making sure you have things straight in your head and being able to back up your claims is really important in this hobby. There was an old user on this forum who had a penchant for mixing up DIs with unrelated tornado events, and it caused big problems. That’s what I am trying to avoid.
This is not going to be a popular take on this forum, but I’ve silently reached the conclusion that Chapman might not be upgradable, at least from a structural damage perspective and considering NWS survey standards. I did a deep dive looking at every angle of the main farmhouse in question. The first thing I noticed was that the portion of the foundation stem wall that got cracked and ripped apart, may have been cracked prior to the tornado and been a pre-existing weak spot. The reason I say this is that the crack happened right where “corner pop” occurs. Corner pop is the cracking of foundation corners caused by expansion of brick veneer caused by temperature changes. The Chapman farmhouse was brick veneer. Also, the foundation had two sections: a larger basement portion and a smaller crawlspace portion with a concrete stemwall (that’s the portion that had its corner buckled). There were two more problems I noticed, the first of which was that none of the sill plates on the main basement portion were removed. Not a single one. While I think factors like “not enough” sill plate removal are dubious amid extreme contextual damage (*cough* Saltical’s analysis of the Wicker Street home *cough*), I do consider ZERO sill plate removal and bolt bending to be a sign of an anchoring problem. It may seem pedantic, but it is a clue that signifies a real problem, specifically that the bolts and plates didn’t do their jobs and didn’t put up much of a fight as the house was removed from the foundation. The smaller crawlspace portion did lose sill plates however, which suggests some kind of inconsistency in the construction between the two foundation sections. In addition, the third problem was that the crawlspace portion was pretty much buried under a layer of debris, which may classify it as a DOD9 rather than a DOD10. If Chapman has a path forward for an upgrade, it will probably rely on the tree, railroad, and farm machinery damage, but I’m not exactly sure what the main basis would be among those three things.
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