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Thanks. I am fortunate to have a great view from my home looking north from red mountain.I wanted to give a shout out to @Richardjacks for his phenomenal video from last night. Great footage.
Yeah, I really hope they upgrade, as this was very clearly an EF3 tornado.Even just being preliminary, it's a worrying precedent that bolted frame home-leveling tornadoes are tagged EF2 at any point; this is the sort of damage that may have been tagged F4 twenty years ago. Which would be too high, probably, but it's further distancing the current and historical ratings. I know the media wants to get a rating out there to report on asap but I wish they'd hold off on a preliminary until they've surveyed more to avoid looking like it's gonna go down as underrated. Everyone's reporting on it like that's the final rating already.
The EF2 prelim is 1 mph below EF3. That and them stressing very hard that it is a preliminary rating should make it very clear that they are quite likely to upgrade. I do hate how the very first preliminary rating for a tornado is reported by agencies like it is the final rating though. That has always bothered me.Yeah, I really hope they upgrade, as this was very clearly an EF3 tornado.
My understanding has always been that if a frame home is leveled, a rating of EF4 is assumed, though is frequently downgraded to EF3 if there is poor construction or contextual discrepancies. I’m fine with that. But assigning EF2 is two full steps down the scale from the assumed rating of EF4, and I do not agree with it. What’s wrong with bumping it down just one EF scale level? Why is it now acceptable to downgrade that much? I agree it’s a bad precedent for sure.
Now with that said, I have seen ridiculously low-balled preliminary EF2 ratings adjusted to a more appropriate rating in recent times, namely the Elon, VA EF3 and the Sartinville, MS EF4. People were upset about those initially, but the ratings were quickly adjusted to something more appropriate, and that very well may happen here.
But then we have events like Adairville, KY and Harrisburg, AR which should have been upgraded to EF3, but never were. We’ll just have to see...
That right there is my biggest gripe. The EF scale doesn’t even go that low when it comes to leveled homes. By going with EF2, they are actually breaking the rules and guidelines set by the scale. That’s not ok.Yeah, media has been reporting it as if it's final so it'd be nice if they would hold off until they're fairly certain on a rating (except maybe in the case of, say, high end EF4 vs EF5 which could take time)
I'm not sure what the stigma is against assigning EF3, can understand in borderline cases but yeah there have been multiple cases that required further revision when it was clear EF2 was far too low. Ironically, the raw EF scale does not allow an EF2 rating to a completely leveled home even in the lower bound, so for many of those past cases, would be nice to have an explanation why that was deemed appropriate
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I am so sorry to hear that...My friend drives a school bus in Fultondale and she said that she has 9 kids on New Castle Road who ride her bus and 3 more on Pine Hill Road. She used to live in Darlene Estates herself. All of the kids on New Castle Road lost their homes. The fatality was a high school boy. His younger brother rides her bus too. Their parents were hurt pretty bad. Mom and dad both had an arm injury but dad had a neck/ spinal injury. He had just gotten out of surgery when she posted. This is all so awful.