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Severe WX December 10 & 11, 2021 Severe Threat

Brice Wood

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I'm quite confused about DAT. Did they already finished updating? Because it's been a while from the last update.But there were still tons of houses not labeled. Literally everywhere.
At this point I’m done questioning what the NWS in Paducah are doing…
 

Tanner

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At this point I've pretty settled with the fact that there is indeed no traditional EF5 indicators from the Mayfield-Bremen tornado. Really hard to believe considering the path length and where it hit. However, when wind speeds are as obvious as they are via contextual damage, I think a Philadelphia situation could be considered here in the long run. I heard on WeatherBrains last week (Pat Spoden from NWS Paducah) that Philadelphia MS was only rated EF5 because of the combination of scouring and a brick home being completely obliterated not far away. with that not quite meeting EF5 standards itself. So that would make a potential case for the 8-12 inch scouring in Crutchfield only being defined as "EF4." I still think an upgrade could be coming, as this is a huge undertaking. So I'm no longer on the "bash the WFO's" train.
 

MNTornadoGuy

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At this point I've pretty settled with the fact that there is indeed no traditional EF5 indicators from the Mayfield-Bremen tornado. Really hard to believe considering the path length and where it hit. However, when wind speeds are as obvious as they are via contextual damage, I think a Philadelphia situation could be considered here in the long run. I heard on WeatherBrains last week (Pat Spoden from NWS Paducah) that Philadelphia MS was only rated EF5 because of the combination of scouring and a brick home being completely obliterated not far away. with that not quite meeting EF5 standards itself. So that would make a potential case for the 8-12 inch scouring in Crutchfield only being defined as "EF4." I still think an upgrade could be coming, as this is a huge undertaking. So I'm no longer on the "bash the WFO's" train.
The only thing I really find questionable now is the lack of plotted DIs in Princeton and the UK building which I’m still surprised it only got an EF3 rating vs an EF4 rating. Also I highly doubt this tornado is getting upgraded.
 

andyhb

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At this point I've pretty settled with the fact that there is indeed no traditional EF5 indicators from the Mayfield-Bremen tornado. Really hard to believe considering the path length and where it hit. However, when wind speeds are as obvious as they are via contextual damage, I think a Philadelphia situation could be considered here in the long run. I heard on WeatherBrains last week (Pat Spoden from NWS Paducah) that Philadelphia MS was only rated EF5 because of the combination of scouring and a brick home being completely obliterated not far away. with that not quite meeting EF5 standards itself. So that would make a potential case for the 8-12 inch scouring in Crutchfield only being defined as "EF4." I still think an upgrade could be coming, as this is a huge undertaking. So I'm no longer on the "bash the WFO's" train.
I mean from what I've seen, that house in Bremen that got 190 mph was very, very close. I'm also not willing to believe that until I see DIs in the many missing places along the path.
 

TH2002

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There were one or two genuine EF5 candidate homes in Cambridge Shores. One was swept down to its crawlspace, though I am not sure if it was well-anchored or not. Another one that was well anchored was swept to its walk-in basement floor, although some debris remained on the foundation.
 

andyhb

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There's also a whole section of homes NE of Earlington that were swept away that have yet to receive DIs.
 

TH2002

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With that said, is there really anything in the EF scale documentation that mentions a CMU foundation home should NEVER be rated EF5? If so, why does one of the example pictures of EF5 damage from the NWS training manual show a home with a CMU foundation?
Fig-43-EF-scale-image-for-EF5-damage-to-well-constructed-home.png
 

MNTornadoGuy

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"Because some trees were left standing nearby" seems to be the reasoning, at least according to the home owner.
Something I noticed in the comment that is supposedly from the NWS is that the home had some issues in the foundation. I’m guessing that has to do with the unconventional way the poured foundation was placed.
 

buckeye05

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Why wasn't the upper bound not applied to this house that was supposedly built very strong?
As much as it’s been talked up, I haven’t seen any evidence of sufficient anchoring at that house. Not saying it didn’t experience 200+ MPH winds, but it was in no way a traditional slab and bolts type foundation. Keeping it below 200 MPH seems reasonable given that information.

With some period of time passing since the event, I’m not feeling like the high-end EF4 rating is as egregious as it was made out to be shortly afterwards. Do I still think it contained EF5 winds? Yes. Do I think it was as big of a screw-up as Vilonia, Chapman, Goldsby, and Chickasha? No way.

At the end of the day, I haven’t been able to find anchor-bolted homes with poured foundations that utilize a continuous load besides the ones in Cambridge Shores. The amount of bad construction along the path is almost overwhelming.
 

pohnpei

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And no rating of this church. I still believe EF5 or at least near EF5 winds needed here to do damage like this.
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FB_IMG_1639524154535.jpg

I also noticed that they sometimes gave rating to less damaged house and missed the house that clearly heavier damaged nearby. Just why?
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andyhb

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As much as it’s been talked up, I haven’t seen any evidence of sufficient anchoring at that house. Not saying it didn’t experience 200+ MPH winds, but it was in no way a traditional slab and bolts type foundation. Keeping it below 200 MPH seems reasonable given that information.

With some period of time passing since the event, I’m not feeling like the high-end EF4 rating is as egregious as it was made out to be shortly afterwards. Do I still think it contained EF5 winds? Yes. Do I think it was as big of a screw-up as Vilonia, Chapman, Goldsby, and Chickasha? No way.

At the end of the day, I haven’t been able to find anchor-bolted homes with poured foundations that utilize a continuous load besides the ones in Cambridge Shores. The amount of bad construction along the path is almost overwhelming.
Strongly disagree. We also can't even make an assessment of a whole bunch of points along the path. The lack of good photos of many of the DIs that do exist is further limiting.
 

buckeye05

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Strongly disagree. We also can't even make an assessment of a whole bunch of points along the path.
Yeah I hear you but after looking over a ton of info throughout the past few weeks, my opinion isn’t going to change. Unless one of those missing points ends up being a well-anchored, poured slab foundation house that was slabbed. I do agree that the contextual damage screams EF5, but the argument of “there might be an EF5 worthy house out there with no damage point out there” isn’t enough.
 

andyhb

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But seriously, you can excuse having differences in the opinion of various structures along the path, but you can't excuse leaving entire chunks of the path out of the survey/DAT, like with both Mayfield and Vilonia.
 
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