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Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

pohnpei

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is it safe to say that the mayfield tornado was so powerful that it didnt really matter much that radar was looking 3000+ high at it? im pretty sure it was strong enough and so well organised that there wouldnt have been that much of a decrease in velocities at ground level. right?
DOW detection history told us tornado's highest winds are almost always under 50m, sometimes under 10m or even lower. 88D radar have no ability to detect actual wind speed in tornados and even DOW/RaxPol often undersampled tornado's max wind in very short range because most tornados' max wind area are way too small for radar's range solution. What we have is a empirical formula associated with rating and 88D radar Vrot/TDS height but It has no relation to the actual wind speed of tornados in ground level. And It is highly effected by the distance between tornado and RMW. But Bremen certainly had one of the most phenomenonal radar performance in the history. It was over 42 miles away from KHPX and the It was not as wide as like El Reno13.
 
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i swear if the NWS keeps the mayfield tornado at an ef4 im never trusting them again.

damage in bremen.
one slabbed home near the beginning of the bremen area was well constructed. properly anchored. with its foundation shifted and broken. yet it gets rated 190mph ef4 because, THE maple trees thirty yards away are still mostly intact.

they do realize the core boundries of tornadoes can be very small and sharp right? have they not seen elie manitoba or something?

they apparently stated "the home couldnt have been built stronger." can someone verify this lmao? cause if thats true it shows just how far the nws will go to not rate a tornado as an ef5 anymore.

1641621636814.png
the home in question is circled in yellow. with the maple trees in blue. white arrow shows tornado direction of travel.
 
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1641688428745.png
just a well constructed home casually missing a large chunk of it's foundation slab. with the nws stating it couldnt have been built stronger.........
 

buckeye05

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I know a lot of us are sick of minor construction flaws being used to downgrade tornadoes far below their actual intensity, but I found a great example of why construction quality is often more important than the degree of destruction. So check out this building. Retail store, totally destroyed, and essentially flattened to the ground. What kind of damage would you guess this is? High-end EF2? Maybe EF3?
FH5d-QyVkAE4xzL


The answer is neither, and this building wasn't even hit by a tornado. In fact, it wasn't even hit by straight-line winds or a thunderstorm at all. This damage occurred from a dust devil on a sunny day with blue skies, which likely contained EF1 to marginal EF2 winds. This small retail building would be classified as DOD 8, which has a starting lower-bound wind speed of 167 MPH, or low-end EF4. While tornado damage surveyors tend to overdo it, this is a perfect example of how damage that may look impressive, actually isn't sometimes.
 
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buckeye05

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View attachment 11562
just a well constructed home casually missing a large chunk of it's foundation slab. with the nws stating it couldnt have been built stronger.........
That is concrete flooring, not foundation slab. Big difference. Plus, the flooring looks to have actually been resting unanchored on a gravel fill within the CMU foundation. Twitter went nuts with over-hyping and misinterpreting the damage at this home. Multiple people pointed out the tell-tale lack of rebar latticework in the supposed foundation, but it got drowned out by "OMG IT SCOURED THE FOUNDATION SLAB" posts.
 
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MNTornadoGuy

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I was looking back at the 2014 Vilonia tornado on DAT, and I noticed something on the 190 mph DI. It says that straight nailing was used in the house.
Screenshot 2022-01-08 at 23-01-32 Damage Assessment Toolkit.png
 

buckeye05

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I was looking back at the 2014 Vilonia tornado on DAT, and I noticed something on the 190 mph DI. It says that straight nailing was used in the house.
View attachment 11577
I remember this. It was the main excuse used before the bs about the debris loading and the trees in the ditch were mentioned as well. It's completely invalid too, as the several of the EF5-rated homes in Moore from the year prior were straight-nailed, but were still given EF5 ratings.
 

MNTornadoGuy

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In the background of the photo of the EF4 190 house, you can see a pine tree that appears to be completely debarked in the background. The tree in the foreground is partially debarked and almost completely denuded. The excuse of some random trees in a ditch 100 yards away preventing it from getting a higher rating is stupid.
 

buckeye05

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In the background of the photo of the EF4 190 house, you can see a pine tree that appears to be completely debarked in the background. The tree in the foreground is partially debarked and denuded. The excuse of some random trees in a ditch 100 yards away preventing it from getting a higher rating is stupid.
Believe it or not, I have a photo of the actual trees in the ditch that were one of the excuses used. They were indeed still standing, but what Robinson doesn't mention, is that they sustained debarking lol. Let me see if I can dig it up.

Edit: Here it is.
ViloniaUtterBS.PNG
 

buckeye05

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In the background of the photo of the EF4 190 house, you can see a pine tree that appears to be completely debarked in the background. The tree in the foreground is partially debarked and almost completely denuded. The excuse of some random trees in a ditch 100 yards away preventing it from getting a higher rating is stupid.
I just noticed something remarkable about this photo. This home not only had exterior walls bolted down, but if you look closely, you can see that the interior walls were bolted down too!! That goes well above and beyond typical construction quality, and is not something that is seen often at all. Of course, that incovnenient little tidbit was omitted from the DAT comments regarding this home, and I am just now aware of this detail from this photo. Robinson was a straight-up clown, and I'm glad he retired.
 

MNTornadoGuy

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Believe it or not, I have a photo of the actual trees in the ditch that were one of the excuses used. They were indeed still standing, but what Robinson doesn't mention, is that they sustained debarking lol. Let me see if I can dig it up.

Edit: Here it is.
View attachment 11578
Vilonia is probably one of the worst underratings of a high-end violent tornado on the EF-scale. Other tornadoes like New Wren, Barnesville, Goldsby, and Chickasha are up there too.
 

buckeye05

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Just when I think Vilonia can’t get any more inexcusable, it does. That is insanely strong anchoring and it’s blowing my mind. I honestly think there is enough evidence of wrong-doing and inaccurate surveying In Vilonia for a re-analysis and upgrade. They did it with Hurricane Andrew, and they did it with the Bellemont, AZ tornado, so why can’t they do it with this one?
 
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buckeye05

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I think after that photo you shared, it’s undoubtedly #1 in terms of missed EF5 ratings. It could have been used as the textbook benchmark for what constitutes as true EF5 damage, and could have been used to educate future NWS survey teams. Instead, it set a terrible precedent and plunged us back into another era of bad surveying. Things were really, really good from 2007 to 2013, and it upsets me that things are no longer that way.
 
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I think after that photo you shared, it’s undoubtedly #1 in terms of missed EF5 ratings. It could have been used as the textbook benchmark for what constitutes as true EF5 damage, and could have been used to educate future NWS survey teams. Instead, it set a terrible precedent and plunged us back into another era of bad surveying. Things were really, really good from 2007 to 2013, and it upsets me that things are no longer that way.
Yeah that photo is my final straw with Vilonia, it's pretty clear that some sort of "cover-up" or deliberate wrongdoing occurred here; Vilonia is gonna go down in history as the case that us back into another bad era of damage surveying.
 

buckeye05

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Vilonia is probably one of the worst underratings of a high-end violent tornado on the EF-scale. Other tornadoes like New Wren, Barnesville, Goldsby, and Chickasha are up there too.
I think the 200 MPH Rochelle/Fairdale, IL rating is another really bad one that doesn't get brought up enough. The damage near Rochelle was classic EF5.
 
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that is simply.........unprofessional....like to an absurd degree. no wonder we havent had an ef5. well....we DID multiple times....but not officially because of this crap....

lets list em shall we.

vilonia 2014
fairdale 2015
chapman 2016
bassfield 2020
mayfield 2021

these are the most offensive imo. but theres more im sure.
 
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apparently an UPPER end DOD 10 for one or two family resisdences counts as 190 mph ef4 now instead of 220 mph ef5....
 
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