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Severe weather threat 4/23/26 (Central/Southern Plains)

Grand Poo Bah said:
The more I think about it, the less I agree that the EF scale in it's current state is an intensity scale, but I also think you might be onto something with the concept. Think about it. Wouldn't an intensity scale have rated Matador much higher than EF3, or Greenfield (300 foot wide 300 mph drillbit) higher than EF4?
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You’re not understanding. I’m not talking about the application (hence why I said despite how flawed it may be), I’m talking about the intent and what its purpose is. It is intended to be an intensity scale. That’s not something that comes down to agreement/disagreement because it’s a fact. It’s a scale to measure tornado intensity, and that is not up for debate.
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
An intensity scale would also place much higher importance on context than construction quality.
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And actually, upon rereading your comment, no an ideal intensity scale wouldn’t place “much higher importance” on contextual damage than structural damage. Wind engineering-derived estimates based on structures are still incredibly important, and is where a bulk of the peer reviewed research is. Scientific data on contextual damage just isn’t there yet, even though we have a good idea of what kind of intensity it is correlated with from observation. At best, contextual damage would be levied at an equivalent degree, not higher. But we aren’t even at that stage yet because we don’t have an officially published agreed upon average wind speed needed to scour the ground to bare soil, and we don’t have an officially published agreed upon average wind speed needed to loft a car more than half a mile without doing a specific calculation for each specific instance. We have a very strong hunch and unofficial observed statistical correlation for those things (like I mentioned about grass scouring), but a strong hunch and an unofficial observed statistical correlation with no real number to cite isn’t science, and it won’t be until we do have data and numbers to cite. These things are achievable, but they haven’t been done yet.

But in no circumstance is being dismissive of structural damage and engineering a good move scientifically in the realm of tornado intensity estimation. The true perfect scenario is learning to use contextual damage to fill in the gaps where structural damage doesn’t tell the full story. It’s about using both to complement one another, rather than levying one as more important than the other.
 
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ColdFront said:
Don’t say that name! It’s like Voldemort. Except he’ll appear in a shroud of off the wall theories and useless anecdotes.
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“Look at this incredible debarking and scouring, definitely evidence of F5 intensity”
*cue horribly overexposed, pixelated, barely discernible black and white aerial newspaper photo from 1953 of what might be trees, but looks more like a pile of burnt broccoli and matchstick taken by a camera recovered from the rubble of an industrial fire*
 
buckeye05 said:
“Look at this incredible debarking and scouring, definitely evidence of F5 intensity”
*cue horribly overexposed, pixelated, barely discernible black and white aerial newspaper photo from 1953 of what might be trees, but looks more like a pile of burnt broccoli and matchstick taken by a camera recovered from the rubble of an industrial fire*
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Not him, but remember the “cows eat grass so all scouring is irrelevant” from a while ago?
Edit: The EF scale is technically a damage scale. It evaluates tornado damage to find intensity, not the other way around. An intensity scale would be better, but I don’t know how that would work.
 
TH2002 said:
Sometimes I miss when Casuarina Head was the main subject of all these debates.
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The ENSO climatology tends to suggest that highly classic, high end tornado outbreaks like 3/21/1932 are long gone due to climate. We rarely ever get outbreaks like this anymore, we only got t singular, high end tornado events. Wonder what he would think of 3/14/25, since it was probably the most classic string of pearls event in a while.
 
WeathermanLeprechaun said:
The ENSO climatology tends to suggest that highly classic, high end tornado outbreaks like 3/21/1932 are long gone due to climate. We rarely ever get outbreaks like this anymore, we only got t singular, high end tornado events. Wonder what he would think of 3/14/25, since it was probably the most classic string of pearls event in a while.
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He would dismiss it. Just like he did 3/31/23 the morning of the event, because the dew points in the northern high risk weren’t as high as “Palm Sunday 1965.” He did those things because he was an a**hole. Yes, name calling is wrong, and I try my best not to do it on here, but it fit the bill for that guy.
 
Well, we now have the first official application of the revised EF scale...

"Bodily removal of substrate from ground from Gray Sky imagery. Entire tree displaced at least 40 ft. Estimated DBH 16-18 in." - new EF4 DI NE of Grayridge

This is UB DOD7 for tree damage on the revised scale, which is probably why the DI doesn't have a windspeed yet. It would be 180 if it did have one but they're still evaluating if I had to guess.
 
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