I wasn't even thinking about Rowlett. The tornado in Nathan Moore and Bryan Valdez's video was fully lit the entire length of it. I reckon all the lights from the Dallas Metro was really what helped illuminate that one so well.
Obviously this was on a whole other level, but this video reminds me so much of some of the descriptions I've been given of the 5/31/85 Moshannon F4. The size/structure, the forward speed, the inky blackness of the funnel as it's backlit. Absolutely horrifying for the people who had to experience it, but extraordinary to see captured so well on video.
Having the same feeling with you, seems like Louisville has already completed surveying the Saloma KY tornado and just rated it low-end EF3
The use of “at least” makes me believe finalization of ratings hasn’t occurred in their CWA yet thankfully. Not holding my breath for any big changes though.
Well, in theory, the EF scale ought to rate those houses accurately based on the wind speed necessary to cause the damage. If a certain type of damage can be caused by winds below the EF5 threshold, then I can't really fault them for not going higher with the rating.
The problem is this (quite often) doesn't really occur.
Hence why I said "in theory". Obviously the survey process itself needs some improvements, or at least some effort at consistency across NWS offices.
Clearly most houses can be wiped out well below EF5, but that brings up the question of how we want to use EF5 to begin with; if the most utter and complete destruction possible only warrants an low EF4 without a level of home construction that 99% of the country never meets then why even have a higher number available that's impossible to reach; also many WFOs seem to have decided violent tornadoes don't exist and refuse to even top EF3 for damage that clearly warrants it for unknown reasons
Yeah, I don't know if there's a good way to reconcile historical tornado rankings with current ones, given that they were based on looser standards and a less realistic assessment of wind speeds. It's not really possible to go back and re-rate them according to current standards, so even if you managed to create more consistent/realistic assessments in the present, it's not going to solve the problem of historical comparisons.
Should note that area has not been surveyed yet.
Ok good to know.
Then people really need to stop pretending a modern EF rating is even remotely comparable to what its F scale rating would have been; I hear everywhere people swearing that the ratings are 1:1 equal but the vast discrepancies in construction analysis before and after the development of the EF scale makes any historical comparison completely impossible and we can legitimately throw out any rating before 2003-ish.
Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I have no problem with just saying "look, there's no way we can reconcile the two ratings scales, let's not pretend they're equivalent". As a historian, I find the idea of not having a consistent historical record annoying, but I don't think there's a way we can make those comparisons with any rigor. It's hard to say we should just throw out half a century of data, but if that data was based on bad assessments, I don't know how you can fix it retroactively.
I guess it's probably a good thing the EF scale came when it did so at least the F ratings are consistently iffy and the EF ratings are subject to a little more realism... now if only we could get rid of WFO to WFO inconsistency and the notion that "as conservative as humanly possible = most accurate" then the F to EF inconsistency could be our only unsolvable problem lol
