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Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

MNTornadoGuy said:
The NWS's reasoning why that Bowling Green house was given an EF2 rating.
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And yet overhead shots show that the debris from structures upstream appeared to be rowed in more of a northeasterly direction, missing the duplex in question.
 
andyhb said:
And yet overhead shots show that the debris from structures upstream appeared to be rowed in more of a northeasterly direction, missing the duplex in question.
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Yeah also unless if it is a large projectile like a vehicle, I don't think that debris impacts should be used to reduce the structure to a lower-than-expected bound especially all the way to EF2.
 
Brice Wood said:
I guess I can kinda see this, since the tornado may have had so much debris those heavier pieces could shred the house, but I don’t know to be honest.
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It's certainly not the first time that such reasoning has been used in a survey, but I've always found the logic kind of.. illogical. Like, if we're going to concern ourselves with only damage done by wind alone, we effectively can't rate tornadoes at all. Wind is obviously the primary component in a tornado's destructive power, but it's hardly the only one. Debris loading is a thing, after all. Unless it's been traveling over totally open country, a tornado will almost always be loaded with all sorts of debris that contributes to the damage it causes.

I think it's more reasonable to consider very large missile impacts, but debris in general? That doesn't make much sense to me.

Edit: I should add, though, that this highlights one of the fundamental conflicts of the scale: the common refrain is that "the EF-scale is not a wind scale, it's a damage scale!" And yet.. these damage surveys are conducted with the explicit intention of estimating a tornado's wind speed rather than the actual intensity of the damage it produces.
 
locomusic01 said:
It's certainly not the first time that such reasoning has been used in a survey, but I've always found the logic kind of.. illogical. Like, if we're going to concern ourselves with only damage done by wind alone, we effectively can't rate tornadoes at all. Wind is obviously the primary component in a tornado's destructive power, but it's hardly the only one. Debris loading is a thing, after all. Unless it's been traveling over totally open country, a tornado will almost always be loaded with all sorts of debris that contributes to the damage it causes.

I think it's more reasonable to consider very large missile impacts, but debris in general? That doesn't make much sense to me.

Edit: I should add, though, that this highlights one of the fundamental conflicts of the scale: the common refrain is that "the EF-scale is not a wind scale, it's a damage scale!" And yet.. these damage surveys are conducted with the explicit intention of estimating a tornado's wind speed rather than the actual intensity of the damage it produces.
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Agreed, thanks for the clarification.
 
Here's my rule of thumb when it comes to collateral damage and projectiles being factored into ratings. Unless there is a sizeable, traceable object (car, propane tank, ect) that clearly impacted the structure in question in a manner that could structurally compromise it, talking about debris loading is an absolute "nothing" statement with no real substance. If you go looking for violent tornadoes that don't become filled with debris when they impact structures, you're going to have a bit of a tough time.

Flying debris is a given, and if no specific object is deduced as the culprit, any further discussion of the topic of debris loading is completely redundant, and essentially an excuse.
 
buckeye05 said:
Here's my rule of thumb when it comes to collateral damage and projectiles being factored into ratings. Unless there is a sizeable, traceable object (car, propane tank, ect) that clearly impacted the structure in question in a manner that could structurally compromise it, talking about debris loading is an absolute "nothing" statement with no real substance. If you go looking for violent tornadoes that don't become filled with debris when they impact structures, you're going to have a bit of a tough time.

Flying debris is a given, and if no specific object is deduced as the culprit, any further discussion of the topic of debris loading is completely redundant, and essentially an excuse.
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I would think if you used all these excuses there very likely wouldn't be a single F5 or EF5 tornado in the books.
 
Shakespeare 2016 said:
I would think if you used all these excuses there very likely wouldn't be a single F5 or EF5 tornado in the books.
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Exactly. Tornadoes contain flying debris when they hit things. That's not disputed, but it only seems to get mentioned as mitigating factor when the potential for an EF4+ rating is in play. It's an excuse and nothing more. NWS Louisville is well into Vilonia territory at this point, if not worse.
 
wasatch said:
This is exactly what needs to happen (and probably bump the EF4 qualifier down to 160mph) - so for 2013 is the extra tornado the El Reno or Washington, IL? For 2014 Vilonia is one, which is the other? Pilger?
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It's the 190 mph ones, so Washington's the one in '13.
 
wasatch said:
This is exactly what needs to happen (and probably bump the EF4 qualifier down to 160mph) - so for 2013 is the extra tornado the El Reno or Washington, IL? For 2014 Vilonia is one, which is the other? Pilger?
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If they were to decrease the required wind speed for an EF4 to 160, the NWS would be spitting EF4’s left and right, I think 170, is appropriate, it’s just when you get into the 180-185+ it becomes a problem
 
So, you probably should all check out the blueprints of that UK research facility that was destroyed near Princeton. Please do not post this to social media, even if the document is easily accessible, trust me when I say there are things going on behind the scenes to bring this into further attention.

The PDF can be found here after searching "university of kentucky bidnet princeton" on Google:

https://www.bidnet.com/bneattachments?/487325666.pdf
 
buckeye05 said:
Exactly. Tornadoes contain flying debris when they hit things. That's not disputed, but it only seems to get mentioned as mitigating factor when the potential for an EF4+ rating is in play. It's an excuse and nothing more. NWS Louisville is well into Vilonia territory at this point, if not worse.
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Does anyone remember where this excuse first came up in the rating of a tornado? The idea is mentioned in Marshall's conference paper on the La Plata tornado, though I don't think it influenced the rating there. Where else has it been used?

One sense I've always gotten is that the 'Jarrell could've been an F3' paper seems to have been quite influential, or at very least coincided with a mindset change to being much more conservative.
 
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