Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

[DanLarsen34]

This also got some EF-5 discussion which is some big equipment that was absolutely obliterated and mangled near or in Mayfield I believe.

 

[DanLarsen34]

Whatever I said about Mayfield a few years ago to defend its EF4 rating you should ignore tbh. Following recent developments in survey science, I’m confident now that it deserves an upgrade to EF5. There’s enough evidence at this stage. I strongly believe that downtown Mayfield and Bremen had EF5 damage, and the rating should be changed to reflect that. The suspicion was always there, but now there’s proof.

Honestly, your takes and evolution on the damage made sense at the time, namely that the worst contextual damage (Bremen) didn’t overlap with the proper structures to warrant an upgrade. It was also easy for some of the most impressive damage pics to get lost or forgotten as the survey began to come out and steer the discussion towards what they were considering versus the limited info we had at the time from pics.

I highly recommend people to go back through that thread to be honest. There’s a lot of damage pics in that thread that may have been forgotten or somewhat lost. I believe the area around Cayce where the trenching occurred towards the beginning of the path may have also had a row of trees that were obliterated just beyond the trenching, but I may be confusing that with the Buckeye, AR row (I’ll attach that below). There’s also the train derailment that I know got some discussion in this thread back when Enderlin got upgraded.

There were also areas of the path for which we did not get as much details on damage that might be worth discussing or reviewing. The survey was not as thorough as you would have expected given the historic nature of the tornado, but it’s understandable to some degree given the length of the tornado path.

I came away from my fresh look at the damage and the discussion as viewing the Western Kentucky tornado as a plausible EF-5. It’s not the most egregious miss of this era, but it is definitely deserving of another look as the new scale and DIs get implemented.

 

[TH2002]

Is that the domed church that was almost leveled to the ground? I saved a few of the most notable pics from that thread on my phone.

I also attached a photo from Bremen where a house was completely leveled and you can see virtually every tree in the image is flattened and debarked.

I have to correct myself and say the location of that photo was misreported at the time - it's from Cambridge Shores.

Also, the First Christian Church is not the structure in question - it's the First Presbyterian Church. For reference:

 

[speedbump305]

The damage the Kentucky tornado produced in that one subdivision in Bremen still stands to me as the most violent tornado damage on par with Smithville, BridgeCreek, Matador, ect.
The windrowing it did to the cinderblock foundation of that weirdly constructed two story was astonishing to say the least, as it pulverized it to grain sized particles.
What I find equally as impressive is the lack of much debris within the path, the pieces of debris that you did find were no bigger than a two-by-four, at the very largest.
Nothing to say of the debarked, stubbed foliage and ground scouring as well.
I found it impressive back then, I find it even more impressive now, easily a high end EF5.
View attachment 54175View attachment 54177

Still blows my mind to this very day. About to be 5 whole years since that tragic day as well. Vividly remember tracking it as the night went on with such a horrible gut feeling. Probably won’t see a tornado of this caliber ever again in December during our lifetime.

 

[buckeye05]

There are better ones out there, but here’s an example of some of the EF5 tree damage in Bremen. Literal wind rowing of root balled trees that were not in leaf. This is not something you ever really see.

Also I am not 100% sure, but I believe that’s the 190 MPH house right there. If so, this type of tree damage could provide enough contextual support for a context-based upgrade of the house itself. It’s ridiculous to think the house was kept at 190 largely because of tree damage (I personally think the bigger issue here was the construction but hey what do I know). The fact that the survey team cherry picked a few standing trees as a contextual discrepancy, but completely missed the numerous root ball displacements right in front of them shows just how poor of a grasp some WFOs have on the concepts of tree and contextual damage.

Edit: Yup that’s 190 MPH house. Storm shelter door on the white part of the floor confirms it. If the records change ban is lifted, this absolutely needs to be considered. Prime candidate for a context based upgrade.