Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

It was a small fence, and it was Flat Rock.

This reminds me of the reasoning for the F3 rating for the Mulvane tornado. There was a wooden light pole still standing by the leveled house and that prevented an F4 rating. You can't make this stuff up.

 

[ColdFront]

This reminds me of the reasoning for the F3 rating for the Mulvane tornado. There was a wooden light pole still standing by the leveled house and that prevented an F4 rating. You can't make this stuff up.

“Chris Darden, engineer Tim Marshall, and others reviewed the destruction to the house and ultimately designated it as high-end EF4 damage. Per our interview with Chris, “It was pretty well swept… it didn’t quite qualify for a 5. There was some small debris that was still around. The home was built pretty well, but there was some anchoring that was a little bit suspect with it. There was a little bit of the cow fencing that was still there, that had not been completely destroyed… In my mind, to this day, that tornado probably was a five.”
Source

The DI boogeyman at it again! (Lol - this is a joke btw)

 

[TH2002]

No it’s definitely Ohio. Horrific drivers, bad accents, and literally nothing but corn.

The Midwest and South are the worst parts of the country.

Since this is the Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread and not the Which State is the Worst Debate Thread, perhaps it might be a good idea to get a new one going for the latter - doing so would certainly facilitate some interesting responses

 

[CalebRoutt]

“Chris Darden, engineer Tim Marshall, and others reviewed the destruction to the house and ultimately designated it as high-end EF4 damage. Per our interview with Chris, “It was pretty well swept… it didn’t quite qualify for a 5. There was some small debris that was still around. The home was built pretty well, but there was some anchoring that was a little bit suspect with it. There was a little bit of the cow fencing that was still there, that had not been completely destroyed… In my mind, to this day, that tornado probably was a five.”
Source

The DI boogeyman at it again! (Lol - this is a joke btw)

“Chris Darden, engineer Tim Marshall, and others reviewed the destruction to the house and ultimately designated it as high-end EF4 damage. Per our interview with Chris, “It was pretty well swept… it didn’t quite qualify for a 5. There was some small debris that was still around. The home was built pretty well, but there was some anchoring that was a little bit suspect with it. There was a little bit of the cow fencing that was still there, that had not been completely destroyed… In my mind, to this day, that tornado probably was a five.”
Source

The DI boogeyman at it again! (Lol - this is a joke btw)

Nothing besides tree damage from Flat Rock strikes me as EF5 damage.

 

[CheeselandSkies]

This thread right now:



Almost as if a parallel could be drawn between that and the current state of tornado rating practices.

 

[buckeye05]

No it’s definitely Ohio. Horrific drivers, bad accents, and literally nothing but corn. Also the Dayton tornado is extremely mid.

Lol is this an attempt at a diss? I have no extra personal investment in the ratings of tornadoes in my personal WFO area nor the state I live in, so I don't really care. High-end EF3 would have been fine for Dayton too. In fact, I find the EF4 rating to that apartment complex very questionable. This is a good insight into the childish IMBY mindset though, and you are a perfect example. Sorry "your" tornado isn't as special as you want it to be, but go ahead and keep coping and seething, and being blinded by your own childish IMBY bias and bizarre personal emotional investment in "your" tornado. Freaking weirdo...

Oh and by the way, yeah Ohio sucks, and I am moving out west at the end of the year. I can't wait to leave.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

This thread right now:

View attachment 19297

Almost as if a parallel could be drawn between that and the current state of tornado rating practices.

LMAO that exact GIF forms the title card for Todd In The Shadows' Trainwreckords videos............Lol

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

This thread is even better then it was before
Seriously though, I simply said lots of EF4s are actually missed EF5s and this all happened lol.
Also, concerning the Midwest and South I was just making a joke to lighten things up (I'm a native Midwesterner, I got a sense of humor about my heritage) before getting back down to business (tornado ratings). So let's do that.

 

[ColdFront]

This thread is even better then it was before
Seriously though, I simply said lots of EF4s are actually missed EF5s and this all happened lol.
Also, concerning the Midwest and South I was just making a joke to lighten things up (I'm a native Midwesterner, I got a sense of humor about my heritage) before getting back down to business (tornado ratings). So let's do that.

All good, my little “angry” emoji was in jest lol especially after the California joke. As I’ve gotten older, I too have picked up the sense of humor that I’m basically a good ole KY redneck haha.

Back on topic:
Has anyone asked Chuck Doswell his current thoughts on the EF Scale? I imagine those comments on his blog aren’t recent, correct?

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

All good, my little “angry” emoji was in jest lol especially after the California joke. As I’ve gotten older, I too have picked up the sense of humor that I’m basically a good ole KY redneck haha.

Back on topic:
Has anyone asked Chuck Doswell his current thoughts on the EF Scale? I imagine those comments on his blog aren’t recent, correct?

There's this entry from 2016 where he proposes doing away with these kinds of ratings altogether:

Can we do away with tornado F/EF-scale ratings?

Let me state at the outset that I have no doubt meteorology will be saddled with the curse of F/EF-scale ratings for a long time to come, so...

cadiiitalk.blogspot.com

This back from 2013, concerning El Reno:

The EF-Scale Ratings Brouhaha

In the wake of upgrades to the EF-scale ratings based on mobile Doppler radar-measured windspeeds, there's been a lot of back and forth on t...

cadiiitalk.blogspot.com

Can't find anything on his old or new blog concerning Vilonia, John Robinson or anything else of that nature.

 

[Sawmaster]

This thread right now:

View attachment 19297

That can't rate higher than an "Engine Frontal 2" because both locomotives remained upright and the lettering wasn't mud-splattered. The cow jumping over the moon just out of frame on the right also gives us contextual indication that the engineer of the left train skipped breakfast that day.

 

[CalebRoutt]

Lol is this an attempt at a diss? I have no extra personal investment in the ratings of tornadoes in my personal WFO area nor the state I live in, so I don't really care. High-end EF3 would have been fine for Dayton too. In fact, I find the EF4 rating to that apartment complex very questionable. This is a good insight into the childish IMBY mindset though, and you are a perfect example. Sorry "your" tornado isn't as special as you want it to be, but go ahead and keep coping and seething, and being blinded by your own childish IMBY bias and bizarre personal emotional investment in "your" tornado. Freaking weirdo...

Oh and by the way, yeah Ohio sucks, and I am moving out west at the end of the year. I can't wait to leave.

Maybe you should drink some milk or something idk. Just stop typing messages with your face red. After all it’s not worth putting so much emotion into ratings, especially when you weren’t there.

 

[TH2002]

 

[TH2002]

In my opinion the July 17, 2011 LaMoure County/Berlin, ND EF3 is one of the most underappreciated EF4/EF5 candidates. This tornado didn't hit much yet still managed to utterly mangle literally every vehicle it encountered, cause ground scouring and partially scour the foundation of a grain bin, debark numerous trees and an allegedly well-built farmhouse was swept away. Had this tornado occurred in any other year it would probably have gotten a lot more attention, but was naturally overshadowed by other events (again putting into perspective just HOW violent 2011 was for tornadoes).

 

[pohnpei]

In my opinion the July 17, 2011 LaMoure County/Berlin, ND EF3 is one of the most underappreciated EF4/EF5 candidates. This tornado didn't hit much yet still managed to utterly mangle literally every vehicle it encountered, cause ground scouring and partially scour the foundation of a grain bin, debark numerous trees and an allegedly well-built farmhouse was swept away. Had this tornado occurred in any other year it would probably have gotten a lot more attention, but was naturally overshadowed by other events (again putting into perspective just HOW violent 2011 was for tornadoes).

Yeah, this one really get little attention while doing very impressive damage. It occurred in an exceptional rare environment with cape over 8000.
It tossed some vehicles half mile and completely mangled them. It did very strong scouring and you can just see the amounts of grasses scoured by this tornado. So I do have a feeling that the potential of this tornado capable of was really high.

 

[Juliett Bravo Kilo]

Yeah, this one really get little attention while doing very impressive damage. It occurred in an exceptional rare environment with cape over 8000.
It tossed some vehicles half mile and completely mangled them. It did very strong scouring and you can just see the amounts of grasses scoured by this tornado. So I do have a feeling that the potential of this tornado capable of was really high.
View attachment 19302View attachment 19303View attachment 19304View attachment 19305

This probably would've been rated at least EF4 had it occurred prior to 2011.

 

[joshoctober16]

The fact that Grazulis backpedaled about rating Vilonia EF5 a day after he said he would saying that the best he could do was give it an EF4 rating was strange to me. It almost seemed like he was being intimidated into doing so (but maybe not).
But he is going to at least discuss the questionable nature of the rating so better than nothing.

thats what botherd me , the whole , it can only be rated ef4 but it for sure had ef5 winds thing , like how are you sure it had ef5 winds? if its damage then rate it ef5? if it isnt then that means theres some sort of wind measurement , but we havent herd anything about this.

i feel the ef scale needs to get rid of the EF5 rating , EF0-EF3 are fine since theres enough dod to get to them

 

[ColdFront]

I found this humorous and of course it fits into this thread since I think it had been referenced a few days ago.

Tom, who has been blessed with a long life and 80 years old, has a bit of a random/at the clouds tweet moment lol with a zero context tweet. But what got me was the guy in the comments saying “which tornados are you talking about Tom?”

Real yelling at the clouds moment. Kind of reminds me of some of the conversations I have now with my grandfather as he ages, where I’m like do what?

 

[CheeselandSkies]

I found this humorous and of course it fits into this thread since I think it had been referenced a few days ago.

Tom, who has been blessed with a long life and 80 years old, has a bit of a random/at the clouds tweet moment lol with a zero context tweet. But what got me was the guy in the comments saying “which tornados are you talking about Tom?”

Real yelling at the clouds moment. Kind of reminds me of some of the conversations I have now with my grandfather as he ages, where I’m like do what?

View attachment 19647

I mean...he himself cited Belmond, IA 1966 as a suspect F5 rating (rightly so in my opinion) but I don't know of a whole lot of others that are egregious like that.

 

[andyhb]

Meteorologist defends EF4 rating on Vilonia tornado - Arkansas Times

Meteorologist John Robinson with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock issued an explainer today on why the Vilonia tornado earned an EF4 rating rather than the top rating of EF5. UPDATE: He's also provided information about the death that occurred when a door failed in a "safe...

arktimes.com

Here’s something to keep in mind: First and foremost, if a house that has a foundation built with nuts, bolts, and appropriate-sized washers is swept away, leaving only the concrete foundation, the “expected value” of wind in the Enhanced Fujita Scale is 200 mph, which puts it at the top of the EF4 category, not an EF5. It would have to be an exceptionally well-built house to go over 200 mph and thus achieve an EF5.

It’s my understanding that when the Enhanced Fujita Scale was put together this was done for a very specific reason — that some on the committee felt that a house should never be rated EF5. The final outcome was that the “expected value” was placed so that it would be very rare that a house could be rated EF5.

Note that, whether the rating was EF4 or EF5, it would be expected that the house would be destroyed.

So, for the house in Vilonia that came closest to exceeding EF4, we also followed a couple of other “rules” that we use in assessing tornado damage.

First, one structure should not be used to determine a rating. Second, there were still some tall, skinny trees standing along a drainage ditch/small creek about 100 yards away from the house. I have seen something like this in the past, and the expert rated lower because of vegetation that was still standing nearby. To put it another way, the people doing the rating are supposed to take into account the entire scene, not just one thing in the middle of it.

Another thing that has been debated considerably: When a structure has been hit by a large amount of debris, how much of the damage was truly from the tornado itself vs. the amount of damage that was caused by flying debris from other structures?

Will repost this because it came up on another forum. Just so much crap.