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Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

Here's what it looks like if I move every tornado in the EF scale era up one rating.

1743752499885.jpeg

The Doppler on Wheels Team concluded tornadoes are underrated by 1.2 EF rating on average. Violent tornadoes are underrated by 1.5 EF rating on average. If that was accounted for here, there would be far more tornadoes in the "EF4-EF5" category and less in "EF2-EF3". The EF rating data would align with "Tornadoes" even more perfectly.
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
I charted some data and the results are extremely telling.

Here's total tornadoes per year since 1980

View attachment 38966

Here's (E)FU-(E)F1 Rated Tornadoes

View attachment 38967

Here's (E)F2-(E)F3

View attachment 38968

And Here's (E)F4-(E)F5

View attachment 38969

Here's all four overlayed with each other.

View attachment 38971

Compare 2011 to 2024. Close to the same amount of tornadoes, but an enormous lack of EF4/EF5s. 2004 was the last time there was a discrepancy this large and 500 of those tornadoes were from two hurricane outbreaks, and one November outbreak. We're trending even below that today. You can even see the exact moment the rating system changed in 2013.

Are we just supposed to accept this climatology? This data suggests tornadoes have become far less violent over the last 40 years.
Click to expand...
if we were to use 2014's strict rules on pre year tornadoes, the EF4-EF5 list would be very very down, and you would notice the violent tornado amounts are infact going higher.

its to note that if you were trying to keep the same intensity of damage for evrey Rating for each scale it would look more like this.
1743761750089.png
EF0 and EF1 starting point are the same.
EF3 and EF4 starting point is surprisingly less strict then it should be...
and EF2 and EF5 are more strict then it should be...

pretty much 136-137 mph rated EF3 would of been rated EF2
166-167 mph rated EF4 would be rated EF3

110 mph rated EF1 would be rated EF2
200 mph EF4 would be EF5.

however the main reason there is a big difference in change in violent tornadoes (EF4 starting point) is because before 1990 they over rated a bunch of tornadoes that were only F3-F4 in reality.
they then became too strict when the la plata F4 happened.

i honestly think 1990-2001 is the only year that the amount of over rated and under rated are perfectly equal, before that it was a bunch of over rated tornadoes and after that it was a bunch of under rated tornadoes.

and the recent study shows what we used to call the true F5 starting point is what we today call 190 mph rated tornadoes.

Screenshot_192.png
also note for EF5 no true typical average wind speed goes above 200 mph, its only for super rare DI or Strong ones but non for typical.
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
Here's what it looks like if I move every tornado in the EF scale era up one rating.

View attachment 38973

The Doppler on Wheels Team concluded tornadoes are underrated by 1.2 EF rating on average. Violent tornadoes are underrated by 1.5 EF rating on average. If that was accounted for here, there would be far more tornadoes in the "EF4-EF5" category and less in "EF2-EF3". The EF rating data would align with "Tornadoes" even more perfectly.
Click to expand...
This is something Ive though about DEEPLY; our climatological data is in fact being influenced by the tornado rating problems we're seeing as of recent. People often say "But the rating doesn't really mater in the long run!" when it comes to these sorts of rating debates; but that simply incorrect. I fully and truthfully believe that we're seeing a "violent tornado bias" towards Dixie alley for this reason; plains tornadoes often hit very little, but leave contextually violent damage, its of course, not rated such. The two allies have little difference in amount of strong tornadoes; just the way we analyze these things is creating a false signal.

Violent tornadoes are not becoming less frequent, they're just less frequently rated
 
TH2002 said:
Cross-posting from the April 1-2 severe thread, but including more photos. Here's a well-anchored home destroyed by the Potosi, MO tornado given EF3/165. Let the discussion begin.
2577199

2577200

2577201

2577202

2577203

2577204

2577206

2577212
Click to expand...
So can we talk about this tornado leaving those liquor bottles untouched like a gentleman
 
AJS said:
I don’t know if it’s just me, but is anyone else kinda annoyed at how underwhelming the survey for the Bakersfield, MO tornado was last month? I really don’t think that damage was caused by a low end EF3…
Click to expand...
For real @AJS the tornado in MO this week 165mph and 3-15 make me wonder if ef4s are extinct in Mo..
 
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joshoctober16 said:
if we were to use 2014's strict rules on pre year tornadoes, the EF4-EF5 list would be very very down, and you would notice the violent tornado amounts are infact going higher.

its to note that if you were trying to keep the same intensity of damage for evrey Rating for each scale it would look more like this.
View attachment 38974
EF0 and EF1 starting point are the same.
EF3 and EF4 starting point is surprisingly less strict then it should be...
and EF2 and EF5 are more strict then it should be...

pretty much 136-137 mph rated EF3 would of been rated EF2
166-167 mph rated EF4 would be rated EF3

110 mph rated EF1 would be rated EF2
200 mph EF4 would be EF5.

however the main reason there is a big difference in change in violent tornadoes (EF4 starting point) is because before 1990 they over rated a bunch of tornadoes that were only F3-F4 in reality.
they then became too strict when the la plata F4 happened.

i honestly think 1990-2001 is the only year that the amount of over rated and under rated are perfectly equal, before that it was a bunch of over rated tornadoes and after that it was a bunch of under rated tornadoes.

and the recent study shows what we used to call the true F5 starting point is what we today call 190 mph rated tornadoes.

View attachment 38975
also note for EF5 no true typical average wind speed goes above 200 mph, its only for super rare DI or Strong ones but non for typical.
Click to expand...
My hot take is that there really weren't that many "overrated" F5s in the 40 years between 1950 and 1990. I am pretty confident these weren't:

Vicksburg - 12/5/1953
Belmond - 10/14/1966
Wheelersburg - 4/23/1968 (this one was borderline based on damage pictures)
Spiro - 3/26/1976 (although tossing 134,000 LB coal rail cars is pretty impressive)
Brownwood - 4/19/76 (it did cleanly sweep away homes, though, and shred mesquite trees so F5 doesn't sound crazy)
Broken Bow - 4/2/1982

Then we have more debatable ones:

Both 5/15/1968 tornadoes - Charles City and Oelwein - were rated F5 by Grazulis. I have not researched these. Homes are described as having been, "swept completely away" in both.

The Delhi, LA 1971 tornado is controversial but pictures posted in the significant tornado threads indicate both it and the Cary-Tillatoba, MS tornado were indeed QUITE violent.

5/6/1973 Valley Mills is accepted as an F5 by most major sources (including Grazulis) solely on the testimony of "wind engineers" who were extremely impressed by the strength it demonstrated in blasting pickup trucks through their.

Several of the 1974 Super Outbreak tornadoes would, of course, not be EF5 today but they were all (based, again, on what I've seen over the years in our significant events thread) certainly F5.

Fort Rice, ND (5/29/1953) was originally rated F4 by Grazulis, but he later upgraded it back to F5. "A large church was leveled and its pews were driven 4 FT into the ground. Parts of a car were carried for 1/2 mile." The church was a Catholic one, Immaculate Conception, and while those are often built very solidly, I don't know how solid that one was. Doesn't appear it was rebuilt (which implies the parish got consolidated or something). Truth be told, there's just not a lot of info on this one, at least from what I could find. https://www.tornadotalk.com/fort-rice-nd-f5-tornado-may-29-1953/

Plainfield 1990 is pretty controversial but it did scour the ground extremely and toss a fully-loaded semi over half a mile.

On top of that, we have the fact that several tornadoes in that period were underrated. Several from Palm Sunday '65, of course; Stratton, NE and Bakersfield Valley, TX in 1990; Custer County, NE in 1961; a few others.

I tend to think Buckeye had one of the best standards (because it's simple): cleanly swept house + extreme contextual damage = an extremely violent tornado, e.g. F5/EF5. So my second hot take is, tornado ratings will always be hard to do. But what we need is common sense. Some tornadoes were definitely overrated 1950-1990, but it seems like common sense was reasonably applied. And by straight common sense, we are obviously missing, in my opinion:

2011 - New Wren and Tuscaloosa; Goldsby and Washington
2014 - Vilonia
2015 - Rochelle and Holly Springs
2016 - Chapman
2023 - Matador

Plus *potentially* but most definitely not *certainly* another 9 (Washington IL, Louisville MS, Stanton NE, Pilger x2, Alpena SD, Camp Crook SD, Bassfield MS, Mayfield-Bremen)
 
Aaron Rider said:
My hot take is that there really weren't that many "overrated" F5s in the 40 years between 1950 and 1990. I am pretty confident these weren't:

Vicksburg - 12/5/1953
Belmond - 10/14/1966
Wheelersburg - 4/23/1968 (this one was borderline based on damage pictures)
Spiro - 3/26/1976 (although tossing 134,000 LB coal rail cars is pretty impressive)
Brownwood - 4/19/76 (it did cleanly sweep away homes, though, and shred mesquite trees so F5 doesn't sound crazy)
Broken Bow - 4/2/1982

Then we have more debatable ones:

Both 5/15/1968 tornadoes - Charles City and Oelwein - were rated F5 by Grazulis. I have not researched these. Homes are described as having been, "swept completely away" in both.

The Delhi, LA 1971 tornado is controversial but pictures posted in the significant tornado threads indicate both it and the Cary-Tillatoba, MS tornado were indeed QUITE violent.

5/6/1973 Valley Mills is accepted as an F5 by most major sources (including Grazulis) solely on the testimony of "wind engineers" who were extremely impressed by the strength it demonstrated in blasting pickup trucks through their.

Several of the 1974 Super Outbreak tornadoes would, of course, not be EF5 today but they were all (based, again, on what I've seen over the years in our significant events thread) certainly F5.

Fort Rice, ND (5/29/1953) was originally rated F4 by Grazulis, but he later upgraded it back to F5. "A large church was leveled and its pews were driven 4 FT into the ground. Parts of a car were carried for 1/2 mile." The church was a Catholic one, Immaculate Conception, and while those are often built very solidly, I don't know how solid that one was. Doesn't appear it was rebuilt (which implies the parish got consolidated or something). Truth be told, there's just not a lot of info on this one, at least from what I could find. https://www.tornadotalk.com/fort-rice-nd-f5-tornado-may-29-1953/

Plainfield 1990 is pretty controversial but it did scour the ground extremely and toss a fully-loaded semi over half a mile.

On top of that, we have the fact that several tornadoes in that period were underrated. Several from Palm Sunday '65, of course; Stratton, NE and Bakersfield Valley, TX in 1990; Custer County, NE in 1961; a few others.

I tend to think Buckeye had one of the best standards (because it's simple): cleanly swept house + extreme contextual damage = an extremely violent tornado, e.g. F5/EF5. So my second hot take is, tornado ratings will always be hard to do. But what we need is common sense. Some tornadoes were definitely overrated 1950-1990, but it seems like common sense was reasonably applied. And by straight common sense, we are obviously missing, in my opinion:

2011 - New Wren and Tuscaloosa; Goldsby and Washington
2014 - Vilonia
2015 - Rochelle and Holly Springs
2016 - Chapman
2023 - Matador

Plus *potentially* but most definitely not *certainly* another 9 (Washington IL, Louisville MS, Stanton NE, Pilger x2, Alpena SD, Camp Crook SD, Bassfield MS, Mayfield-Bremen)
Click to expand...
I don't want to bog the thread down too much, but here is an interesting summary of the Spiro tornado. I was wrong: the cars were not fully-loaded. However, the damage certainly sounds impressive. https://archive.ph/20130703213105/h.../users/spirotornado/#selection-109.0-111.3206

Were 1976 era railroad lines continuously welded like today?

At 3:10 P.M. the National Weather Service in Fort Smith, Arkansas issued a tornado warning for Le Flore county in Southeast Oklahoma,
this tornado warning was issued 15 minutes before the tornado hit. As the storm approached heavy rain and hail brought the eerie sound of a freight train that is normally heard during tornadoes. Within minutes it was over, a deathly calm replaced the horrid rumble brought forth by debris flying through the air. Tree limbs littered downtown, which was a quarter of a mile from the area directly affected. Lumber, household items, and furniture were scattered several miles from town. At least 6 vehicles were thrown along side the road, with some vehicles in near by fields, after the tornado thrown them with extreme force. The tornado cut a five to seven mile path one-fourth of a mile wide. As the tornado moved into the southeast side of Spiro it destroyed five or six homes. The tornado took most of the roof off the vocational school, then jumped a field and destroyed the new housing edition of Spiro. Where the F-5 tornado first touched down empty coal cars were tossed off a railroad track in Spiro. The coal cars that were tossed about by the tornadic winds weighed 134,000 pounds each. A road that ran through the southeast side of Spiro had houses along it, and not one was left standing. The new housing edition looked like a junk yard after the tornado had pummeled that area. An oil company warehouse was blown from its foundation,and three people were killed as the tornado marched through town. One person was found in his house under the rubble, and the other was found near the New Hope Cemetery neither survived the killer tornado. One million dollars worth of damage was done in Spiro, Oklahoma from this tornado. On highway 9a, a commercial truck was blown over and rolled several times but the driver survived. About thirty-five to forty freight cars were knocked off the tracks in Spiro, and the tracks were damaged by the F-5 tornadic winds. Two cars were slammed into a semi truck east of town as the tornado lifted to the funnel stage. The funnel lifted and the storm passed over Fianna Hills Edition of fort Smith in Sebastian county Arkansas. After the storm was over all tallied three dead, and sixty-seven injured, some critically. Debris fell as far away as 20 miles from Spiro, such as wood, calendars, and paper. Witnesses from Eastern Le Flore County said "You could hear the roar like a plane in the distance then a hole opened up and the debris fell in a counterclockwise fashion. It looked like sunlight coming through the hole in the clouds a few minutes later they broke in on radio and said Spiro had been hit by a killer tornado." Also, it was reported by the public that the tornado could be seen from near Monroe, Oklahoma some 25 miles away from the storm. A man in a work truck rode out the F-5 tornado. At first he saw the large tornado passing by and was watching it, when another tornado slammed into his truck. One tornado was white and the other dark blue, the tornado threw him to the floorboard. Spiro was considered a disaster area by the Governor of Oklahoma. If the tornado would have went through downtown many more lives would have been lost. The real question remains how strong are tornadic winds at grass level to damage steel railroad tracks?
 
Aaron Rider said:
My hot take is that there really weren't that many "overrated" F5s in the 40 years between 1950 and 1990. I am pretty confident these weren't:

Vicksburg - 12/5/1953
Belmond - 10/14/1966
Wheelersburg - 4/23/1968 (this one was borderline based on damage pictures)
Spiro - 3/26/1976 (although tossing 134,000 LB coal rail cars is pretty impressive)
Brownwood - 4/19/76 (it did cleanly sweep away homes, though, and shred mesquite trees so F5 doesn't sound crazy)
Broken Bow - 4/2/1982

Then we have more debatable ones:

Both 5/15/1968 tornadoes - Charles City and Oelwein - were rated F5 by Grazulis. I have not researched these. Homes are described as having been, "swept completely away" in both.

The Delhi, LA 1971 tornado is controversial but pictures posted in the significant tornado threads indicate both it and the Cary-Tillatoba, MS tornado were indeed QUITE violent.

5/6/1973 Valley Mills is accepted as an F5 by most major sources (including Grazulis) solely on the testimony of "wind engineers" who were extremely impressed by the strength it demonstrated in blasting pickup trucks through their.

Several of the 1974 Super Outbreak tornadoes would, of course, not be EF5 today but they were all (based, again, on what I've seen over the years in our significant events thread) certainly F5.

Fort Rice, ND (5/29/1953) was originally rated F4 by Grazulis, but he later upgraded it back to F5. "A large church was leveled and its pews were driven 4 FT into the ground. Parts of a car were carried for 1/2 mile." The church was a Catholic one, Immaculate Conception, and while those are often built very solidly, I don't know how solid that one was. Doesn't appear it was rebuilt (which implies the parish got consolidated or something). Truth be told, there's just not a lot of info on this one, at least from what I could find. https://www.tornadotalk.com/fort-rice-nd-f5-tornado-may-29-1953/

Plainfield 1990 is pretty controversial but it did scour the ground extremely and toss a fully-loaded semi over half a mile.

On top of that, we have the fact that several tornadoes in that period were underrated. Several from Palm Sunday '65, of course; Stratton, NE and Bakersfield Valley, TX in 1990; Custer County, NE in 1961; a few others.

I tend to think Buckeye had one of the best standards (because it's simple): cleanly swept house + extreme contextual damage = an extremely violent tornado, e.g. F5/EF5. So my second hot take is, tornado ratings will always be hard to do. But what we need is common sense. Some tornadoes were definitely overrated 1950-1990, but it seems like common sense was reasonably applied. And by straight common sense, we are obviously missing, in my opinion:

2011 - New Wren and Tuscaloosa; Goldsby and Washington
2014 - Vilonia
2015 - Rochelle and Holly Springs
2016 - Chapman
2023 - Matador

Plus *potentially* but most definitely not *certainly* another 9 (Washington IL, Louisville MS, Stanton NE, Pilger x2, Alpena SD, Camp Crook SD, Bassfield MS, Mayfield-Bremen)
Click to expand...
you have to at least remember that the blackwell and udall are stated by grazulis that they would both not be rated EF5 today.
 
joshoctober16 said:
you have to at least remember that the blackwell and udall are stated by grazulis that they would both not be rated EF5 today.
Click to expand...
I don’t put much stock into what Grazulis says about specifics like that. He’s an excellent historian, researcher, compiler, and archiver whose documentation of tornados are essential to the historical record. The ratings he and his team assigned are a different story.

The man is a quack.
 
joshoctober16 said:
you have to at least remember that the blackwell and udall are stated by grazulis that they would both not be rated EF5 today.
Click to expand...
All I know is that he listed both as F5 in his books.

Don't know as much about Blackwell.

As for Udall specifically, if that wouldn't be EF5 today, then it's a problem with the scale. Extremely high end context, plus homes utterly obliterated with slabs swept well past clean ... that tornado was, to put it mildly, "extremely" violent. There was a blog post somewhere comparing the Udall-Blackwell outbreak to Greensburg 2007. Very, very similar storm systems. The violence of Udall absolutely equalled Greensburg, at a minimum.

Edit: found post https://www.mikesmithenterprisesblog.com/2022/01/meteorological-mystery-newly-discovered.html

Udall 1955 2.jpg
Udall 1955 3.png

Udall 1955.png
 
Aaron Rider said:
I don't want to bog the thread down too much, but here is an interesting summary of the Spiro tornado. I was wrong: the cars were not fully-loaded. However, the damage certainly sounds impressive. https://archive.ph/20130703213105/h.../users/spirotornado/#selection-109.0-111.3206

Were 1976 era railroad lines continuously welded like today?

At 3:10 P.M. the National Weather Service in Fort Smith, Arkansas issued a tornado warning for Le Flore county in Southeast Oklahoma,
this tornado warning was issued 15 minutes before the tornado hit. As the storm approached heavy rain and hail brought the eerie sound of a freight train that is normally heard during tornadoes. Within minutes it was over, a deathly calm replaced the horrid rumble brought forth by debris flying through the air. Tree limbs littered downtown, which was a quarter of a mile from the area directly affected. Lumber, household items, and furniture were scattered several miles from town. At least 6 vehicles were thrown along side the road, with some vehicles in near by fields, after the tornado thrown them with extreme force. The tornado cut a five to seven mile path one-fourth of a mile wide. As the tornado moved into the southeast side of Spiro it destroyed five or six homes. The tornado took most of the roof off the vocational school, then jumped a field and destroyed the new housing edition of Spiro. Where the F-5 tornado first touched down empty coal cars were tossed off a railroad track in Spiro. The coal cars that were tossed about by the tornadic winds weighed 134,000 pounds each. A road that ran through the southeast side of Spiro had houses along it, and not one was left standing. The new housing edition looked like a junk yard after the tornado had pummeled that area. An oil company warehouse was blown from its foundation,and three people were killed as the tornado marched through town. One person was found in his house under the rubble, and the other was found near the New Hope Cemetery neither survived the killer tornado. One million dollars worth of damage was done in Spiro, Oklahoma from this tornado. On highway 9a, a commercial truck was blown over and rolled several times but the driver survived. About thirty-five to forty freight cars were knocked off the tracks in Spiro, and the tracks were damaged by the F-5 tornadic winds. Two cars were slammed into a semi truck east of town as the tornado lifted to the funnel stage. The funnel lifted and the storm passed over Fianna Hills Edition of fort Smith in Sebastian county Arkansas. After the storm was over all tallied three dead, and sixty-seven injured, some critically. Debris fell as far away as 20 miles from Spiro, such as wood, calendars, and paper. Witnesses from Eastern Le Flore County said "You could hear the roar like a plane in the distance then a hole opened up and the debris fell in a counterclockwise fashion. It looked like sunlight coming through the hole in the clouds a few minutes later they broke in on radio and said Spiro had been hit by a killer tornado." Also, it was reported by the public that the tornado could be seen from near Monroe, Oklahoma some 25 miles away from the storm. A man in a work truck rode out the F-5 tornado. At first he saw the large tornado passing by and was watching it, when another tornado slammed into his truck. One tornado was white and the other dark blue, the tornado threw him to the floorboard. Spiro was considered a disaster area by the Governor of Oklahoma. If the tornado would have went through downtown many more lives would have been lost. The real question remains how strong are tornadic winds at grass level to damage steel railroad tracks?
Click to expand...
The Chapman KS tornado also did some very extensive damage to CWR tracks. There is a video of this damage for comparative purposes.

 
joshoctober16 said:
if we were to use 2014's strict rules on pre year tornadoes, the EF4-EF5 list would be very very down, and you would notice the violent tornado amounts are infact going higher.

its to note that if you were trying to keep the same intensity of damage for evrey Rating for each scale it would look more like this.
View attachment 38974
EF0 and EF1 starting point are the same.
EF3 and EF4 starting point is surprisingly less strict then it should be...
and EF2 and EF5 are more strict then it should be...

pretty much 136-137 mph rated EF3 would of been rated EF2
166-167 mph rated EF4 would be rated EF3

110 mph rated EF1 would be rated EF2
200 mph EF4 would be EF5.

however the main reason there is a big difference in change in violent tornadoes (EF4 starting point) is because before 1990 they over rated a bunch of tornadoes that were only F3-F4 in reality.
they then became too strict when the la plata F4 happened.

i honestly think 1990-2001 is the only year that the amount of over rated and under rated are perfectly equal, before that it was a bunch of over rated tornadoes and after that it was a bunch of under rated tornadoes.

and the recent study shows what we used to call the true F5 starting point is what we today call 190 mph rated tornadoes.

View attachment 38975
also note for EF5 no true typical average wind speed goes above 200 mph, its only for super rare DI or Strong ones but non for typical.
Click to expand...

Is that last chart saying homes have been the only DI to be rated EF5? That doesn't seem right. And is insane if true.

Would also strongly support my theory that steel frame, concrete, and masonry DIs are being rated way too low. There are plenty of commercial structures stronger than well built wood framed homes. It doesn't matter what structures tornadoes hit if all the DIs in densely populated areas can't achieve an EF5 rating regardless.
 
Last edited:
slenker said:
El Reno 2011's ~2,000,000 lb oil rig along with Philadelphia 2011's ground scouring were given EF5 ratings I believe. Both are entirely valid too IMO.
Click to expand...
Agreed those are valid, but also not actual EF scale DIs, so they achieved the ratings outside of the scale.
 
@joshoctober16 can we get a list of F5 rated DIs pre 2007? It'd be extremely interesting to see how the distribution would look across the 28 EF scale DIs. To @slenker 's point, it'd be good to have an additional column for overall contextual F5 DIs as well (just call it "misc."). Contextual indicators used to be far more commonly given ratings.
 
Grand Poo Bah said:
Is that last chart saying homes have been the only DI to be rated EF5? That doesn't seem right. And is insane if true.

Would also strongly support my argument that steel frame, concrete, and masonry DIs are being rated way too low. There are plenty of commercial structures stronger than well built wood framed homes. It doesn't matter what structures tornadoes hit if all the DIs in densely populated areas can't achieve an EF5 rating regardless.
Click to expand...
note this is only for offical DI , contextual isnt counted for this study.
 
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