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Enhanced Fujita Ratings Debate Thread

I'm actually astonished that zero of these violent tornadoes injured a single person. All of them were huge, EF3+ (Plevna arguably an EF5), yet zero casualties were recorded.
 
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Aaron Rider said:
Reading through some of these comments (in your links) makes me want to emphasize something I've said before: a lot of this comes down to, do you believe there's such a thing as a "low-end F5." People in some of those links are directly comparing Shawnee to Moore, as if to say, Shawnee had extremely impressive contextual damage, but not as much as Moore (which, granted, was the next day)..
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While I don't think Shawnee necessarily is, of course there is, or should be discernible differences between F5/EF5 tornadoes. It's consistent with the way the scale used to be used, and setting the bar so high that it require matching the worst tornado damage ever documented just is not useful.

N0mz said:
Greensburg/Plevna had some pretty wicked ground scouring as well (nick smego on twitter)
View attachment 43008View attachment 43009
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Someone on the Youtube video for this claimed that this is probably pre-existing wet soil, for what it's worth.
 
I do agree with them on that one DI that talks about cinderblocks; the trunks were softwood and the photo attached doesn't show debarking. I'm more curious to see how they rate structural damage in Grinnell.
 
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OH-IOan said:
I do agree with them on that one DI that talks about cinderblocks; the trunks were softwood and the photo attached doesn't show debarking. I'm more curious to see how they rate structural damage in Grinnell.
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The tree debarking in Grinnell wasn’t the most intense, but it’s clear there was some partial debarking present on what looked to be relatively large hardwood trees.
 
AJS said:
I think Grinnell was the most violent of the day so far with the evidence we have.
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Regarding Plevna, although I personally consider it an EF4 the EF3 rating is understandable considering the limitations of the scale. Wish you didn't need EF4 structural damage to get EF4 contextuals rated EF4, but whatever. Wichita didn't screw up, at least not as badly as Goodland did.

For examples of other justifiably rated tornadoes that I believe were higher, see Bassfield and Monette. For an example where there WAS violent (even EF5!) damage to compliment the (off-the-wall, #4 of all time) contextuals, yet the tornado was still lowballed anyway, see Matador.

Also, here's my "bad NWS offices" list:

NWS Memphis
NWS Nashville (Cookeville was the exception and it actually was considered for high end EF3 by at least some surveyors)
NWS Springfield
NWS Fort Worth
NWS Goodland (Grinnell proved it)
NWS Topeka (maybe, but Chapman was not a good survey or rating call)
NWS Lubbock (literally every rating from this office should just be disregarded due to the Texas Tech contamination)

Any more I'm missing?
 
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Lake Martin EF4 said:
Regarding Plevna, although I personally consider it an EF4 the EF3 rating is understandable considering the limitations of the scale. Wish you didn't need EF4 structural damage to get EF4 contextuals rated EF4, but whatever. Wichita didn't screw up, at least not as badly as Goodland did.

For an example of another justifiably rated tornado that I believe was higher, see Bassfield and Monette. For an example where there WAS violent (even EF5!) damage to compliment the (off-the-wall #4 of all time) contextuals, yet the tornado was still lowballed anyway, see Matador.

Also, here's my "bad NWS offices" list:

NWS Memphis
NWS Nashville (Cookeville was the exception and it actually was considered for high end EF3 by at least some surveyors)
NWS Springfield
NWS Fort Worth
NWS Goodland (Grinnell proved it)
NWS Topeka (maybe, but Chapman was not a good survey or rating call)
NWS Lubbock (literally every rating from this office should just be disregarded due to the Texas Tech contamination)

Any more I'm missing?
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What’s your reasoning for Monette being an EF5 caliber tornado? I don’t disagree that it was a very violent tornado, just curious what you’re thoughts are.
 
AJS said:
What’s your reasoning for Monette being an EF5 caliber tornado? I don’t disagree that it was a very violent tornado, just curious what you’re thoughts are.
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Let's take a field trip to the tree damage in Arkansas.
AJS said:
And in addition to research the WK Tornado, I happened to do some research on the Tri State Monster that occurred before it and came across this unbelievable debarking found near Buckeye, Arkansas. This is without a doubt some of the most violent tree damage I have ever seen and reminds me of the grove of trees debarked by the Bassfield Tornado. Not quite as extreme, but without a doubt up there. This leads me to believe that this tornado most likely had EF5 potential had it struck more directly.
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IMG_3902.jpeg
 
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Lake Martin EF4 said:
Let's take a field trip to the tree damage in Arkansas.
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Damn! I forgot about that. Never mind, I don’t know why I was doubting that this beast reached EF5 strength. That tree damage is well on par with the most violent ever photographed. Monette/Leachville and Hayti/Caruthersville were very lucky that tornado didn’t make direct impacts on them.
 
AJS said:
Damn! I forgot about that. Never mind, I don’t know why I was doubting that this beast reached EF5 strength. That tree damage is well on par with the most violent ever photographed. Monette/Leachville and Hayti/Caruthersville were very lucky that tornado didn’t make direct impacts on them.
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You're welcome. Fun fact, I almost named Mayfield too, but I decided against it on the basis of about 2 specific non-contextual damage incidents that I'd rate EF5 (Mayfield's church and Bremen's "CMU home wearing a slab foundation home costume", which I finally decided on EF5 for on the basis of Rainsville and by hearing Ethan Moriarty's take on it).
 
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Lake Martin EF4 said:
You're welcome. Fun fact, I almost named Mayfield too, but I decided against it on the basis of about 2 specific damage incidents that I'd rate EF5 (Mayfield's church and Bremen's "CMU home wearing a slab foundation home costume").
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I have no doubt Mayfield reached EF5 strength in Bremen. The contextual evidence was overwhelmingly supporting of an EF5 rating. Like @buckeye05 said, it had “ the look. “
 
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