June 21st 2023 Matador TX Tornado Discussion

[tornado examiner]

View attachment 20863
First rating given on this tornado, assuming theres more to go through if they said later today but idk

Didn’t they say they weren’t bringing in a qrt?

 

[Steel Central]

I didn't mean QRT

 

[Steel Central]

I'd wait for the DAT entries to make any judgements

 

[tornado examiner]

(Looking at the most violent tornado damage the plains have seen in a very long time)

Nws lobbuck: umm…flattened homes,…not well built…weak anchoring, bing bang boom, (slap) high end ef3, jobs done! (Whistles and walks away casually)

 

[JPWX]

First EF3 tornado to hit Matador since May 1st, 1984. First tornado rated EF3 in June on record for the area. The only other June tornado to affect Matador was a EF1 on June 12th, 1989.

 

[UK_EF4]

Given Texas Tech were already involved I doubt its changing for now, unless they are withholding any DIs for further analysis which they would release later. I'll be interested to see the DIs themselves. To be honest given we know little of the construction right now I don't see any reason why this is should be called a "bad" or "botched" survey though of course if it comes out that they missed many DIs etc then maybe I would disagree. Context is impressive but can't be rated on the current scale (though I think and many others think should be a factor to go above EXP windspeed).

 

[KCweatherboy]

A QRT is usually needed to confirm/analyze violent tornado damage and take ratings above an EF3-level.

This is kind of making me think they may slap a high-end EF3 rating on it and call it a day, which would be quite unfortunate for science.

I'm so frustrated that I called it

 

[UK_EF4]

I think that Texas Tech involvement may have been the reason that a QRT wasn't needed in this particular case, though you may be right since it is hard to know for sure!

 

[tornado examiner]

I think all of us are gonna be retroactively rating this tornado higher in our own surveys ignoring nws ruling…

Like Come on now…it quite simply was the most intense tornado damage Texas or the plains in general have seen in a long time.
It was not an ef3…period

 

[jiharris0220]

The thing is that when you read the summary, well for one, there isn’t much to read, secondly, other than, “house destroyed” and “vehicles“ rolled, there’s no mention of any of the notable damage.
Tornadoes have been given high ratings based off of contextuals before. I am quite astonished this was given ef3 of all things.

 

[TH2002]

If this indeed the final rating...

Look at ANY example of a genuine, appropriately rated high-end EF3 tornado (Coal City 2015, Arabi 2022, Little Rock 2023 etc.) and try to find any contextual damage of the caliber that occurred in Matador. It simply doesn't exist.

At the very least I do have to thank NWS Lubbock and Marshall for putting on such an entertaining clown show of a damage survey.

If the rating is still preliminary, then okay, but they should at least use some indication that the rating remains open-ended.

edit: After speaking with Tim, I don't think he's to blame for the low rating. Seems NWS Lubbock pretty much had Texas Tech conduct the damage survey for them. We all know what their track record looks like...

 

[tornado examiner]

The ef0 polygon on the dat for the tornado has been removed

 

[UK_EF4]

The tornado itself was definitely an EF4/5 tornado. Zero doubt. But if all the buildings it hit were badly constructed, then you can't really rate higher within the limits of the current EF scale. Some offices which go above and beyond (NWS Jackson) include context in their surveys, but apart from that DIs don't really exist for thrown cars or ground scouring (yet). The tree damage certainly warrants an EF4 rating, though I've noticed some if not most offices dont like to ever go above EF3 in tree damage, which is a problem in itself being afraid of rating high and rating tree damage as violent. This tornado just absolutely highlights once again some of the major issues with the scale, but until we have seen construction quality of the structures, the confirmation the rating is final, and whether or not all damaged structures were surveyed, I just don't think we have enough information to say certainly this survey was intentionally messed up, botched, bad etc. And while my gut says that probably there were some aspects of the survey which were not properly done, I feel we should give the NWS the benefit of the doubt before we start to attack them.

 

[StormStalker]

I’m going to get all the relevant posts from the general severe weather thread over into this one. Hope to do it this weekend.

 

[Sawmaster]

I think that Texas Tech involvement may have been the reason that a QRT wasn't needed in this particular case, though you may be right since it is hard to know for sure!

Thais seems more than likely to me.

 

[Sawmaster]

Am I missing something? NWS Lubbock isn't listing anything on it's site yet the tone here is that something has been released

LINK NEEDED please!

 

[UK_EF4]

Am I missing something? NWS Lubbock isn't listing anything on it's site yet the tone here is that something has been released

LINK NEEDED please!

IEM :: PNS from NWS LUB

PNS issued by NWS LUB at 24 Jun 2023 17:49 UTC

mesonet.agron.iastate.edu

And - the fact its not on their site and their twitter shows that its almost certainly still preliminary, so I still think people should be giving the NWS the benefit of the doubt here, for the same reasons I said in the earlier post.

 

[UK_EF4]

Sums it up very well and I almost completely agree. The ideal scale would be properly adjusting homes above and below EXP (or just EXP) considering both construction and context - as well as a consistent application without variation and just disobeying the scale. But this is becoming more enhanced fujita scale debate thread territory now.

 

[tornado examiner]

Survey is up on the dat…I already smell huge problems…

 

[Sawmaster]

Well it seems Texas Tech engineers did the survey, which to me means the usual overlooking of anything which can't be proven ten ways to Friday...

If they stick with the 165 estimate I'm going to want them to show where such winds did the kind of vehicle damage we see here, and then for them to adjust their wind estimate (and therefore the EF rating) to what winds are necessary to do this damage instead.