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Severe Weather 2024

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Haven't seen anything official from NWS Milwaukee yet. I remember there being a bit of a kerfluffle last year after a certain tornado that may or may not be pictured to the left of this post had an erroneous EF5 damage point entered in the DAT.

That said, I suspect EF2 is a strong possibility with this, and wouldn't be surprised by low-end EF3.
 
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The nws office straight up just said that “at least two ef3 di’s have to be found for that tornado to be rated ef3”

BULL. FLIPPING. CRAP.

That is some nonsense right there.
 

andyhb

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Here we go again...

This is almost laughably predictable at this point.
 
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I just looked at the Damage Assessment Toolkit, and I don't see any F3 datapoints. Considering they were just doing the survey today, my guess is there was a typo or something that folks discussed once they were together and changed their mind on. This tornado is historic as it is, and I trust the Sullivan folks to do thorough surveys as they have in the past.

I get that we're all into data, and having these tools at our fingertips is amazing, but it also means we have to make allowances for small discrepancies and the like to happen the day of a survey.



Edit: Also, taking a look at the farmstead in question (Google maps went by in August of last year!), where the supposed F3 data was from, it is an older farm and most of the buildings there are aged. A lot of buildings like that are actually quite old and have been unused for a long time--I know from family experience. I'm not super familiar with the data points and what qualifies as what, but if the barn being damaged the way it is is considered an F2 damage point, the metal/metal sided buildings that are nearby could be of questionable build quality, depending on which building, but I could easily see there being debate about what to rate that damage.
 
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I just looked at the Damage Assessment Toolkit, and I don't see any F3 datapoints. Considering they were just doing the survey today, my guess is there was a typo or something that folks discussed once they were together and changed their mind on. This tornado is historic as it is, and I trust the Sullivan folks to do thorough surveys as they have in the past.

I get that we're all into data, and having these tools at our fingertips is amazing, but it also means we have to make allowances for small discrepancies and the like to happen the day of a survey.



Edit: Also, taking a look at the farmstead in question (Google maps went by in August of last year!), where the supposed F3 data was from, it is an older farm and most of the buildings there are aged. A lot of buildings like that are actually quite old and have been unused for a long time--I know from family experience. I'm not super familiar with the data points and what qualifies as what, but if the barn being damaged the way it is is considered an F2 damage point, the metal/metal sided buildings that are nearby could be of questionable build quality, depending on which building, but I could easily see there being debate about what to rate that damage.

There was an ef3 Di on the dat for a while
1707516142917.png
 
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There was an ef3 Di on the dat for a while
View attachment 23803

That's my point--Yes, there was one, but it isn't there anymore. Either there was an error or some debate about the point, and that kind of stuff is totally understandable and expected on the day of a survey. The person saying the thing about multiple data points is not a NWS person, so I would take their claim with several grains of salt.

And, to continue my looking at the farmstead: There is a new metal garage, but it is right next to the barn and so it may have been completely destroyed, but possibly via debris from the barn or had all of its doors open and thus some mitigating issue, which IMO would very easily explain why the data point was there (destroyed metal garage!) and also why it was removed (debate about mitigating factors). The photo of the barn definitely shows debris right near where that metal garage would be.
 

Equus

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A lot of WXtwitter seems to be misinterpreting the surveying directive as explicitly needing more than one damage point of that intensity, as it absolutely does not state that verbatim, and there have been multiple intense tornadoes even in recent years rated on a single damage point of that rating. The directive simply states that one needs enough contextual evidence surrounding that damage point (i.e. a leveled house but trees and sheds around the house not being very damaged = very questionable) to let it stand, which in theory is fair. The issue lies perhaps in the application as it seems like some WFOs don't interpret it the way it's intended to be, and we do occasionally see cases of single points not being recognized.

In this case, going from a low end 3 on a marginal point to a high 2 isn't nearly as egregious as many have been, especially since the structure in question is definitely of a type that could have many legitimate lessening factors, but it drives home the need for some national standardization in the process and application from WFO to WFO and the need to keep preliminary points off the public side of the DAT until the survey is finished lol

Besides, having an explicit policy of needing multiple points to rate a tornado would mean a plains tornado that levels a farm house and nothing else whatsoever would have to be rated EF-U, which would be really really stupid
 
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jiharris0220

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You make a good point, and now that I think about it, why do they even issue public preliminaries in the first place?
The engineers that conduct the surveys certainly aren’t looking for feedback from twitter of all things.
 
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That whole mess was cleared up…the tornado is still in check for an ef3 rating and no the news did not say that whole you need two di’s…that was said by a non nws person
 

joshoctober16

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A lot of WXtwitter seems to be misinterpreting the surveying directive as explicitly needing more than one damage point of that intensity, as it absolutely does not state that verbatim, and there have been multiple intense tornadoes even in recent years rated on a single damage point of that rating. The directive simply states that one needs enough contextual evidence surrounding that damage point (i.e. a leveled house but trees and sheds around the house not being very damaged = very questionable) to let it stand, which in theory is fair. The issue lies perhaps in the application as it seems like some WFOs don't interpret it the way it's intended to be, and we do occasionally see cases of single points not being recognized.

In this case, going from a low end 3 on a marginal point to a high 2 isn't nearly as egregious as many have been, especially since the structure in question is definitely of a type that could have many legitimate lessening factors, but it drives home the need for some national standardization in the process and application from WFO to WFO and the need to keep preliminary points off the public side of the DAT until the survey is finished lol

Besides, having an explicit policy of needing multiple points to rate a tornado would mean a plains tornado that levels a farm house and nothing else whatsoever would have to be rated EF-U, which would be really really stupid

unknown.png
the problem is villonia and EF5 in general, the issues will never stop until EF5 are removed from the EF scale or NWS can stop making up excuses to not rate a tornado EF5, because they keep wanting to use wierd reasons to not rate stuff EF5, because of this, this causes them to make problems like the whole WXtwitter thinking you cant get a tornado rated EF(number) base off one DI, also is it me or did they removed the EF3 di?
 

Equus

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Vilonia definitely remains the best known case of a surveyor either ignorant of or misunderstanding the application of the scale especially when it comes to single structures and contextuals; the lack of standardization from office to office in application is extremely irritating. Not to start another three dozen page Vilonia debate of course.
 
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Vilonia definitely remains the best known case of a surveyor either ignorant of or misunderstanding the application of the scale especially when it comes to single structures and contextuals; the lack of standardization from office to office in application is extremely irritating. Not to start another three dozen page Vilonia debate of course.

Definitely remains the most egregious case IMO, at least when it comes to discerning between EF4/EF5, although by itself it would only shave a year off the ongoing "EF5 drought," maybe it wouldn't have set such a bad precedent. The biggest problem IMO was we did indeed start to see the obsessive hugging to lower bounds creep down the scale, culminating in at least one instance of the complete leveling of a frame home being rated EF2 which to my understanding was not supposed to be possible. OTOH we still see some rather generous ratings like Newnan, GA of 2021. One of the "enhancements" of the EF-scale was supposed to be that it removed most of the subjectivity inherent with Fujita's original rather vague damage descriptions, but it becomes more clear with each passing year that it's failed at that.

All that said, 130 MPH EF2 or 140 MPH EF3, either way yesterday's Evansville area tornado was unusually impactful by southern Wisconsin standards, let alone for being the first (or second, heard rumblings about Juda-Albany being confirmed EF1 but again nothing straight from an MKX web page or social account) February tornado in the state since records began.
 
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