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my ratings of all the ef5 tornadoes.

#1 smithville mississippi april 27 2011 (shear totalility of the destruction. even more incredible abstract damage)
#2 philedelphia mississippi april 27 2011 (extreme ground scouring)
#3 hackleburg, phil campbell alabama april 27 2011 (shear volume of high end ef5 damage. incredible concrete damage)
#4 rainsville alabama april 27 2011 (foundation damage. extreme concrete damage. heavy objects destroyed)
#5 el-reno oklahoma may 24 2011 (massive objects affected)
#6 joplin missuori may 22 2011 (numerous instances of extreme abstract damage)
#7 parkersburg iowa may 25 2008 (severe granulation of debris. incredible damage to concrete)
#8 moore oklahoma may 20 2013 (ground scouring. vegetation damage. heavy objects thrown)
#9 greensburg kansas may 4 2007 (not very impressive)
 
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my ratings of all the ef5 tornadoes.

#1 smithville mississippi april 27 2011 (shear totalility of the destruction. even more incredible abstract damage)
#2 philedelphia mississippi april 27 2011 (extreme ground scouring)
#3 hackleburg, phil campbell alabama april 27 2011 (shear volume of high end ef5 damage. incredible concrete damage)
#4 rainsville alabama april 27 2011 (foundation damage. extreme concrete damage. heavy objects destroyed)
#5 el-reno oklahoma may 24 2011 (massive objects affected)
#6 joplin missuori may 22 2011 (numerous instances of extreme abstract damage)
#7 parkersburg iowa may 25 2008 (severe granulation of debris. incredible damage to concrete)
#8 moore oklahoma may 20 2013 (ground scouring. vegetation damage. heavy objects thrown)
#9 greensburg kansas may 4 2007 (not very impressive)
There seems to be universal or near-universal agreement on this forum that Moore ’13/’99, Smithville/Joplin/El Reno ’11, Parkersburg ’08, Jarrell ’97, Andover ’91, and Wheatland ’85 were/are among the most violent on record. Some older events such as Brandenburg/Guin ’74, Hudsonville ’56, Udall ’55, and Flint ’53 might also count. To me, Smithville stands out for its overall violence despite an exceptionally rapid forward speed. Joplin, Parkersburg, and Brandenburg ripped apart poured concrete basement walls. Both Moore tornadoes, El Reno, and Jarrell produced some of the most extreme DIs ever recorded, in terms of scouring, vegetative and vehicular damage, granulation, and various unconventional indicators. Guin reduced a mature tree to a debarked stub and grass to bare soil while moving in excess of ~70 kt. Andover, Hudsonville, Udall, and Flint generated extreme damage to heavy objects and lofted debris for considerable distances. As far as industrial damage is concerned, Wheatland takes the proverbial cake. Both Moore ’13 and Joplin caused extreme damage to schools and/or medical buildings. Aside from its singular instance of damage to a high school, Greensburg does not really compare to some of the other events that I have mentioned. It was very violent, having done considerable scouring and left granulated debris behind, but not as violent as the rest. Probably many other events rivalled or exceeded the ones that I mentioned but lack sufficient documentation.
 

pohnpei

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There seems to be universal or near-universal agreement on this forum that Moore ’13/’99, Smithville/Joplin/El Reno ’11, Parkersburg ’08, Jarrell ’97, Andover ’91, and Wheatland ’85 were/are among the most violent on record. Some older events such as Brandenburg/Guin ’74, Hudsonville ’56, Udall ’55, and Flint ’53 might also count. To me, Smithville stands out for its overall violence despite an exceptionally rapid forward speed. Joplin, Parkersburg, and Brandenburg ripped apart poured concrete basement walls. Both Moore tornadoes, El Reno, and Jarrell produced some of the most extreme DIs ever recorded, in terms of scouring, vegetative and vehicular damage, granulation, and various unconventional indicators. Guin reduced a mature tree to a debarked stub and grass to bare soil while moving in excess of ~70 kt. Andover, Hudsonville, Udall, and Flint generated extreme damage to heavy objects and lofted debris for considerable distances. As far as industrial damage is concerned, Wheatland takes the proverbial cake. Both Moore ’13 and Joplin caused extreme damage to schools and/or medical buildings. Aside from its singular instance of damage to a high school, Greensburg does not really compare to some of the other events that I have mentioned. It was very violent, having done considerable scouring and left granulated debris behind, but not as violent as the rest. Probably many other events rivalled or exceeded the ones that I mentioned but lack sufficient documentation.
Greensburg did argueablely strongest school damage ever. (said by Marshall) stronger than Moore, Joplin(Both of them hit three schools)..if we only talked about school damage here.
 

pohnpei

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my ratings of all the ef5 tornadoes.

#1 smithville mississippi april 27 2011 (shear totalility of the destruction. even more incredible abstract damage)
#2 philedelphia mississippi april 27 2011 (extreme ground scouring)
#3 hackleburg, phil campbell alabama april 27 2011 (shear volume of high end ef5 damage. incredible concrete damage)
#4 rainsville alabama april 27 2011 (foundation damage. extreme concrete damage. heavy objects destroyed)
#5 el-reno oklahoma may 24 2011 (massive objects affected)
#6 joplin missuori may 22 2011 (numerous instances of extreme abstract damage)
#7 parkersburg iowa may 25 2008 (severe granulation of debris. incredible damage to concrete)
#8 moore oklahoma may 20 2013 (ground scouring. vegetation damage. heavy objects thrown)
#9 greensburg kansas may 4 2007 (not very impressive)
I have to respectfully disagree about ranked Rainsville above El Reno, Pakersburg or Moore/Joplin. I once saw people argued most nature trees in Dixie was more prone to debark than other places like plain or Oh Valley. It should be not that hard for a violent tornado to debark trees in Dixie yet I only found at most two or three photos of Rainsville showed some debarking and with no well constructed building swept clean in its path. Many normal softwood forests stand right downside of destroyed houses showed no sign of debarking at all.
Swept clean relatively well built building and largely debarked trees are some of the most basic rules for any EF5 tornado went through towns/communties as I believe.
Huntsville NWS really did a wonderful job on Rainsville's rating beacuse they digged it really deep and found many small impressive damage features about this tornado. But there were just so many tornados never had chance like this! I am in fact convinced that most violent tornados can be found small little impressive damage features If you dig It really deep.
 
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Greensburg did argueablely strongest school damage ever. (said by Marshall) stronger than Moore, Joplin..if we only talked about school damage here.
True, but I was mainly going by the totality of DIs. I’ll concede that Greensburg, Hackleburg, and Chapman ’16 may belong on a list of the “most violent” events since 1950—especially Chapman. There are so many events and circumstances to choose from, even in this thread alone. I mainly decided to stick with some events that are well documented and fairly indisputable: in other words, relatively “convincing” or “compelling” cases. Maybe a rough list would look something like the following:
  • Chapman KS ’16
  • Vilonia AR ’14
  • Moore OK ’13
  • Philadelphia MS, Hackleburg AL, Smithville MS, Joplin MO, El Reno OK ’11
  • Parkersburg IA ’08
  • Elie MB ’07
  • Greensburg KS ’07
  • Harper KS ’04
  • Loyal Valley TX ’99
  • Bridge Creek OK ’99
  • Lawrenceburg TN ’98
  • Jarrell TX ’97
  • Chandler MN ’92
  • Andover KS ’91
  • Bakersfield Valley TX, Stratton NE ’90
  • Barrie ON, Niles OH/Wheatland PA ’85
  • Brandenburg KY, Guin AL ’74
  • San Justo AR ’73
  • Tianjin CN ’69
  • Jackson MS ’66
  • Dunlap IN ’65
  • Anselmo NE ’61
  • El Dorado KS ’58
  • Fargo ND ’57
  • Hudsonville MI ’56
  • Udall KS ’55
  • Flint/Beecher MI ’53
  • Glazier–Higgins TX/Woodward OK, Leedey OK ’47
  • Tri-State MO–IL–IN ’25
  • Fergus Falls MN ’19
  • New Richmond WI ’99
  • Sherman TX ’96
  • Rochester MN ’83
  • Camanche IA ’60
*Credits to @buckeye05 for some of the suggested candidates on this list
 

Austin Dawg

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my ratings of all the ef5 tornadoes.

#1 smithville mississippi april 27 2011 (shear totalility of the destruction. even more incredible abstract damage)
#2 philedelphia mississippi april 27 2011 (extreme ground scouring)
#3 hackleburg, phil campbell alabama april 27 2011 (shear volume of high end ef5 damage. incredible concrete damage)
#4 rainsville alabama april 27 2011 (foundation damage. extreme concrete damage. heavy objects destroyed)
#5 el-reno oklahoma may 24 2011 (massive objects affected)
#6 joplin missuori may 22 2011 (numerous instances of extreme abstract damage)
#7 parkersburg iowa may 25 2008 (severe granulation of debris. incredible damage to concrete)
#8 moore oklahoma may 20 2013 (ground scouring. vegetation damage. heavy objects thrown)
#9 greensburg kansas may 4 2007 (not very impressive)

The one thing usually not mentioned much about Smithville is the path after town. Smithville is small and when the tornado exited it went straight through nothing but woodland for miles. From the highway when you look at where it entered the forestland it looked like you had cut a wide path with a giant chainsaw for a long way. It's hard to imagine what would have happened had it hit a larger town.

Fig-1B-the-Smithville-EF-scale-map.jpg
 

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The one thing usually not mentioned much about Smithville is the path after town. Smithville is small and when the tornado exited it went straight through nothing but woodland for miles. From the highway when you look at where it entered the forestland it looked like you had cut a wide path with a giant chainsaw for a long way. It's hard to imagine what would have happened had it hit a larger town.

Fig-1B-the-Smithville-EF-scale-map.jpg
I was not aware that this tornado produced EF5 damage outside of Monroe County. I thought it was all limited to in and around Smithville.
 

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I am in fact convinced that most violent tornados can be found small little impressive damage features If you dig It really deep.
This is absolutely true - to the point that it really should be obvious - but it's something we usually don't think about much. Even with well-documented modern tornadoes there are often impressive details that go overlooked, to say nothing of older/more obscure events where we usually only have a broad overview of what happened (if that). The more you dig, the more you realize how impossible lists and rankings and such are. Still can be an interesting exercise though, especially when it uncovers some of those things that most people never hear about.
 
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This is absolutely true - to the point that it really should be obvious - but it's something we usually don't think about much. Even with well-documented modern tornadoes there are often impressive details that go overlooked, to say nothing of older/more obscure events where we usually only have a broad overview of what happened (if that). The more you dig, the more you realize how impossible lists and rankings and such are. Still can be an interesting exercise though, especially when it uncovers some of those things that most people never hear about.

With the emphasis of modern surveys on nitpicking construction quality to death and the resulting weather-nerd internet debates; sometimes we forget the last line of the F5 description on the original Fujita Scale:

"..incredible phenomena occur."

With the rarity that an EF5 rating is actually applied these days, the same thing could be said of most high-end EF4s, certainly Tuscaloosa, Vilonia '14, Chickasha and Goldsby, Washington, Rochelle, and Chapman to name just a few of the top of my head. I've mentioned it before either in this thread or in the Enhanced Fujita debate thread, comparing tornado intensity at this level is really fine-scale splitting hairs because you're talking about the strongest 0.3% or less of all tornadoes and are going to see "incredible phenomena" in all cases. However, that's part of what makes it interesting to do.
 

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The one thing usually not mentioned much about Smithville is the path after town. Smithville is small and when the tornado exited it went straight through nothing but woodland for miles. From the highway when you look at where it entered the forestland it looked like you had cut a wide path with a giant chainsaw for a long way. It's hard to imagine what would have happened had it hit a larger town.

Fig-1B-the-Smithville-EF-scale-map.jpg
Yeah, the symmetry of treefall pattern outside of the town was insane with some places all the trees mowed down to the ground level from the pic I saw. And in tornadotalk's map, There was another long section in Al where tornado reached EF5 intensity again. Even without enough DIs, the distinct feature of clear cut violent core was obvious with completely debarked trees in totally rural area deep into the forest and strong under-forest scouring. Radar velocity on KGWG actually peaked near the end of the track when tornado was much further away radar than in town of Smithville. Tornado can be stupidly strong around this area.
 

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I sometimes wondering If Smithville didn't hit the town and remained in rural area throughout its life, would It be completely forgotten and overshadowed by other tornados that day?
Until ten yeas later, a group named tornadotalk would discovered there were some Philadelphia-esque small pockets of scouring inside the forests showed on the satellite of this tornado. And then we would thought this in fact one-of-the-strongest of-all-time tornado may have high potential. But that's it. No more discussion can be made.
Smithville can be unique and happen to hit a town in its peak intensity. But given the density of towns in forest Dixie area, possibility like this seems extremely low. I certainly believe there were total rural version's Smithville-like tornados that remain undiscovered.(Fortunately)
 
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With the emphasis of modern surveys on nitpicking construction quality to death and the resulting weather-nerd internet debates; sometimes we forget the last line of the F5 description on the original Fujita Scale:

"..incredible phenomena occur."

With the rarity that an EF5 rating is actually applied these days, the same thing could be said of most high-end EF4s, certainly Tuscaloosa, Vilonia '14, Chickasha and Goldsby, Washington, Rochelle, and Chapman to name just a few of the top of my head. I've mentioned it before either in this thread or in the Enhanced Fujita debate thread, comparing tornado intensity at this level is really fine-scale splitting hairs because you're talking about the strongest 0.3% or less of all tornadoes and are going to see "incredible phenomena" in all cases. However, that's part of what makes it interesting to do.
Only 0.05% of all tornadoes have been rated EF5 since 2007! 0.2 to 0.3% should be the percentage but a number of people seem to think the idea of only a well-built home swept away can be considered for an. EF5 rating. I believe other contextual types of damage should be able to be rated EF5! Excellent post and people do forget the phrase from the original F5 tornado is that “INCREDIBLE PHENOMENA WILL OCCUR!”
 
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Only 0.05% of all tornadoes have been rated EF5 since 2007! 0.2 to 0.3% should be the percentage but a number of people seem to think the idea of only a well-built home swept away can be considered for an. EF5 rating. I believe other contextual types of damage should be able to be rated EF5! Excellent post and people do forget the phrase from the original F5 tornado is that “INCREDIBLE PHENOMENA WILL OCCUR!”

I included those high-end EF4s as well (basically those that are widely agreed to have had EF5 potential if not for lack of striking appropriate DIs at peak intensity and/or excessively stringent rating standards applied). Even so, the actual total is still probably considerably less than 0.3%.
 
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I included those high-end EF4s as well (basically those that are widely agreed to have had EF5 potential if not for lack of striking appropriate DIs at peak intensity and/or excessively stringent rating standards applied). Even so, the actual total is still probably considerably less than 0.3%.
0.5% of all tornadoes have been rated EF4+ since 2007. The excessive stringency is very ridiculous. Fujita listed that original F4 and F5 tornadoes accounted for 1 to 2% of all tornadoes. We’re not even close to that due again to excessive stringency.
 
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meanwhile studies show that around 20% of tornadoes are EF-4/EF-5 in strength... from what ive seen, truly weak tornadoes....are actually in the minority.
 

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I think in the case of tornadoes like Tipton '11 where literally ONE anchor bolt was missing a nut and washer, should that really mitigate an EF5 rating? If it was missing half or more then sure, but I just don't think the tornado should have been nitpicked down to EF4 especially if the house had no other flaws in its construction. This of course has happened with other tornadoes as well like Chickasha where "some of the anchor bolts were missing washers" so the house was nitpicked to high end EF4.

Tim Marshall said that washers distribute the load across the home's sill plates. I can see in some cases where contextual damage just doesn't add up and a lack of several washers could even potentially require lower winds to destroy, but if the contextual damage is literally right in your face screaming "EXTREMELY VIOLENT TORNADO" why not just go EF5 at that point?

Don't get me started on tornadoes like Capitol MT and Delmont SD where the contextual damage was literally completely IGNORED because "well tractors, vehicles and ground scouring aren't a DI sooo...."

Jim LaDue said that non-DI's can still receive a rating on the EF Scale. NWS Huntsville did exactly that during their Hackleburg survey and while I admit they went a little overboard with their EF5-rated damage points, I still see no valid reason why things like vehicles and ground scouring can't be rated EF5 if the damage is extremely violent.
 
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I think in the case of tornadoes like Tipton '11 where literally ONE anchor bolt was missing a nut and washer, should that really mitigate an EF5 rating? If it was missing half or more then sure, but I just don't think the tornado should have been nitpicked down to EF4 especially if the house had no other flaws in its construction. This of course has happened with other tornadoes as well like Chickasha where "some of the anchor bolts were missing washers" so the house was nitpicked to high end EF4.

Tim Marshall said that washers distribute the load across the home's sill plates. I can see in some cases where contextual damage just doesn't add up and a lack of several washers could even potentially require lower winds to destroy, but if the contextual damage is literally right in your face screaming "EXTREMELY VIOLENT TORNADO" why not just go EF5 at that point?

Don't get me started on tornadoes like Capitol MT and Delmont SD where the contextual damage was literally completely IGNORED because "well tractors, vehicles and ground scouring aren't a DI sooo...."

Jim LaDue said that non-DI's can still receive a rating on the EF Scale. NWS Huntsville did exactly that during their Hackleburg survey and while I admit they went a little overboard with their EF5-rated damage points, I still see no valid reason why things like vehicles and ground scouring can't be rated EF5 if the damage is extremely violent.
this is why i want to know when that updated EF-scale will go live. i wanna see what they did. they better have fixed these issues. and new standards shouldnt be so nitpicky. and no point of damage should be ignored. instead of nitpicking one singular point of damage. they should actually do a complete survey and shoot for a tornado's likely intensity. does anyone know anything about that new scale?
 

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Here's something very exciting I think is worth a shoutout on this thread.

tornadoarchive.com
Tornado Archive, an impressive tornado database/mapping website which not only replaces, but very much improves upon the lost Tornado History Project, has just been launched. Many insanely talented individuals, including @andyhb, put a ton of hard work into this project and it really shows. What's more exciting is that there's even better things in store. Absolutely geeking out about this.



 
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