Yeah the thing with Plainfield is it peaked over an area with 0 structures. The "F5" damage was limited to crops, trees, vegetation and some automobiles crossing the highway nearby. I'm surprised Fujita rated this thing F5 even back then, though. But yeah it likely wouldn't pass muster as EF5; then again, that rating seems to have been retired completely so who knows?
talkweather.com
Though it did weaken, in Plainfield proper the tornado continued to cause some impressive vehicle damage and swept away at least a few anchor bolted homes:
The source I got those photos from appears to not even exist anymore, so I have zero context unfortunately, though I will say there are tell-tale signs of cleanup. I don't think bulldozers would have been responsible for the removal of subflooring though, unless the photos were taken WEEKS after the tornado.
This was easily the most violent tornado in Wisconsin history, and possibly has a place in the most violent overall list as well. It's so obvious that even given the somewhat limited photographic documentation available, this was well above the F5 threshold. Still some of the most thorough destruction and tree debarking I have ever seen photographed to date.Photos of intense damage from the 1899 New Richmond tornado. This tornado is one of the few 19th-century events where I have seen photographic evidence of F5 damage.
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I agree with the F5 rating. Do you know what kind of force it would take for a 10 yard wide tornado to throw vehicles and completely dismember them. I am not going to just stick with well-built home propaganda as I am much more controversial.
One of the few times I've seen a photo of the 3,000 Ib. safe that was thrown by this thing, the other time is here:
I will say it is very impressive that Plainfield was able to cause vehicle damage comparable to many F5/EF5 tornadoes when it was only 10 yards wide and had very little structural debris to work with. I can't say the "F5 corn scouring" or most of the structural damage makes a strong case for F5, but the vehicle damage was something else.
Yeah that's my biggest point of skepticism with Plainfield. The main basis was corn scouring. That just doesn't sit well with me at all.
I think if Plainfield's rating had been based less on what happened in that cornfield and more on what it did to those vehicles, and more background info was available regarding the photos of destroyed (swept away?) homes in Plainfield itself, there would be less controversy over the rating.
The thing is, I've watched Dr. Fujita's recorded presentation of the Plainfield survey on YouTube, as well as read the full PDF file, and he specifically mentions that the homes swept away in Plainfield were not rated F5, and I believe "weak foundations" was the reason he gave, irrc. This was towards the end of his career, and I can't help but wonder if he himself was shifting away from the idea of slabbed homes being a strong F5 indicator.
Odd. Ground level photos in Plainfield show homes with poured concrete foundations and anchor bolted sill plating. But with that said, cleanup has definitely taken place in most of those available photos, so maybe those homes were leveled and the ones swept away by the tornado instead of bulldozers were poorly constructed? Just a guess, but could be the case.
The brown spots on the ground....possible scouring?
He was probably realizing the flaws in his scale and thinking of how to rectify them, but being close to retirement and such, likely didn't have the time and energy to devise a new scale.
The sheer amount of granulated debris covering the ground and how completely debarked some trees were tells me this was an event likely on par with Parkersburg, Hackleburg and/or Smithville and going through a heavily urbanized area at full intensity.
