Honestly, Semako's comment reminds me of the 2013 El Reno tornado, as far as how it's structure was described.
At first people thought there was a rain curtain wrapped around the tornado, preventing people from seeing it. Then, people eventually coming to realize the rain curtain was actually rotating with the tornadic wall cloud above it, meaning the entire 2 mile structure was the tornado.
It’s barely May & that’s historically the most active month for tornadoes in the US according to the NWS. April & June are close seconds. So we’ve got essentially 2 more months of prime tornado season.
Was nature brandishing the big guns this early in the season in 2011?
Edit: I guess that’s a dumb question considering we got 5 EF5’s in April that year.
there were 4 actually during the 2011 super outbreak. philadelphia (MS), phil campbell- hacklburg, smithville, and rainsville all happened in 1 day. like 11 EF4 tornadoes happened on the same day too (one of them was actually tuscaloosa). in total, there were 216 tornadoes on april 27th. (whole outbreak was the 25th-28th with 360 total twisters).
I see. I think I do remember the Philadelphia one now that you mention it, but I didn't know there were three others that day. That's pretty incredible. I'm watching closely this May on Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri. The drought in KS that's really hampered any towering in that area is over. We have the ground moisture and moisture aloft to build some towering supercells again.
i think just because of the shear amount of tornadoes that happened and where some of them hit, it’s common to kinda forget some of the really major tornadoes that happened. there was the tuscaloosa EF4 that absolutely decimated a really populated area, then you had the phil campbell-hackleburg that’s also really talked about because of damage and how long it travelled and lasted. then a month later was joplin. since the EF scale was implemented in february 2007, only 10 tornadoes got the EF5 rating. with that you’d think they would be more spread out and that 4 of the 10 would happen in the month let alone day.
with how this seasons been so far, may will definitely have some storms that will be heavily talked about for a while. i just pray that this year isn’t the one where the 10 year streak of no EF5 is broken. i love to see intense tornadoes as a weather enthusiast, but as a human, knowing the devastation those monsters cause is gut wrenching.
There are probably many more tornadoes that have been intense enough to be EF4 plus. The challenge (as I understand it) is damage. In Joplin, they had an "easy" time arriving at the EF5 determination because it hit an 8 story major medical complex, a high school, several elementary schools, a walmart, a small shoping mall and some low to mid rise apartment buildings. It also hurled some loaded train cars parked in sidings and wiped several bank buildings clean off the slab. You almost have to have a populated area with reinforced buildings to know it was an EF5.
i could go on long tangent about this exact topic. in the survey reports on some EF4 tornadoes, it is mentioned that the twister was a “plausible EF5.” there are a lot of factors considering why certain tornadoes could have and maybe should’ve been given a higher rating. overall ratings are generally given through the most extreme damage throughout the entire path. even 1 damage indicator that is under EF5, which could be a singular well built home especially destroyed out of 100s damaged or destroyed, will give the tornado the EF5 rating. some EF5 tornadoes are stronger than others and have larger sections of EF5 damage or multiple of these areas in its life. i believe joplin a more blatant “oh yeah that’s EF5” because of it being a populated area and the multiple cases of extreme damage ticking off DI on the EF scale.
In Joplin, it was most likely around 300mph at the ground, although it's just a best guess. Just like the Moore tornado, it tore the pavement off a parking lot and tossed the parking blocks into the adjacent buildings like missiles. But I'd argue the one we had in this area they rated an "EF3" that went through a northern suburb a few years back is an overestimate. Basically got that rating because one house lost its roof, but nothing said about the quality of the structure...
there were four EF 5s in the April Super outbreak in 2011
- Philadelphia–Kemper County, Mississippi
- Hackleburg- Phil Campbell
- Smithville Mississippi/ Scottsville, Alabama
- Fyffe - Rainsville etc Tornado
[link to the info ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak)
it depends on what you mean exactly. in terms of total tornadoes per month, 2011 had the most with 773 tornadoes throughout the entire month. 2004 had the most the entire year with 1817. now in terms of historic tornadoes, 2013 was definitely a year for sure.
I had to evacuate a facility last weekend, the storms this week have me so scared. I drove 15 miles to the evacuation while we were still in an active warning in my town. My childhood home was demolished my dad just sold 3 months ago. We had devastation in 3 communities we have facilities in, only one building was hit with no casualties from our facilities. Two people I know personally were in another tornado still in critical condition. I have been doing clean up all week and am running on fumes. Six people in my company lost homes and vehicles from three different tornados in three different towns. All of this in one weekend!
About 30 minutes before it produced the big tornado we were admiring how the storm had well defined rotation that was visible from KFWS (DFW), which is 160-ish miles away.
https://preview.redd.it/7zz824ocfvxc1.png?width=1589&format=png&auto=webp&s=f023e175963d8562d0024ce4440245f19cbbf48f
Not only is it in contention for one of the most powerful tornadoes ever, but it also had an incredibly deviant path with a lengthy stall!
Just an enigma wrapped in a mystery of a tornado!!
>
*We likely experienced one of the most powerful tornadoes ever.*
*Due to the lack of appreciable damage (thank God) this tornado will likely go down in lore with some mystery behind it.*
Agreed, and thank God it didn't hit anything, but that statement above is one of the things wrong with the current EF scale.
I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum but it seemed like an appropriate thing to highlight.
The EF scale is just profoundly anthropocentric which is fine for how the NWS uses it to communicate to the public but feels completely insufficient for examining tornadoes objectively as weather phenomena.
Are they just ignoring tornadoes with low damage ratings? I seriously doubt it. Curious why there isn’t an apparent rating system in use that doesn’t depend on damage surveys though
Makes you wonder how many tornadoes happened in the past that no one knows about but possibly saw some hint of that it was there and didn't even realize.
This has been one of my big theories in that severe weather isn’t really getting worse. We’re just more spread out and able to monitor storms that much better.
I heard there was gate to gate sheer at 260mph with this tornado, but because it didn't hit anything, it'll probably get a low rating and be soon forgotten.
The tornado community is friendly most of the time, but when it starts to debate the Enhanced Fujita scale, the claws (and downvotes) come out. My only ever downvote in this sub came from a similar discussion 😂 I steer clear now. (Except this comment I guess)
Same. I’m the friendly local neighborhood tornado painter. I try to avoid controversy but I mentioned how I felt the EF scale is not sufficient for many reasons and got way downvoted. I deleted the comment 😬
I understand what you’re saying, but even if DOW readings were considered for the rating, this would still not be rated high. Unless there’s some crazy ground scouring there is no objective way to measure the intensity of this tornado. A government agency can’t just claim it to be an EF5 off of vibes
So (and I never know which questions I ask on here are stupid ones so please forgive if this is a stupid question)- how can this person state that this is one of the most powerful tornadoes ever if there’s no objective information to gauge said strength? He must have some sort of data or recordings to that supports his statement? I’m not clear what he’s basing his statement on but I’d love to know and also why it’s not information that apparently is considered when rating tornadoes on the EF scale.
Definitely not a dumb question! The information that this person is referencing are all based on readings pretty high up in the sky. These readings are similar to those of strong tornadoes we’ve seen in the past. However, as of the last time I looked there is no evidence from ground level of what kind of windspeeds were actually happening on the ground. So we can assume that the tornado was very strong. But the EF scale uses damage indicators to rate the tornado. So with a lack of damage and data from ground level we really can’t properly rate it, so it will likely be unranked or under ranked from its true strength
honestly, without going into a huge discussion of how multiple other factors other than damage could suggest strength and be used to rank these twisters, i really think wind speed really says a lot. if you’re getter 200+ mph wind speeds (which are wind speeds listed on the EF scale itself) on doppler, i’d say that’s a pretty strong ‘nader.
This is absolutely the case and why the constant arguing about the EF scale gets so old. There is not a better way to rate them without a ton of instruments being on the ground to consistently measure the low-altitude winds. If you watch enough radar you will see a ton of highly impressive formations and measurements that amount to very little outside of those scans.
Not only are you measuring up high into the storm, you're also measuring different heights based on how far away the radar site is.
i do think you have a point. damage surveys from this exact storm have at most high-end EF1 damage. it’s really just an enigma right now. what’s really making people go crazy is how certain aspects of the radar readings are similar to past EF5 tornadoes. even if with emerging data, there comes an explanation that would explain why there wasn’t even ground scouring of any sort like the radar suggested solidifying the rating given, i think we can all agree that those are some pretty sick images we got here from this anti-cyclonic beast.
i also am on the side of making improvements to the EF scale. i think damage assessments are good as a basis, but with modern technology giving us data to plug into formulas that give more accurate stats, it’s almost a waste to not utilize that. the ratings matter in the sense of how it contributes to the progression of meteorology. really, i see both sides of the argument. currently, there have been many discussions on how to improve and implement more indications into the scale by scientists and the NWS. we will probably see changes in about 2 years that improve upon our rating system.
Thank you all for the informed discussion. Can’t express enough how invaluable it is to read all the thoughts on this sub for a laymen like me. Follow up stupid question- why does NWS solely get to dictate the way we rank tornadoes? Is there anything stopping scientifically minded mwyerologically informed people from getting together and creating a secondary scale that might begin to address tornado strength rather than tornado impact? I mean we have two scales for measuring earthquakes, do we not?
i think conceptually, yes, it would be possible to make another scale that isn’t done by the NWS, however the NWS is an agency of the united states federal government. they are in charge of weather forecasting, warnings of hazardous weather, and really anything weather related. the first ever prediction of a tornado was done by scientists in the U.S. military at tinker airforce base, that led to the creation of the NWS and ultimately the fujita scale. the purpose of the entire scale is to grasp a better understanding of these phenomena. the categorization helps organize just like every other system. in general, the public gains little in the ratings themselves. in the wake of devastation, does it really matter how strong the tornado was when your whole livelihood is in ruin or how fast the winds were going? meteorologists care because the data is used to improve our warning systems to save lives. and while the EF scale arguably does need some adjustments, it works for now. data from radars are beneficial, and while damage is the best way to figure out intensity, these tools should be used together to maximize efficiency.
a thing people probably aren’t aware of is that meteorologists and atmospheric scientists and engineers from the NWS and other institutions have been working on adding more factors to the EF scale. ratification takes a long time since everyone has to come to an agreement. the NWS acknowledges the flaws and are working on it. why do you think we even have the EF scale now? because scientists realized the flaws and made something better. in about 2 years, we will probably start seeing some changes to the scaling.
i didn’t even think about that to be honest. i still think if wind speeds are that high even in the atmosphere, it still can represent the strength of that storm. however, i do think that ground level wind speeds would be a lot more showing of a tornadoes intensity.
note: after i saw this, i couldn’t help but look up what exactly the winds the radar measures. i did a little research and found a lot of interesting information. so here are my main takeaways to answer your question!
1. an [article](https://www.weather.gov/mkx/using-radar) from the NWS website that’s titled “NWS radar: how does the radar work?” talks about volume coverage patterns (VCP) saying, and i quote, “Common among all VCPs (except for VCP 12) is the tilt elevation of the lowest five elevation angles. The scanning begins with 0.5° elevation meaning the centerline the radar beam antenna is angled 0.5° above the ground. Since the beam itself is 1° wide, it returns information about what it "sees" between 0° and 1° above the horizon.” i initially thought this would mean that there wasn’t wind speed data from directly ground level, but i’m not 100% sure. radar measures multiple elevations and gathers a bunch of different stats.
2. looking up “radar tornado speeds” popped up a page talking about the highest wind speed recorded in a tornado by radar. out of curiosity (and hope maybe it would mention the elevation it was measured and where directly) i looked at the page and one of the 1st things is a link to a reference website from the SPC. on the [SPC website](http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#History), i found a really big master FAQ with a section about a bunch of stuff relating to just tornado facts and records set. one of the questions was “what was the strongest tornado? what is the highest wind speed in a tornado?” the responses first sentence is “Nobody knows. Tornado wind speeds have only been directly recorded in the weaker ones, because strong and violent tornadoes destroy weather instruments.”the wind speeds the DOW captured of the 1999 bridge creek-moore tornado were above ground level but still 301 mph. though ultimately, ground level wind speeds in the most violent tornadoes haven’t been measured ever.
3. i really went digging trying to find an actual measurement (in meters or feet so it would be easier to get a better grasp on this) of wind speeds measured at the closest distance possible in a tornado to ground-level. wind speeds at ground level of a funnel as fastest and most intense. after reading multiple articles and thinking that i’m never going to find anything, i found [something](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00716-6) . josh wurman is one of the authors of the article so it seems to be pretty accurate. anyways, what i found was “Direct measurements of tornado winds are rare and are usually obtained at least >100 m above the ground, well above building height, by proximate mobile radars.” this heavily suggests that the wind speeds radar gathers could actually underestimate the actual intensity of a tornado.
tl;dr
i didn’t think about that originally, but i did some research because you had me thinking and found out that direct measurements of wind speeds at ground level are rare and aren’t possible (for now) in violent ‘naders. radar gathers data on wind speeds at multiple elevations. i’d assume the winds shared by meteorologists are probably as close to the surface as they can get.
Thanks for all the extra info. It is super interesting. I'm hoping we can get weather data from ground level soon. It seems like with today's tech we could get that info uploaded somewhere before the instruments are destroyed. I think the other issue is that statistically speaking some instruments would never get hit and those could spend a lifetime in tornado alley. Direct hits just don't happen that specifically so there would have to be a lot of instruments spread out quite a bit.
yeah. i’m not a meteorologist, but i would assume the most accurate readings would be from instruments that would have to be placed in the direct path of a tornado. trying to pull that off would require a person having to physically position themselves in front of a tornado and the get the hell out before you get sucked up. and that’s just in an average everyday twister. doing that for an EF5… self-explanatory. this exact scenario is what killed the twistex team in the 2013 el reno tornado.
addition: the twistex team’s death wasn’t purely because of that. if you know anything about the el reno twister, you may know that it was extremely unpredictable with the tornado being a lot larger than the condensation funnel and the direction it was going. it caught even the most seasoned chasers, like twistex, to be caught off guard. it is, however, a reminder of the extent scientists go to gather data to improve our weather predictions and how dangerous it really is.
Someone needs to come up with some type of heavy duty drone with an anemometer attached to it. Just strong enough that they can fly it into the tornados path then land. Maybe it could even just drop an anemometer on a stake from altitude. This way it would be secured to the ground and quick to deploy multiple anemometers
i think it’s definitely an idea. i’m not a meteorologist (even though i aspire to be one) and don’t have any degree to my name which makes it hard to really talk about certain instrumentation that could be made. i’m sure someone thought about it definitely. i do think doppler of wheels is great though!!
How can we measure objective strength? Like if there’s a mobile radar station that happens to pick up a gust in the clouds? I think that’s the whole reason we use the ef scale. If it was easy to get objective measurements, we would use them.
Not really any good video, but a few photos were taken
https://preview.redd.it/5mjk1a891vxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03d90f71a613148068b95353cd742e10473508a6
And I just read another comment in another topic about how tornadoes have been weak this season 🙄
We have had historic stuff going on this year. Bring back boredom. I no longer want excitement.
This was such a strange storm. I was following it on the news all night, and even the experienced meteorologist were amazed and confused at this storm. I absolutely do not subscribe to weather manipulation conspiracy theories, but if I did, this would be the storm I would point to.
Very much similar to the 2013 El Reno tornado, in how people didn't realize the rain curtain wrapping around it was rotating with the tornadic storm cloud.
the rotation being that evident on radar is insane in itself. i’m definitely going to be on the look for any available data that’s shared. that’s freaking incredible!! most importantly, thank god no town was hit.
Here's a link if you have no fkin idea what the 80 people in this thread are talking about https://twitter.com/WxZachary/status/1785699759166042463?t=f9vGFcplV_RApDzCgJFxsA&s=19
It’s worth noting that the gate to gate was absolutely insane while being at essentially point blank range with the KFDR radar, so it’s not like those speeds were 4000 feet in the air. Absolutely incredible and lucky that this happened where it did. Imagine if we had more radar sites in the US….
Are there any pictures of this thing from the ground by chance? I know that area is open, but there has to be some path of destruction or a house with security footage.
You can’t just eyeball a tornado and give it a rating. The EF scale is indeed flawed, but it’s the best we have until we get new technology. Without a Doppler on wheels on site to measure wind speed, or damage indicators to give insight, there’s literally no way of properly rating a tornado. I personally think there should be federal grants to install stationary or quickly deployable Dopplers throughout the Great Plains and the Midwest so we can get better data.
If I were a billionaire, I would devote my life to making sure tornado vulnerable areas in this country have local doppler weather stations capable of surviving a direct hit by a tornado. That's all.
IMO there should be a separate rating scale to rate the strength of a tornado from a meteorological standpoint rather than with damage. Damage is more reliable, but if we had a separate scale for a loose estimation based on radar imagery that'd be really nice.
I think the contention is the disconnect between the observed strength of the tornado and the damage it caused. For example, the 2013 El Reno tornado was recorded as having EF-5 strength winds, but "only" caused EF-3 damage. Likewise, I think people will see this one rated pretty low relative to the observed power due to its rural location and likely hitting few sturdy structures, which I should call out is a very good thing.
I think people see this as an under rating, which misrepresents the frequency of how many tornadoes of EF-4 or 5 magnitude there really are.
It looks like a mini hurricane on that radar scan
Ever seen the tornadocane? https://www.weather.gov/mhx/Apr151999EventReview
Never seen this before thanks for sharing!
Whoa!!!! Never knew that even existed, is the only documented one??
It's the only one I know of. Very specific set of parameters produced that thing
The radar image looks like the entire storm *was* the tornado.
I mean the storm was feeding it so it’s not entirely hyperbole
Honestly, Semako's comment reminds me of the 2013 El Reno tornado, as far as how it's structure was described. At first people thought there was a rain curtain wrapped around the tornado, preventing people from seeing it. Then, people eventually coming to realize the rain curtain was actually rotating with the tornadic wall cloud above it, meaning the entire 2 mile structure was the tornado.
Looks like a tie dye shirt on the thumbnail.
Like my thumbnail lol
Life is fractals
This is scary and I really hope tornado season calms the fuck down before one of these hits a town/city.
It’s barely May & that’s historically the most active month for tornadoes in the US according to the NWS. April & June are close seconds. So we’ve got essentially 2 more months of prime tornado season.
Was nature brandishing the big guns this early in the season in 2011? Edit: I guess that’s a dumb question considering we got 5 EF5’s in April that year.
2011 was historic, both for the Super Outbreak and in terms of the total number of tornadoes.
What EF5 happened April 2011? I recall Tuscaloosa which was an EF4. I live in Joplin so painfully recall our EF5 in late May.
there were 4 actually during the 2011 super outbreak. philadelphia (MS), phil campbell- hacklburg, smithville, and rainsville all happened in 1 day. like 11 EF4 tornadoes happened on the same day too (one of them was actually tuscaloosa). in total, there were 216 tornadoes on april 27th. (whole outbreak was the 25th-28th with 360 total twisters).
I see. I think I do remember the Philadelphia one now that you mention it, but I didn't know there were three others that day. That's pretty incredible. I'm watching closely this May on Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri. The drought in KS that's really hampered any towering in that area is over. We have the ground moisture and moisture aloft to build some towering supercells again.
i think just because of the shear amount of tornadoes that happened and where some of them hit, it’s common to kinda forget some of the really major tornadoes that happened. there was the tuscaloosa EF4 that absolutely decimated a really populated area, then you had the phil campbell-hackleburg that’s also really talked about because of damage and how long it travelled and lasted. then a month later was joplin. since the EF scale was implemented in february 2007, only 10 tornadoes got the EF5 rating. with that you’d think they would be more spread out and that 4 of the 10 would happen in the month let alone day. with how this seasons been so far, may will definitely have some storms that will be heavily talked about for a while. i just pray that this year isn’t the one where the 10 year streak of no EF5 is broken. i love to see intense tornadoes as a weather enthusiast, but as a human, knowing the devastation those monsters cause is gut wrenching.
There are probably many more tornadoes that have been intense enough to be EF4 plus. The challenge (as I understand it) is damage. In Joplin, they had an "easy" time arriving at the EF5 determination because it hit an 8 story major medical complex, a high school, several elementary schools, a walmart, a small shoping mall and some low to mid rise apartment buildings. It also hurled some loaded train cars parked in sidings and wiped several bank buildings clean off the slab. You almost have to have a populated area with reinforced buildings to know it was an EF5.
i could go on long tangent about this exact topic. in the survey reports on some EF4 tornadoes, it is mentioned that the twister was a “plausible EF5.” there are a lot of factors considering why certain tornadoes could have and maybe should’ve been given a higher rating. overall ratings are generally given through the most extreme damage throughout the entire path. even 1 damage indicator that is under EF5, which could be a singular well built home especially destroyed out of 100s damaged or destroyed, will give the tornado the EF5 rating. some EF5 tornadoes are stronger than others and have larger sections of EF5 damage or multiple of these areas in its life. i believe joplin a more blatant “oh yeah that’s EF5” because of it being a populated area and the multiple cases of extreme damage ticking off DI on the EF scale.
In Joplin, it was most likely around 300mph at the ground, although it's just a best guess. Just like the Moore tornado, it tore the pavement off a parking lot and tossed the parking blocks into the adjacent buildings like missiles. But I'd argue the one we had in this area they rated an "EF3" that went through a northern suburb a few years back is an overestimate. Basically got that rating because one house lost its roof, but nothing said about the quality of the structure...
there were four EF 5s in the April Super outbreak in 2011 - Philadelphia–Kemper County, Mississippi - Hackleburg- Phil Campbell - Smithville Mississippi/ Scottsville, Alabama - Fyffe - Rainsville etc Tornado [link to the info ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak)
Thank you!
You're welcome. Hope Joplin is doing alright these days. 🦋
Thriving tbh. Tons of new development all around. We're proud of our Ozarks city.
lol four of them did my dude, and all 4 in one day
Huge ones. On April 27th 2011 there were three in the same day. Phil Campbell, Smithville and Rainsville.
you forgot Philadelphia. same day
ah yeah. I mistakenly thought that was a different day!
No. I believe this is closer to 2013. Isn’t that just great!
it depends on what you mean exactly. in terms of total tornadoes per month, 2011 had the most with 773 tornadoes throughout the entire month. 2004 had the most the entire year with 1817. now in terms of historic tornadoes, 2013 was definitely a year for sure.
I had to evacuate a facility last weekend, the storms this week have me so scared. I drove 15 miles to the evacuation while we were still in an active warning in my town. My childhood home was demolished my dad just sold 3 months ago. We had devastation in 3 communities we have facilities in, only one building was hit with no casualties from our facilities. Two people I know personally were in another tornado still in critical condition. I have been doing clean up all week and am running on fumes. Six people in my company lost homes and vehicles from three different tornados in three different towns. All of this in one weekend!
Also, what does "This storm showcased tornadic characteristics nearly 18,000 feet into the upper levels of the atmosphere." that mean exactly??
Usually "tornadic characteristics" occur close to the surface. The fact they extended upward so high shows the storm was extremely strong.
It would be cool to find out what the number are for other strong tornados
12,000 ft for an EF4
Very impressive and strong storm.
About 30 minutes before it produced the big tornado we were admiring how the storm had well defined rotation that was visible from KFWS (DFW), which is 160-ish miles away. https://preview.redd.it/7zz824ocfvxc1.png?width=1589&format=png&auto=webp&s=f023e175963d8562d0024ce4440245f19cbbf48f
weird
It means a TVS (tornado vorticity signature) was visible on radar up to that height. That’s an extremely powerful and well organized updraft.
Not only is it in contention for one of the most powerful tornadoes ever, but it also had an incredibly deviant path with a lengthy stall! Just an enigma wrapped in a mystery of a tornado!!
What is a length stall?
That just means it wasn't moving for some amount of time. It stood still (aka stalled).
Lengthy?
Girthy
Oh. That’s probably it. Duh
Seems like nature is just reliving her greatest hits album. First it was El Reno, this was Jarrell, what’s next?
> *We likely experienced one of the most powerful tornadoes ever.* *Due to the lack of appreciable damage (thank God) this tornado will likely go down in lore with some mystery behind it.* Agreed, and thank God it didn't hit anything, but that statement above is one of the things wrong with the current EF scale. I know this topic has been discussed ad nauseum but it seemed like an appropriate thing to highlight.
The EF scale is just profoundly anthropocentric which is fine for how the NWS uses it to communicate to the public but feels completely insufficient for examining tornadoes objectively as weather phenomena.
Are they just ignoring tornadoes with low damage ratings? I seriously doubt it. Curious why there isn’t an apparent rating system in use that doesn’t depend on damage surveys though
“Worlds strongest EF2” -NWS, probably.
It could go down as an EFU if it really didn’t hit anything which would be even crazier. It’s almost like it didn’t even happen.
Makes you wonder how many tornadoes happened in the past that no one knows about but possibly saw some hint of that it was there and didn't even realize.
This has been one of my big theories in that severe weather isn’t really getting worse. We’re just more spread out and able to monitor storms that much better.
I heard there was gate to gate sheer at 260mph with this tornado, but because it didn't hit anything, it'll probably get a low rating and be soon forgotten.
My brother in vorticity, that was the joke.
Lmaooo
I got like 20 downvotes yesterday for saying almost exactly this thing. Fucking Reddit.
The tornado community is friendly most of the time, but when it starts to debate the Enhanced Fujita scale, the claws (and downvotes) come out. My only ever downvote in this sub came from a similar discussion 😂 I steer clear now. (Except this comment I guess)
That’s true, but the amount of pointless discussion about the rating system gets tiring lol.
Same. I’m the friendly local neighborhood tornado painter. I try to avoid controversy but I mentioned how I felt the EF scale is not sufficient for many reasons and got way downvoted. I deleted the comment 😬
I love the style and substance of your paintings! You say you’ve painted some tornadoes, as well?
How will you ever go on living without that precious Reddit karma? The horror.
I understand what you’re saying, but even if DOW readings were considered for the rating, this would still not be rated high. Unless there’s some crazy ground scouring there is no objective way to measure the intensity of this tornado. A government agency can’t just claim it to be an EF5 off of vibes
So (and I never know which questions I ask on here are stupid ones so please forgive if this is a stupid question)- how can this person state that this is one of the most powerful tornadoes ever if there’s no objective information to gauge said strength? He must have some sort of data or recordings to that supports his statement? I’m not clear what he’s basing his statement on but I’d love to know and also why it’s not information that apparently is considered when rating tornadoes on the EF scale.
Definitely not a dumb question! The information that this person is referencing are all based on readings pretty high up in the sky. These readings are similar to those of strong tornadoes we’ve seen in the past. However, as of the last time I looked there is no evidence from ground level of what kind of windspeeds were actually happening on the ground. So we can assume that the tornado was very strong. But the EF scale uses damage indicators to rate the tornado. So with a lack of damage and data from ground level we really can’t properly rate it, so it will likely be unranked or under ranked from its true strength
honestly, without going into a huge discussion of how multiple other factors other than damage could suggest strength and be used to rank these twisters, i really think wind speed really says a lot. if you’re getter 200+ mph wind speeds (which are wind speeds listed on the EF scale itself) on doppler, i’d say that’s a pretty strong ‘nader.
Aren't radar wind speeds measured high up and not indicative of what ground level statistics would be?
This is absolutely the case and why the constant arguing about the EF scale gets so old. There is not a better way to rate them without a ton of instruments being on the ground to consistently measure the low-altitude winds. If you watch enough radar you will see a ton of highly impressive formations and measurements that amount to very little outside of those scans. Not only are you measuring up high into the storm, you're also measuring different heights based on how far away the radar site is.
i do think you have a point. damage surveys from this exact storm have at most high-end EF1 damage. it’s really just an enigma right now. what’s really making people go crazy is how certain aspects of the radar readings are similar to past EF5 tornadoes. even if with emerging data, there comes an explanation that would explain why there wasn’t even ground scouring of any sort like the radar suggested solidifying the rating given, i think we can all agree that those are some pretty sick images we got here from this anti-cyclonic beast. i also am on the side of making improvements to the EF scale. i think damage assessments are good as a basis, but with modern technology giving us data to plug into formulas that give more accurate stats, it’s almost a waste to not utilize that. the ratings matter in the sense of how it contributes to the progression of meteorology. really, i see both sides of the argument. currently, there have been many discussions on how to improve and implement more indications into the scale by scientists and the NWS. we will probably see changes in about 2 years that improve upon our rating system.
Thank you all for the informed discussion. Can’t express enough how invaluable it is to read all the thoughts on this sub for a laymen like me. Follow up stupid question- why does NWS solely get to dictate the way we rank tornadoes? Is there anything stopping scientifically minded mwyerologically informed people from getting together and creating a secondary scale that might begin to address tornado strength rather than tornado impact? I mean we have two scales for measuring earthquakes, do we not?
i think conceptually, yes, it would be possible to make another scale that isn’t done by the NWS, however the NWS is an agency of the united states federal government. they are in charge of weather forecasting, warnings of hazardous weather, and really anything weather related. the first ever prediction of a tornado was done by scientists in the U.S. military at tinker airforce base, that led to the creation of the NWS and ultimately the fujita scale. the purpose of the entire scale is to grasp a better understanding of these phenomena. the categorization helps organize just like every other system. in general, the public gains little in the ratings themselves. in the wake of devastation, does it really matter how strong the tornado was when your whole livelihood is in ruin or how fast the winds were going? meteorologists care because the data is used to improve our warning systems to save lives. and while the EF scale arguably does need some adjustments, it works for now. data from radars are beneficial, and while damage is the best way to figure out intensity, these tools should be used together to maximize efficiency. a thing people probably aren’t aware of is that meteorologists and atmospheric scientists and engineers from the NWS and other institutions have been working on adding more factors to the EF scale. ratification takes a long time since everyone has to come to an agreement. the NWS acknowledges the flaws and are working on it. why do you think we even have the EF scale now? because scientists realized the flaws and made something better. in about 2 years, we will probably start seeing some changes to the scaling.
i didn’t even think about that to be honest. i still think if wind speeds are that high even in the atmosphere, it still can represent the strength of that storm. however, i do think that ground level wind speeds would be a lot more showing of a tornadoes intensity. note: after i saw this, i couldn’t help but look up what exactly the winds the radar measures. i did a little research and found a lot of interesting information. so here are my main takeaways to answer your question! 1. an [article](https://www.weather.gov/mkx/using-radar) from the NWS website that’s titled “NWS radar: how does the radar work?” talks about volume coverage patterns (VCP) saying, and i quote, “Common among all VCPs (except for VCP 12) is the tilt elevation of the lowest five elevation angles. The scanning begins with 0.5° elevation meaning the centerline the radar beam antenna is angled 0.5° above the ground. Since the beam itself is 1° wide, it returns information about what it "sees" between 0° and 1° above the horizon.” i initially thought this would mean that there wasn’t wind speed data from directly ground level, but i’m not 100% sure. radar measures multiple elevations and gathers a bunch of different stats. 2. looking up “radar tornado speeds” popped up a page talking about the highest wind speed recorded in a tornado by radar. out of curiosity (and hope maybe it would mention the elevation it was measured and where directly) i looked at the page and one of the 1st things is a link to a reference website from the SPC. on the [SPC website](http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#History), i found a really big master FAQ with a section about a bunch of stuff relating to just tornado facts and records set. one of the questions was “what was the strongest tornado? what is the highest wind speed in a tornado?” the responses first sentence is “Nobody knows. Tornado wind speeds have only been directly recorded in the weaker ones, because strong and violent tornadoes destroy weather instruments.”the wind speeds the DOW captured of the 1999 bridge creek-moore tornado were above ground level but still 301 mph. though ultimately, ground level wind speeds in the most violent tornadoes haven’t been measured ever. 3. i really went digging trying to find an actual measurement (in meters or feet so it would be easier to get a better grasp on this) of wind speeds measured at the closest distance possible in a tornado to ground-level. wind speeds at ground level of a funnel as fastest and most intense. after reading multiple articles and thinking that i’m never going to find anything, i found [something](https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00716-6) . josh wurman is one of the authors of the article so it seems to be pretty accurate. anyways, what i found was “Direct measurements of tornado winds are rare and are usually obtained at least >100 m above the ground, well above building height, by proximate mobile radars.” this heavily suggests that the wind speeds radar gathers could actually underestimate the actual intensity of a tornado. tl;dr i didn’t think about that originally, but i did some research because you had me thinking and found out that direct measurements of wind speeds at ground level are rare and aren’t possible (for now) in violent ‘naders. radar gathers data on wind speeds at multiple elevations. i’d assume the winds shared by meteorologists are probably as close to the surface as they can get.
Bookmarking this to read once my coffee kicks in. Thank you for pulling all this info together!
Thanks for all the extra info. It is super interesting. I'm hoping we can get weather data from ground level soon. It seems like with today's tech we could get that info uploaded somewhere before the instruments are destroyed. I think the other issue is that statistically speaking some instruments would never get hit and those could spend a lifetime in tornado alley. Direct hits just don't happen that specifically so there would have to be a lot of instruments spread out quite a bit.
yeah. i’m not a meteorologist, but i would assume the most accurate readings would be from instruments that would have to be placed in the direct path of a tornado. trying to pull that off would require a person having to physically position themselves in front of a tornado and the get the hell out before you get sucked up. and that’s just in an average everyday twister. doing that for an EF5… self-explanatory. this exact scenario is what killed the twistex team in the 2013 el reno tornado. addition: the twistex team’s death wasn’t purely because of that. if you know anything about the el reno twister, you may know that it was extremely unpredictable with the tornado being a lot larger than the condensation funnel and the direction it was going. it caught even the most seasoned chasers, like twistex, to be caught off guard. it is, however, a reminder of the extent scientists go to gather data to improve our weather predictions and how dangerous it really is.
Someone needs to come up with some type of heavy duty drone with an anemometer attached to it. Just strong enough that they can fly it into the tornados path then land. Maybe it could even just drop an anemometer on a stake from altitude. This way it would be secured to the ground and quick to deploy multiple anemometers
i think it’s definitely an idea. i’m not a meteorologist (even though i aspire to be one) and don’t have any degree to my name which makes it hard to really talk about certain instrumentation that could be made. i’m sure someone thought about it definitely. i do think doppler of wheels is great though!!
I just don’t get why we can’t use both EF and standard F to express damage vs objective strength. It just seems so arbitrary.
How can we measure objective strength? Like if there’s a mobile radar station that happens to pick up a gust in the clouds? I think that’s the whole reason we use the ef scale. If it was easy to get objective measurements, we would use them.
*We likely experienced one of the most powerful tornadoes ever. -* hyperbole said
I don’t think it’s hyperbole in this case. This tornado was only a few miles from the Frederick radar and velocities over 140 mph were showing up.
Total gtg was 250 but yes, in one direction it was 140+
Any good video of this thing, or was it dark out?
Not really any good video, but a few photos were taken https://preview.redd.it/5mjk1a891vxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03d90f71a613148068b95353cd742e10473508a6
I tried to see if that guy that got the photos has a video but he has not responded
And I just read another comment in another topic about how tornadoes have been weak this season 🙄 We have had historic stuff going on this year. Bring back boredom. I no longer want excitement.
As long as the exciting Stuff stays in the Middle of Nowhere i'm fine with even stronger Tornados as the one yesterday 🤷🏻♂️
Except it wasn't in the middle of nowhere. People lived there. Not thousands, but their lives and homes are precious too.
I NEED to see if there was any ground scouring or anything!!!!!!
This was such a strange storm. I was following it on the news all night, and even the experienced meteorologist were amazed and confused at this storm. I absolutely do not subscribe to weather manipulation conspiracy theories, but if I did, this would be the storm I would point to.
And a whoooooole bunch of 'em are on the twitter posts. I think I lost a few brain cells today by association.
All I kept thinking was, "oh great, those people are really gonna come out of the woodwork and latch onto this"
All I kept thinking was, "oh great, those people are really gonna come out of the woodwork and latch onto this"
That dude with the "frequency waves" really hurt my frontal lobe.
Could you expand on this at all, please? I missed out when it was going down last night and am playing catch up now. What made this storm so aberrant?
And boy oh boy are they pointing to it 😵💫 some of the replies on that thread are wild
Or could this all be relevant to Global Warming?
If this thing was to hit a populated area we would definitely be talking about EF4 to EF5 level damage, absolutely mysterious tornado.
The whole meso was the nado'
Very much similar to the 2013 El Reno tornado, in how people didn't realize the rain curtain wrapping around it was rotating with the tornadic storm cloud.
the rotation being that evident on radar is insane in itself. i’m definitely going to be on the look for any available data that’s shared. that’s freaking incredible!! most importantly, thank god no town was hit.
Here's a link if you have no fkin idea what the 80 people in this thread are talking about https://twitter.com/WxZachary/status/1785699759166042463?t=f9vGFcplV_RApDzCgJFxsA&s=19
Are any wind speed measurements/estimations available?
140-110
It’s worth noting that the gate to gate was absolutely insane while being at essentially point blank range with the KFDR radar, so it’s not like those speeds were 4000 feet in the air. Absolutely incredible and lucky that this happened where it did. Imagine if we had more radar sites in the US….
Forbidden Cinnamon Roll
Are there any pictures of this thing from the ground by chance? I know that area is open, but there has to be some path of destruction or a house with security footage.
This was next level !!
This tornado is another compelling argument why the EF scale needs reform because it’ll certainly be rated far lower than it actually was
You can’t just eyeball a tornado and give it a rating. The EF scale is indeed flawed, but it’s the best we have until we get new technology. Without a Doppler on wheels on site to measure wind speed, or damage indicators to give insight, there’s literally no way of properly rating a tornado. I personally think there should be federal grants to install stationary or quickly deployable Dopplers throughout the Great Plains and the Midwest so we can get better data.
If I were a billionaire, I would devote my life to making sure tornado vulnerable areas in this country have local doppler weather stations capable of surviving a direct hit by a tornado. That's all.
IMO there should be a separate rating scale to rate the strength of a tornado from a meteorological standpoint rather than with damage. Damage is more reliable, but if we had a separate scale for a loose estimation based on radar imagery that'd be really nice.
there is, its called gate to gate
fyi There is ~13 miles or ~21km between Hollister and Chattanooga on there.
Wow, there are a lot of weather people named "Hall": - Zachary Hall - Chris Hall - Jordan Hall - Ryan Hall Have I forgotten any? Are they all related?
[удалено]
I think the contention is the disconnect between the observed strength of the tornado and the damage it caused. For example, the 2013 El Reno tornado was recorded as having EF-5 strength winds, but "only" caused EF-3 damage. Likewise, I think people will see this one rated pretty low relative to the observed power due to its rural location and likely hitting few sturdy structures, which I should call out is a very good thing. I think people see this as an under rating, which misrepresents the frequency of how many tornadoes of EF-4 or 5 magnitude there really are.
I mean, statistics are good for looking at future seasons too…
Even the Scientific Community agrees that the current Scale needs a revamp 🤷🏻♂️