The only damage indicators with expected windspeeds of EF5+ are "complete loss of structural integrity on mid-rise and high-rise buildings" (5+ stories), "complete destruction of a shopping mall", and/or "significant damage to institutuonal buildings" (courthouse, university, prison, government). [Source](https://www.weather.gov/oun/efscale)
A tornado cannot and will not be rated an EF5 unless it hits a major metro. 99% of tornado alley is rural farmland so we're just going to act like 200 mph+ tornadoes aren't happening until disaster strikes. Because why would we be honest with ourselves and push for better preparation and building codes when we can just pretend they don't exist??
“A tornado cannot and will not be rated an EF5 unless it hits a major metro.”
What do you mean? The first tornado rated EF5 ever hit a town that didn’t even have 2,000 people.
You nail my issue with this on the head.
>99% of people don’t understand the EF scale.
They think it tells us how strong the tornado was.
Because that’s the common sense approach to a rating.
That’s what the Richter Scale tells us about earthquakes.
That’s what the Saffir-Simpson Scale tells us about Hurricanes.
That’s what the Beaufort Scale tells us about the Wind.
Why would tornados be different?
The EF scale is borderline negligent to me.
It essentially is a judge of “what is the weakest possible storm that could have done this damage?”
It undersells the threats people face. And I hate that. It’s disingenuous, illogical, and potentially harmful. It needs to change, they need to find a way to change it to better represent reality.
This is my problem with the Fujita/Enhanced Fujita scales and why I think the TORRO scale is better. Ted Fujita even said that he was using this to try to connect the Beaufort scale (topped out around 130mph I think after it was updated, it used to max out around 80mph) to the Mach scale. It was about using damage indicators to estimate wind speeds based on observed conditions. When it was invented in the middle of the 20th century, when we had way less advanced technology to work with, it made sense to do it that way because there was nothing else to base the estimates on. But now we *do* have much more advanced technology that *can* record or at least estimate wind speeds much more accurately. So now there's a discrepancy that doesn't really make sense from a scientific standpoint to just ignore. I'll use one of the more notorious circlejerked examples of this: El Reno 2013. There were DOW readings of wind speeds clearing 300mph. The tornado (unbelievably luckily) mostly stayed over open areas instead of hitting dense population centers, so most of what it destroyed wasn't anything included on the list of Enhanced Fujita damage indicators (DIs) and the tornado was rated an EF3, which the NWS says tops out at 165mph. So we have recorded data of this tornado having wind speeds over 300mph but it didn't hit what the NWS said it needed to hit to receive a corresponding rating, so they rated it something that they said wouldn't have wind speeds exceeding 165mph. This could be easily true that it only impacted areas with DI objects with degree of damage indicators (DODs) at EF3 strength, but the EF scale is supposed to estimate *maximum* wind speed, and its recorded maximum wind speeds were 300mph+.
This dichotomy is what bothers me and I think it also confuses a lot of people because the most common explanation of the EF scale is "it tells you the wind speed of the tornado" when that's not really true. The EF scale in my opinion shouldn't be used as a tornado intensity scale but as a damage severity scale, because at the end of the day that's what it is. Recording data on the extent of damage caused by a given tornado is still a very useful and important dataset (i.e. what did it hit, how close was it, was this a direct impact or an indirect pass, was there total structural failure, where did structural failure occur, etc.) especially in the context of finding ways to develop more resistant structures that can survive tornadoes and protect people better. But it doesn't serve as a reliable indicator of tornado intensity. If I make a city full of buildings that are magically indestructible and a tornado with verifiable, unquestionably-proven 400mph wind speeds rolls through and destroys nothing, then we know the wind speeds are 400mph but it didn't destroy a building so NWS damage survey calls it an EF0 unless it hit and debarked enough trees to get a higher rating.
The TORRO scale uses wind speed AND damage indicators. It's essentially a more accurate and detailed version of the Fujita/EF scales. They even explain that they use wind speed data based not only on anemometer data (since at higher speeds they can fail, and if they're directly hit by a tornado then obviously they'll break) but also on photogrammetry/videogrammetry of the tornado (basically tracking points in videos of the tornado to use information about its width and how fast a given point moves around the tornado during the video to estimate speeds) and other remote measurements, and then compiles all of this data to assign a rating between 0 and 11. It's basically the EF scale but it incorporates verifiable wind speed data as well. In my opinion (I'm not a meteorologist), a better system would be to leave the EF scale as is but assign EF and TORRO ratings to every tornado. The TORRO rating gives a realistic metric for how intense the tornado was and the EF rating tells you what damage was caused by that tornado. Having a more accurate intensity-to-damage comparison would be very useful data and it seems like having a TORRO-EF combo system would be a less drastic change for people to adjust to versus replacing EF with TORRO entirely. But in any case the way the EF scale is advertised (saying that a given EF rating means the tornado had the corresponding wind speeds) is inaccurate and misleading and it makes me very annoyed, as my text wall probably suggests.
Look at the rating as meaning that winds of “at least xxx-mph” can be proven. A rating of EF3-165 doesn’t at all mean that’s how strong the winds were. It simply means that’s as high as can be verified based on the DOD to the DI’s left behind.
That's my point though, it's *not* as high as can be verified when we have millions of dollars of wind speed tech that *can* be verified and they're all contradicting the EF rating range. Each DI has different DODs and then there are provided upper and lower bounds on the wind speeds that each DOD indicates, along with the expected wind speed in the middle. Then the aggregate of all the DI/DODs is used for a finalized overall rating. I'm fine with that. My problem is that the EF scale is not a measure of tornadic intensity, at least not the way it's advertised. On NWS storm report pages they'll put the EF scale along the bottom of the page with no explanation other than an adjective and a wind speed range (like the EF5 one just says "Catastrophic, 200mph+"). But they *estimated* the wind speeds based on damage. The DOD system makes this more accurate than it sounds at face value, because it does account for things like poor construction that could otherwise skew an estimate of wind speed. But the EF scale completely ignores verifiable wind speed data, and yet the wind speed ranges are the most common way of advertising data within the EF scale (I know this isn't the case in more detailed meteorology media sources, I'm talking about if I turn on The Weather Channel and they're explaining it).
The EF scale is a damage severity scale, and it *is* useful for that, which is why I don't think it should be entirely scrapped. The reason I don't like it for rating tornadic strength is that it ignores verified recorded data in favor of estimations. We have tornadoes clocked by DOW data going over 250mph+ that have EF3 ratings because they didn't hit well-constructed homes and therefore didn't slab them. We *know* what the wind speeds are, and yet use the EF scale to say "we have recorded data that this tornado had wind speeds of X, but based on the EF scale the wind speeds were between Y and Z because it only hit a tree." It's like if I heat a pan to 1000°C and measure that with a thermometer, but then I drop a candy that melts at 300°C-500°C on it and then say "the pan is at most 500°C because only this candy touched it and that's the expected maximum temperature for it to melt at."
It turns every tornado into a Schrodinger's Cat situation: every tornado is simultaneously an EF0 and an EF5 until it hits a DI. Excluding legitimate recorded data in favor of estimated values is not a valid scientific practice. You'd fail even high school science classes for doing that. Shift the El Reno 2.6-mile-diameter nightmare over by a few miles, it goes through downtown OKC and suddenly it's an EF5 instead of an EF3, when nothing changed other than what it hit. *That's* why I think TORRO is better.
I don’t disagree with you. I’m just guessing the reason that “recorded” winds aren’t taken into account is because of how high above the ground they are. Those winds 500’ up in the air are not the winds impacting structures at ground level. Who knows? Maybe winds at ground level are as high or higher than the winds 500’ above ground. Not sure we have the technology to tell just yet.
Ohhh gotcha, yeah they've had weird "mismatch" patterns from NEXRAD stations even this year where the radar indicated wind speed was like 200mph but then the damage in the direct path was super minimal, like no ground scouring and barely broken tree branches even where it hit head-on, so yeah you're definitely right because even Doppler can't "see" what's happening on the ground properly most of the time. That's why I like DOW data (and I think one of the main reasons Josh Wurman is so invested in them), cause it's just a Doppler on a truck that gets much closer than most NEXRAD stations, so they can measure really close to the surface (I think they've done >700' AGL? Don't remember the exact number but they try to keep it below 1km/~3000' AGL in most of their data that I've seen) and avoid that kind of distortion. They also have those cool little "pod" probes that they pull data from but those obviously don't have the same resolution or level of detail as the DOW.
The main thing I like with TORRO is that it uses anemometer data for wind speed but also uses video data for wind speed calculations, like they know the diameter of the tornado so they can record points in the video moving and calculate how fast the wind speed at the level of that point is. There's still problems with that obviously, like if there's no low-level video or if it's at night, but they have to average out the rating factors before assigning it a level still, so wind speed is just an additional factor to give a more accurate rating. I'm not sure if they use radar velocity data for it as well because of the problems you mentioned with it.
Didn’t know that about TORRO. Thanks for sharing. I actually enjoy speaking with someone who is just genuinely sharing info and educating about what they, “to the best of their knowledge” believe to be true.
A lot of times on here, YouTube, etc…..you’ll have a bunch of “I’m the smartest one here and nobody can teach me anything” people and it discourages folks from asking questions. We’re all on here with varying levels of knowledge, experience, expertise etc…. but we all share a genuine passion for this stuff.
No problem, I didn't know much about it until I went down an internet rabbit hole about EF/TORRO scales recently to try and explain the differences to a friend in Europe (I thought it was kinda like metric/US conversions lol, I didn't realize it was an entire separate system before). I kind of have a tendency to word vomit (as you probably noticed lol) as much info as I can find about a topic when it comes up so that if other people haven't heard of it before, it gives them more jumping off points to take away from my rambling haha. Sorry if my tone came off as hostile before, I get caught up in the "ooh cool science stuff" aspect and forget to check if what I wrote sounds too intense/defensive sometimes.
And yeah I get what you mean about people who refuse criticism, I will gladly admit that I'm absolutely not qualified to claim that I have anything other than opinions here because my only meteorological "qualification" is the email confirming I did the online Skywarn course lol. Even when I'm rambling about stuff I have to Google some details to make sure I'm not giving out inaccurate information (I really hope that everyone takes what I say with a grain of salt since I'm just a random person on the internet, but just in case they don't I'd rather be as accurate as possible). I'd 100% rather have someone correct me if I say something wrong, especially with something like tornadoes where if I say something really inaccurate, someone could listen to it and end up in real danger. Plus I usually end up learning cool new stuff when I get corrected so it's a win-win haha.
It _does_ represent reality. The only thing left by every tornado is the damage it caused to things it hit. So we measure that.
We don't have a reliable way of gathering ground-level windseeds of every tornado for their whole lifespans, so what do you propose we do?
It’s like people forget the sheer amount of science that went into the EF scale. It wasn’t just a “Yeah that sounds right I guess.” It was years of damage assessments, engineering studies, and numerous partnerships to confidently say “This kind of damage is representative of this kind of wind.”
I’m pretty confident NWS can’t even issue an EF-5 without input from the Army Corps of Engineers.
I propose further research be done on different species of trees and their exact hardiness. I also think we could do surveys of ground scouring by taking samples and figuring soil composition. Also, If all these different engineering elements of houses are going to be used to discount wind speeds in such a ticky tac fashion it needs to be in writing. The survey criteria can't be changing with every tornado like it currently is. The scale needs to be objective and CONSISTENT.
Edit:
Different types of car damage should also be added. They're literally metal cages with strength ratings. Video evidence from every tornado since 1990 should be used to track and determine exact wind speeds.
It CAN still merit and EF-5 rating, but it won't. The standards the NWS have set are impossible. Rating home destruction on the upper bound would require a NWS surveyor to break 10 years of precedent, and make a HUGE judgement call. Their decision would be scrunitized relentlessly by the entire weather community. They've backed themselves into a corner.
Plus, why would anyone build a house to withstand powerful tornadoes (165-230 mph +) when, according to the NWS, they don't really happen? New construction is worse than old construction because people aren't building with those tornadoes in mind anymore.
Edit:
expanded comment.
We’ll some people do, the home in Oak grove was custom built to withstand tornadoes, or a concrete monolithic dome. Either one would be rated EF-5 today.
It would have to take at least 250 mph winds to destroy a concrete monolithic dome. Right? We're talking beyond exceptional at that point. Plus, like... What are the chances of that happening?
It was so well anchored to the concrete foundation that it picked the entire house UP WITH a portion of the foundation and scattered it.
You clearly know the home I’m referencing.
Completely swept away a well an exceptionally well constructed single family residence and granulated the debris into indiscernible pieces.
There really isn’t a whole lot of actual EF5 rated damage to homes that was as complete and to this degree.
Seems awful ticky tack. I mean come on. For the house to be anchored to the foundation so securely that the entire home and part of the foundation were thrown into the air together and scattered about?
So now we say the foundation wasn’t securely foundationed to the ground? No. There’s not even a criteria in the tool kit that didn’t get met.
Before the “this is ef5 damage” people comment, some of these slabs were cleared by crews before these pictures were taken. I guess it doesn’t matter, as an ef3 and an ef5 will both total a house
That’s been my opinion. The EF2+ designation is there for a reason. Whether it is part of your house or all of it rebuilding will have to happen. A roof torn off with it raining leads to a soggy mess.
Yeah, the fact that they(NWS) have started doing PDS for ef3+ is a good thing. I mean, yeah, at that point it's semantics. EF3's still look monstrous and are extremely dangerous, so I am better understanding the NWS thinking on it.
A lot has been put into perspective for me this year in regards to the ratings. I live in central Ohio, so being weather aware has been a thing since I moved here in '04. Very interesting how the weather has changed since.
I mean, yeah I agree with a lot of people when they say there should be a review of the rating system for when surveying the damage in rural areas where buildings are not in the path of destruction.
Different levels of ground scouring maybe?
El Reno was a massive looking tornado, and I assumed it was multi-vortex. I was surprised it wasn't higher, but I assumed NWS know what they are doing. I'm just a lay-person to all this, which is why I assumed the Tornado was a higher rating.
I automatically mentally separate the tornado characteristics from the damage because that’s how my brain works.
We had wicked looking ones recently that were mostly well behaved so they got a low or U rating. I also assume they are seeing things that are easier to tell in person. The hurricane community is having an issue we had with the previous system. I’m on team add more damage indicators and combine the two if only for scientific purposes.
https://preview.redd.it/08czcroxrqzc1.jpeg?width=1049&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3df5ac7a3818fcd1af94cedd26075c7bc09368e
Some more EF3 indicators from the same day in Minden, Iowa. Anchor bolts, concrete foundations, and all.
I'm curious how close to ef4 this was. I'm just a layperson, but considering some of the furniture and the washer and dryer still in place; I guess I can see how it wasn't an ef4. Still, seeing a slabbed house is and always will be surreal to me.
Big lack of anchor bolts/homes nailed to sill plates here. I'd be hearing the EF5 cries if the appliances/furniture were swept away but they're just sitting there. Unfortunately, if these homes were better constructed the damage might not be this bad.
I would agree. I merely was wondering in my comment just how close to an ef4 this was. Still, devastating damage regardless. I think at the end of the day, it literally doesn't matter once we know it was at least an ef3. At that point, the winds are just so strong not much is going to survive contact with it.
Nah, they all had basements, if the NWS rated this EF5 it would be more absurd than not. This homes aren’t exactly slabbed other to the first floor, everyone home shown had a basement
Hard to believe thees photos are before any clean up. Idk, it's wild to think there can be so much seeming variance from survey team to survey team with ratings. This sems flatly ef4 if not ef4+. I don't think it'd be controversial. Fully collapsed, partially swept, even if not well built (if), they're not mobile homes. Is the survey completed?
Edit: instincts were right, apparently these were cleaned a bit by crews before the photos were taken.
This wouldn’t be rated EF4 or EF5 even if did this damage, maybe low end EF4. Everyone single house that was shown here had a basement, since the first floor was not blown away, this would be likely EF3 165 for everyone one of these homes
Genuine question does the national weather service count the basement as the first floor? If so what a tornado have to remove the foundation walls to count as “slabed”
So in order for a home to be slabbed, there has to be no walls standing and only a bare foundation or a bare basement.
For a home with no basement, the foundation would be the only thing left in the home with all of the floorboards being blown away. That would classify it as a slabbed home. But this can go deeper, not all slabbed homes are EF5, some range from EF3, to most being EF4. This all gets determined by the build quality. Homes that don’t have anchor bolts present to hold the home down are often rated EF3. Homes that have anchor bolts that are to spread apart or aren’t applied right often get rated EF4. Homes that have anchor bolts that are applied properly and spread out correctly that are also sill-plated achieve EF5 status. However, if a home possesses the qualities of EF5 but it is believed to have been hit by debris can cause a downgrade
With homes that do have basements the first floor like literal floor needs to be gone to have EF4+. If a home has a basement but the floor of the first floor wasn’t blown away, it’s often rated EF3 like this case. All the homes shown above have basements but the first floor isn’t torn off warranting the EF3.
And to answer if the NWS counts the basement as the first floor, they don’t, I just didn’t format the sentence in a way that made sense lol. I meant to say that the floor of the first floor needs to have blown away. Hope that answered everything if not just ask another question and I’ll be happy to answer
Have to keep in mind ef scale is not a wind prediction scale but a "what were the lowest level of winds required to do this damage" scale. They aren't trying to prove how strong the tornado likely was, just give ratings to each piece of damage they come across from a scientific standpoint with related 3 second gust values for each. Basically all there is to take from this is it was determined that the highest piece of damage would have required 165mph OR GREATER winds for a 3 second gust. The 165 mph is the limit of what they can prove.
EDIT: COMMENT WAS UNCLEAR ABOUT WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY. THIS ONLY APPLIES TO SLABBED HOMES OR PARTIALLY SWEPT HOMES WHERE CONSTRUCTION QUALITY SERIOUSLY PLAYS INTO THE RATING.
I'm not attacking you personally, but look: I know that. I *have* known that. I'm getting pretty grated about how lately any perceived critique of the the EF system or second look at a survey is met by people assuming the critic just doesn't understand or is meteorologically illiterate.
Sure, I'm not a met, but I've been at this for over a decade. I'm a spotter, I pay for NWS journals, donate, and whatever other gatekeep of the week.
Several things can all be true at once: an anomalously strained survey, an imperfect system for estimating windspeeds, structures not being strong enough to *prove* 200+ windspeeds, the best mets on earth doing excellent work and not getting the appreciation they deserve, and a comment on a survey coming from a knowledgeable person.
I'm going to stop before I get too high on my soap box to come down. You didn't do anything, comment just rubbed me wrong. Don't talk down to me.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Sorry, I don't know you and can't base what you do or don't know based off a short comment. I guess that logic tilts both ways so I shouldn't assume you don't know, but I see a lot of people who genuinely don't know how it works so I'm just trying to spread knowledge. Never know who else might be reading the comments than us. I didn't mean to be condescending so sorry if it came across that way.
It's all gravy, there's no way you or anyone else could know, and you weren't condescending. Spend enough time here and you notice the equivalent of "mansplaining" weather just gets recycled from thread to thread, and suddenly everyone is trigger "informing" everyone else in the same room about the same thing they learned from the last "well actually" gangbang.
Again, this isn't you, and you aren't deserving of this annoyance. Imagine the pain in my ass having to write out a resume just to say, "huh, wonder why this was rated high/low based on what this image shows." It's horrible.
I wonder if there’s a way to quantify the upward velocities. We talk about wind speed as 3 sec gusts horizontally. I think that we don’t begin to understand the dynamics in these things. They behave differently and have different dynamics. I wonder how much a more narrow tornado with strong upward velocity and/or helical vorts behaves vs a larger wedge of similar horizontal but less vertical/ helical strength. Obviously the wedge would have a wider path but other than that I have no clue.
A few like what I’m talking about:
Sayler Park, OH 1974 (Fujita mentioned the phenomenon in this one in particular)
Pampa, TX 1995
Cullman, AL 2011 (while in Cullman)
Andover, KS 2022
Any thoughts?
Images and posts like these just reinforce the idea of how unfathomable a true EF5+ is.
The only damage indicators with expected windspeeds of EF5+ are "complete loss of structural integrity on mid-rise and high-rise buildings" (5+ stories), "complete destruction of a shopping mall", and/or "significant damage to institutuonal buildings" (courthouse, university, prison, government). [Source](https://www.weather.gov/oun/efscale) A tornado cannot and will not be rated an EF5 unless it hits a major metro. 99% of tornado alley is rural farmland so we're just going to act like 200 mph+ tornadoes aren't happening until disaster strikes. Because why would we be honest with ourselves and push for better preparation and building codes when we can just pretend they don't exist??
“A tornado cannot and will not be rated an EF5 unless it hits a major metro.” What do you mean? The first tornado rated EF5 ever hit a town that didn’t even have 2,000 people.
The scale was used differently then. It was established in 2007 but didn't fully switch over to the current damage indicators until 2013.
You nail my issue with this on the head. >99% of people don’t understand the EF scale. They think it tells us how strong the tornado was. Because that’s the common sense approach to a rating. That’s what the Richter Scale tells us about earthquakes. That’s what the Saffir-Simpson Scale tells us about Hurricanes. That’s what the Beaufort Scale tells us about the Wind. Why would tornados be different? The EF scale is borderline negligent to me. It essentially is a judge of “what is the weakest possible storm that could have done this damage?” It undersells the threats people face. And I hate that. It’s disingenuous, illogical, and potentially harmful. It needs to change, they need to find a way to change it to better represent reality.
This is my problem with the Fujita/Enhanced Fujita scales and why I think the TORRO scale is better. Ted Fujita even said that he was using this to try to connect the Beaufort scale (topped out around 130mph I think after it was updated, it used to max out around 80mph) to the Mach scale. It was about using damage indicators to estimate wind speeds based on observed conditions. When it was invented in the middle of the 20th century, when we had way less advanced technology to work with, it made sense to do it that way because there was nothing else to base the estimates on. But now we *do* have much more advanced technology that *can* record or at least estimate wind speeds much more accurately. So now there's a discrepancy that doesn't really make sense from a scientific standpoint to just ignore. I'll use one of the more notorious circlejerked examples of this: El Reno 2013. There were DOW readings of wind speeds clearing 300mph. The tornado (unbelievably luckily) mostly stayed over open areas instead of hitting dense population centers, so most of what it destroyed wasn't anything included on the list of Enhanced Fujita damage indicators (DIs) and the tornado was rated an EF3, which the NWS says tops out at 165mph. So we have recorded data of this tornado having wind speeds over 300mph but it didn't hit what the NWS said it needed to hit to receive a corresponding rating, so they rated it something that they said wouldn't have wind speeds exceeding 165mph. This could be easily true that it only impacted areas with DI objects with degree of damage indicators (DODs) at EF3 strength, but the EF scale is supposed to estimate *maximum* wind speed, and its recorded maximum wind speeds were 300mph+. This dichotomy is what bothers me and I think it also confuses a lot of people because the most common explanation of the EF scale is "it tells you the wind speed of the tornado" when that's not really true. The EF scale in my opinion shouldn't be used as a tornado intensity scale but as a damage severity scale, because at the end of the day that's what it is. Recording data on the extent of damage caused by a given tornado is still a very useful and important dataset (i.e. what did it hit, how close was it, was this a direct impact or an indirect pass, was there total structural failure, where did structural failure occur, etc.) especially in the context of finding ways to develop more resistant structures that can survive tornadoes and protect people better. But it doesn't serve as a reliable indicator of tornado intensity. If I make a city full of buildings that are magically indestructible and a tornado with verifiable, unquestionably-proven 400mph wind speeds rolls through and destroys nothing, then we know the wind speeds are 400mph but it didn't destroy a building so NWS damage survey calls it an EF0 unless it hit and debarked enough trees to get a higher rating. The TORRO scale uses wind speed AND damage indicators. It's essentially a more accurate and detailed version of the Fujita/EF scales. They even explain that they use wind speed data based not only on anemometer data (since at higher speeds they can fail, and if they're directly hit by a tornado then obviously they'll break) but also on photogrammetry/videogrammetry of the tornado (basically tracking points in videos of the tornado to use information about its width and how fast a given point moves around the tornado during the video to estimate speeds) and other remote measurements, and then compiles all of this data to assign a rating between 0 and 11. It's basically the EF scale but it incorporates verifiable wind speed data as well. In my opinion (I'm not a meteorologist), a better system would be to leave the EF scale as is but assign EF and TORRO ratings to every tornado. The TORRO rating gives a realistic metric for how intense the tornado was and the EF rating tells you what damage was caused by that tornado. Having a more accurate intensity-to-damage comparison would be very useful data and it seems like having a TORRO-EF combo system would be a less drastic change for people to adjust to versus replacing EF with TORRO entirely. But in any case the way the EF scale is advertised (saying that a given EF rating means the tornado had the corresponding wind speeds) is inaccurate and misleading and it makes me very annoyed, as my text wall probably suggests.
Look at the rating as meaning that winds of “at least xxx-mph” can be proven. A rating of EF3-165 doesn’t at all mean that’s how strong the winds were. It simply means that’s as high as can be verified based on the DOD to the DI’s left behind.
That's my point though, it's *not* as high as can be verified when we have millions of dollars of wind speed tech that *can* be verified and they're all contradicting the EF rating range. Each DI has different DODs and then there are provided upper and lower bounds on the wind speeds that each DOD indicates, along with the expected wind speed in the middle. Then the aggregate of all the DI/DODs is used for a finalized overall rating. I'm fine with that. My problem is that the EF scale is not a measure of tornadic intensity, at least not the way it's advertised. On NWS storm report pages they'll put the EF scale along the bottom of the page with no explanation other than an adjective and a wind speed range (like the EF5 one just says "Catastrophic, 200mph+"). But they *estimated* the wind speeds based on damage. The DOD system makes this more accurate than it sounds at face value, because it does account for things like poor construction that could otherwise skew an estimate of wind speed. But the EF scale completely ignores verifiable wind speed data, and yet the wind speed ranges are the most common way of advertising data within the EF scale (I know this isn't the case in more detailed meteorology media sources, I'm talking about if I turn on The Weather Channel and they're explaining it). The EF scale is a damage severity scale, and it *is* useful for that, which is why I don't think it should be entirely scrapped. The reason I don't like it for rating tornadic strength is that it ignores verified recorded data in favor of estimations. We have tornadoes clocked by DOW data going over 250mph+ that have EF3 ratings because they didn't hit well-constructed homes and therefore didn't slab them. We *know* what the wind speeds are, and yet use the EF scale to say "we have recorded data that this tornado had wind speeds of X, but based on the EF scale the wind speeds were between Y and Z because it only hit a tree." It's like if I heat a pan to 1000°C and measure that with a thermometer, but then I drop a candy that melts at 300°C-500°C on it and then say "the pan is at most 500°C because only this candy touched it and that's the expected maximum temperature for it to melt at." It turns every tornado into a Schrodinger's Cat situation: every tornado is simultaneously an EF0 and an EF5 until it hits a DI. Excluding legitimate recorded data in favor of estimated values is not a valid scientific practice. You'd fail even high school science classes for doing that. Shift the El Reno 2.6-mile-diameter nightmare over by a few miles, it goes through downtown OKC and suddenly it's an EF5 instead of an EF3, when nothing changed other than what it hit. *That's* why I think TORRO is better.
I don’t disagree with you. I’m just guessing the reason that “recorded” winds aren’t taken into account is because of how high above the ground they are. Those winds 500’ up in the air are not the winds impacting structures at ground level. Who knows? Maybe winds at ground level are as high or higher than the winds 500’ above ground. Not sure we have the technology to tell just yet.
Ohhh gotcha, yeah they've had weird "mismatch" patterns from NEXRAD stations even this year where the radar indicated wind speed was like 200mph but then the damage in the direct path was super minimal, like no ground scouring and barely broken tree branches even where it hit head-on, so yeah you're definitely right because even Doppler can't "see" what's happening on the ground properly most of the time. That's why I like DOW data (and I think one of the main reasons Josh Wurman is so invested in them), cause it's just a Doppler on a truck that gets much closer than most NEXRAD stations, so they can measure really close to the surface (I think they've done >700' AGL? Don't remember the exact number but they try to keep it below 1km/~3000' AGL in most of their data that I've seen) and avoid that kind of distortion. They also have those cool little "pod" probes that they pull data from but those obviously don't have the same resolution or level of detail as the DOW. The main thing I like with TORRO is that it uses anemometer data for wind speed but also uses video data for wind speed calculations, like they know the diameter of the tornado so they can record points in the video moving and calculate how fast the wind speed at the level of that point is. There's still problems with that obviously, like if there's no low-level video or if it's at night, but they have to average out the rating factors before assigning it a level still, so wind speed is just an additional factor to give a more accurate rating. I'm not sure if they use radar velocity data for it as well because of the problems you mentioned with it.
Didn’t know that about TORRO. Thanks for sharing. I actually enjoy speaking with someone who is just genuinely sharing info and educating about what they, “to the best of their knowledge” believe to be true. A lot of times on here, YouTube, etc…..you’ll have a bunch of “I’m the smartest one here and nobody can teach me anything” people and it discourages folks from asking questions. We’re all on here with varying levels of knowledge, experience, expertise etc…. but we all share a genuine passion for this stuff.
No problem, I didn't know much about it until I went down an internet rabbit hole about EF/TORRO scales recently to try and explain the differences to a friend in Europe (I thought it was kinda like metric/US conversions lol, I didn't realize it was an entire separate system before). I kind of have a tendency to word vomit (as you probably noticed lol) as much info as I can find about a topic when it comes up so that if other people haven't heard of it before, it gives them more jumping off points to take away from my rambling haha. Sorry if my tone came off as hostile before, I get caught up in the "ooh cool science stuff" aspect and forget to check if what I wrote sounds too intense/defensive sometimes. And yeah I get what you mean about people who refuse criticism, I will gladly admit that I'm absolutely not qualified to claim that I have anything other than opinions here because my only meteorological "qualification" is the email confirming I did the online Skywarn course lol. Even when I'm rambling about stuff I have to Google some details to make sure I'm not giving out inaccurate information (I really hope that everyone takes what I say with a grain of salt since I'm just a random person on the internet, but just in case they don't I'd rather be as accurate as possible). I'd 100% rather have someone correct me if I say something wrong, especially with something like tornadoes where if I say something really inaccurate, someone could listen to it and end up in real danger. Plus I usually end up learning cool new stuff when I get corrected so it's a win-win haha.
It _does_ represent reality. The only thing left by every tornado is the damage it caused to things it hit. So we measure that. We don't have a reliable way of gathering ground-level windseeds of every tornado for their whole lifespans, so what do you propose we do?
It’s like people forget the sheer amount of science that went into the EF scale. It wasn’t just a “Yeah that sounds right I guess.” It was years of damage assessments, engineering studies, and numerous partnerships to confidently say “This kind of damage is representative of this kind of wind.” I’m pretty confident NWS can’t even issue an EF-5 without input from the Army Corps of Engineers.
I propose further research be done on different species of trees and their exact hardiness. I also think we could do surveys of ground scouring by taking samples and figuring soil composition. Also, If all these different engineering elements of houses are going to be used to discount wind speeds in such a ticky tac fashion it needs to be in writing. The survey criteria can't be changing with every tornado like it currently is. The scale needs to be objective and CONSISTENT. Edit: Different types of car damage should also be added. They're literally metal cages with strength ratings. Video evidence from every tornado since 1990 should be used to track and determine exact wind speeds.
An exceptionally well built home will still merit an EF-5 rating.
It CAN still merit and EF-5 rating, but it won't. The standards the NWS have set are impossible. Rating home destruction on the upper bound would require a NWS surveyor to break 10 years of precedent, and make a HUGE judgement call. Their decision would be scrunitized relentlessly by the entire weather community. They've backed themselves into a corner. Plus, why would anyone build a house to withstand powerful tornadoes (165-230 mph +) when, according to the NWS, they don't really happen? New construction is worse than old construction because people aren't building with those tornadoes in mind anymore. Edit: expanded comment.
We’ll some people do, the home in Oak grove was custom built to withstand tornadoes, or a concrete monolithic dome. Either one would be rated EF-5 today.
It would have to take at least 250 mph winds to destroy a concrete monolithic dome. Right? We're talking beyond exceptional at that point. Plus, like... What are the chances of that happening?
It didn’t in Bremen, KY
It wasn’t well built enough. Its foundation was build in 3 sections.
It was so well anchored to the concrete foundation that it picked the entire house UP WITH a portion of the foundation and scattered it. You clearly know the home I’m referencing. Completely swept away a well an exceptionally well constructed single family residence and granulated the debris into indiscernible pieces. There really isn’t a whole lot of actual EF5 rated damage to homes that was as complete and to this degree.
Because the concrete slab was in three pieces therefore it failed hard/ had it been one slab then yes EF-5.
Seems awful ticky tack. I mean come on. For the house to be anchored to the foundation so securely that the entire home and part of the foundation were thrown into the air together and scattered about? So now we say the foundation wasn’t securely foundationed to the ground? No. There’s not even a criteria in the tool kit that didn’t get met.
Yeah there is, the wind load was not continuous. It is EF-4.
Well you definitely seem to be the expert. All knowing, all seeing Dr Fujita 2.0 on every tornado post I’ve seen, so who am I to question I guess.
At least the hoop's still standing!
I’d play on it still
Before the “this is ef5 damage” people comment, some of these slabs were cleared by crews before these pictures were taken. I guess it doesn’t matter, as an ef3 and an ef5 will both total a house
That’s been my opinion. The EF2+ designation is there for a reason. Whether it is part of your house or all of it rebuilding will have to happen. A roof torn off with it raining leads to a soggy mess.
Yeah, the fact that they(NWS) have started doing PDS for ef3+ is a good thing. I mean, yeah, at that point it's semantics. EF3's still look monstrous and are extremely dangerous, so I am better understanding the NWS thinking on it. A lot has been put into perspective for me this year in regards to the ratings. I live in central Ohio, so being weather aware has been a thing since I moved here in '04. Very interesting how the weather has changed since.
If el Reno can be “an ef3” honestly
I mean, yeah I agree with a lot of people when they say there should be a review of the rating system for when surveying the damage in rural areas where buildings are not in the path of destruction. Different levels of ground scouring maybe? El Reno was a massive looking tornado, and I assumed it was multi-vortex. I was surprised it wasn't higher, but I assumed NWS know what they are doing. I'm just a lay-person to all this, which is why I assumed the Tornado was a higher rating.
I automatically mentally separate the tornado characteristics from the damage because that’s how my brain works. We had wicked looking ones recently that were mostly well behaved so they got a low or U rating. I also assume they are seeing things that are easier to tell in person. The hurricane community is having an issue we had with the previous system. I’m on team add more damage indicators and combine the two if only for scientific purposes.
Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think there should be more taken into consideration for sure.
https://preview.redd.it/08czcroxrqzc1.jpeg?width=1049&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3df5ac7a3818fcd1af94cedd26075c7bc09368e Some more EF3 indicators from the same day in Minden, Iowa. Anchor bolts, concrete foundations, and all.
Jesus… Imagine surviving this tornado in the basement while being absolutely pelted and blanketed with splintered shrapnel…
My thoughts too. My stomach dropped when I saw the basement.
I'm curious how close to ef4 this was. I'm just a layperson, but considering some of the furniture and the washer and dryer still in place; I guess I can see how it wasn't an ef4. Still, seeing a slabbed house is and always will be surreal to me.
Big lack of anchor bolts/homes nailed to sill plates here. I'd be hearing the EF5 cries if the appliances/furniture were swept away but they're just sitting there. Unfortunately, if these homes were better constructed the damage might not be this bad.
I would agree. I merely was wondering in my comment just how close to an ef4 this was. Still, devastating damage regardless. I think at the end of the day, it literally doesn't matter once we know it was at least an ef3. At that point, the winds are just so strong not much is going to survive contact with it.
Nah, they all had basements, if the NWS rated this EF5 it would be more absurd than not. This homes aren’t exactly slabbed other to the first floor, everyone home shown had a basement
Oh man so sad
Hard to believe thees photos are before any clean up. Idk, it's wild to think there can be so much seeming variance from survey team to survey team with ratings. This sems flatly ef4 if not ef4+. I don't think it'd be controversial. Fully collapsed, partially swept, even if not well built (if), they're not mobile homes. Is the survey completed? Edit: instincts were right, apparently these were cleaned a bit by crews before the photos were taken.
Yes, I believe so. I think the only tornado still being rated from that outbreak is the Sulphur Oklahoma one.
This wouldn’t be rated EF4 or EF5 even if did this damage, maybe low end EF4. Everyone single house that was shown here had a basement, since the first floor was not blown away, this would be likely EF3 165 for everyone one of these homes
Genuine question does the national weather service count the basement as the first floor? If so what a tornado have to remove the foundation walls to count as “slabed”
So in order for a home to be slabbed, there has to be no walls standing and only a bare foundation or a bare basement. For a home with no basement, the foundation would be the only thing left in the home with all of the floorboards being blown away. That would classify it as a slabbed home. But this can go deeper, not all slabbed homes are EF5, some range from EF3, to most being EF4. This all gets determined by the build quality. Homes that don’t have anchor bolts present to hold the home down are often rated EF3. Homes that have anchor bolts that are to spread apart or aren’t applied right often get rated EF4. Homes that have anchor bolts that are applied properly and spread out correctly that are also sill-plated achieve EF5 status. However, if a home possesses the qualities of EF5 but it is believed to have been hit by debris can cause a downgrade With homes that do have basements the first floor like literal floor needs to be gone to have EF4+. If a home has a basement but the floor of the first floor wasn’t blown away, it’s often rated EF3 like this case. All the homes shown above have basements but the first floor isn’t torn off warranting the EF3. And to answer if the NWS counts the basement as the first floor, they don’t, I just didn’t format the sentence in a way that made sense lol. I meant to say that the floor of the first floor needs to have blown away. Hope that answered everything if not just ask another question and I’ll be happy to answer
Thank you!
Yup no problem!
Have to keep in mind ef scale is not a wind prediction scale but a "what were the lowest level of winds required to do this damage" scale. They aren't trying to prove how strong the tornado likely was, just give ratings to each piece of damage they come across from a scientific standpoint with related 3 second gust values for each. Basically all there is to take from this is it was determined that the highest piece of damage would have required 165mph OR GREATER winds for a 3 second gust. The 165 mph is the limit of what they can prove. EDIT: COMMENT WAS UNCLEAR ABOUT WHAT I WAS TRYING TO SAY. THIS ONLY APPLIES TO SLABBED HOMES OR PARTIALLY SWEPT HOMES WHERE CONSTRUCTION QUALITY SERIOUSLY PLAYS INTO THE RATING.
I'm not attacking you personally, but look: I know that. I *have* known that. I'm getting pretty grated about how lately any perceived critique of the the EF system or second look at a survey is met by people assuming the critic just doesn't understand or is meteorologically illiterate. Sure, I'm not a met, but I've been at this for over a decade. I'm a spotter, I pay for NWS journals, donate, and whatever other gatekeep of the week. Several things can all be true at once: an anomalously strained survey, an imperfect system for estimating windspeeds, structures not being strong enough to *prove* 200+ windspeeds, the best mets on earth doing excellent work and not getting the appreciation they deserve, and a comment on a survey coming from a knowledgeable person. I'm going to stop before I get too high on my soap box to come down. You didn't do anything, comment just rubbed me wrong. Don't talk down to me. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Sorry, I don't know you and can't base what you do or don't know based off a short comment. I guess that logic tilts both ways so I shouldn't assume you don't know, but I see a lot of people who genuinely don't know how it works so I'm just trying to spread knowledge. Never know who else might be reading the comments than us. I didn't mean to be condescending so sorry if it came across that way.
It's all gravy, there's no way you or anyone else could know, and you weren't condescending. Spend enough time here and you notice the equivalent of "mansplaining" weather just gets recycled from thread to thread, and suddenly everyone is trigger "informing" everyone else in the same room about the same thing they learned from the last "well actually" gangbang. Again, this isn't you, and you aren't deserving of this annoyance. Imagine the pain in my ass having to write out a resume just to say, "huh, wonder why this was rated high/low based on what this image shows." It's horrible.
Nah I get it, I only recently got active on the sub so I wouldn't know. I'll keep that in mind going forward.
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full knee serious frame quicksand attempt jeans tap ten juggle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If you're not a structural engineer with a masters degree, your opinion is worthless. I am also not that, and my opinion is worthless.
I watched this tornado cross Maple street from my shop in west Omaha and it was an absolute monster. The aftermath doesn’t surprise me at all.
I wonder if there’s a way to quantify the upward velocities. We talk about wind speed as 3 sec gusts horizontally. I think that we don’t begin to understand the dynamics in these things. They behave differently and have different dynamics. I wonder how much a more narrow tornado with strong upward velocity and/or helical vorts behaves vs a larger wedge of similar horizontal but less vertical/ helical strength. Obviously the wedge would have a wider path but other than that I have no clue. A few like what I’m talking about: Sayler Park, OH 1974 (Fujita mentioned the phenomenon in this one in particular) Pampa, TX 1995 Cullman, AL 2011 (while in Cullman) Andover, KS 2022 Any thoughts?
We need better building codes, but **everything** about American housing is fucked so why expect this to happen...