Tornado Emergency Oklahoma City
- Thread starter FDWxMan
- Start date
I understand what you're saying, but regardless of what wind speeds may have been measured, that's not what the EF scale is about or ever really has been. It's a damage scale by definition, not wind speed.
And if the only damage it did was consistent with EF3.....
Yes, it may have been stronger at one point, but it may not have. The seemingly definitive statements from a media member that this IS an EF4 or 5 that is going to wipe away your home and kill you if you aren't underground incited panic, and flew directly in the face of what the mission of media members is supposed to be in that situation.
As of right now, it seems they have not found any well-built structures completely flattened. They all had walls left standing.
If the goal was to scare people into action...maybe he succeeded, but he scared them into AND ADVISED them to do the wrong thing.
Plus, how many times can you cry wolf, "It looks like this is going to be a 5," before that loses meaning. At least have something to back it up for crying out loud.
Deadly Okla. tornado widest on record, rare EF5
EF-5, 295 mph winds, 2.6 miles wide, three storm chaser vehicles and lives. 1999 Moore tornado had over 300 mph winds.
EF-5, 295 mph winds, 2.6 miles wide, three storm chaser vehicles and lives. 1999 Moore tornado had over 300 mph winds.
I just saw that too. That would probably be a 6 or 7 if the scale went that high. How did they come up witht he 295 mph winds though. Looked like there were still structures standing. There shouldn't be anything left if 295 blew through would there?
I'm having a hard time coming to grips with the differences in media coverage between the Moore tornadoes and the El Reno/OKC tornado. If the Moore tornadoes hadn't happened a week earlier would the second outbreak have gotten the same attention as Moore received?
http://www.cyclonefanatic.com/forum/general-discussion/171984-sitting-moore.html
I can say(Having been in Moore during the storm) that friday's storm is without a doubt, one of the nastiest I have ever seen. The church we were taking refuge in, had the coverage up on projector for all of us to watch, and it looked like, in Moore, we received the brunt of the cell(were caught by the widest part with the most amount of hail ect. I thought some of the storms I had seen in Kentucky/Tennessee were some nasty ones, but that one was just terrible. The entire cell was red/purple. There was next to no yellow or green on the radar. I usually love watching a good storm, but that was just two hours of pure anxiety. This storm also seemed to move particularly slow. Most spring storms seem to blow through pretty quickly and are gone in a snap, but we were trapped inside for almost two hours. We headed out once we thought the worst of the storm was over..... and about five minutes later we were pounded by another round of torrential rain and small to medium sized hail.
Those people are absolutely nuts living down there without some kind of storm shelter!
I can say(Having been in Moore during the storm) that friday's storm is without a doubt, one of the nastiest I have ever seen. The church we were taking refuge in, had the coverage up on projector for all of us to watch, and it looked like, in Moore, we received the brunt of the cell(were caught by the widest part with the most amount of hail ect. I thought some of the storms I had seen in Kentucky/Tennessee were some nasty ones, but that one was just terrible. The entire cell was red/purple. There was next to no yellow or green on the radar. I usually love watching a good storm, but that was just two hours of pure anxiety. This storm also seemed to move particularly slow. Most spring storms seem to blow through pretty quickly and are gone in a snap, but we were trapped inside for almost two hours. We headed out once we thought the worst of the storm was over..... and about five minutes later we were pounded by another round of torrential rain and small to medium sized hail.
Those people are absolutely nuts living down there without some kind of storm shelter!
I believe it only caused EF3 damage.
The EF5 winds were apparently measured, but in an area with no structures to hit. When it caused structure damage it wasn't at peak strength.
The OU phased array radar caught the wind speeds and apparently that is enough to justify the upgrade.
If there is a bright side to these outbreaks it is that rhey happened very close to OU which will be veey beneficial for research purposes.
If there is a bright side to these outbreaks it is that rhey happened very close to OU which will be veey beneficial for research purposes.
I didn't see EF5 damage from the pictures I've seen. If it was truly upgraded due to radar measured winds, there's something wrong with that.
The EF scale is determined by degree of damage indicators, ie surveying the damage and determining what wind speed would have been necessary to cause the damage.
No doubt remotely measuring wind speed from Doppler on Wheels is of great help. But it's only an indication. That 295mph was measured 500 feet in the air! Guess what doesn't happen 500 feet in the air... FRICTION due to the ground, or structures.
Edit: Not trying to discount the fact that this was a very impressive/devastating tornado. That is not in question. My little rant I guess is about how the tornado was surveyed and the strength was determined. Either way... it was strong enough to be strong enough.
The EF scale is determined by degree of damage indicators, ie surveying the damage and determining what wind speed would have been necessary to cause the damage.
No doubt remotely measuring wind speed from Doppler on Wheels is of great help. But it's only an indication. That 295mph was measured 500 feet in the air! Guess what doesn't happen 500 feet in the air... FRICTION due to the ground, or structures.
Edit: Not trying to discount the fact that this was a very impressive/devastating tornado. That is not in question. My little rant I guess is about how the tornado was surveyed and the strength was determined. Either way... it was strong enough to be strong enough.
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Watching videos of the El Reno tornado are intense. I can't imagine how scary it was for chasers who were in the firing line trying to deal with how fast, dangerous and unpredictable the system was.
I'm perfectly fine with using calibrated radar measurements in rating tornadoes. That's what the damage indicators are supposed to do, give an indication of wind speed. This EF-5 tornado may only have been rated EF-3/EF-4 if there were no mobile radar on site. Even though this may skew the tornado climatology data since most tornadoes don't have radar close enough to measure accurate wind speed, the data has never been that good in the first place, and if we're on a track to make it more accurate, we might as well head in the direction. It seems as if the National Weather Service agrees. I do think the NWS needs come out and say that yes, most tornadoes are rated with the EF-scale using damage indicators, but there could also be an EF-rating applied to a tornado based upon radar measured wind speeds. The rating system is still flawed and will probably be modified again sometime soon I would think.
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From watching the videos, it sounds like a lot of the chasers were tracking it from I-40. When it banked hard NE and grew to over two miles wide and steamed straight for I-40, that's where it must have took them by surprise. The videos make it sound like all of a sudden it steamed right at them and it turned into panic mode as they tried to outrun it and escape
From watching the videos, it sounds like a lot of the chasers were tracking it from I-40. When it banked hard NE and grew to over two miles wide and steamed straight for I-40, that's where it must have took them by surprise. The videos make it sound like all of a sudden it steamed right at them and it turned into panic mode as they tried to outrun it and escape