Tanner
Member
I’m looking into it, but I don’t believe so. All I know is that it was part of one of the NE surveyed tornadoes.
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Tempestas Tonitrua
Member
Not to get bogged down in the ratings, but just from radar and some of these photos, in my opinion this outbreak was more “violent” than 3/31 last year… even if the ratings don’t show that in the end.
tornado examiner
Member
just so y’all know…there’s a video from on the highway next to the dollar store warehouse showing the ef4 tornado hitting it…sending large chunks of metal and other debris spirally skywards in the dark…a very close call…
tornado examiner
Member
Also the elba tornado left those classic large spiral scour marks across its path…
tornado examiner
Member
It’s very unlikely unless they just wanna be generous and class it as violent due to how obviously violent it was…cause so far none of the damage with in context to construction is clear cut ef4…but they may do it anyways…maybe they’re still looking at a few lingering candidates…
OHWX97
Member
Very impressive cycloidal markings left by the Elba EF3.
Tanner
Member
Okay, so it is on the DAT, northeast of Elkhorn up by Washington Nebraska. Seems like the home had a basement and the walls were not secured to the sills properly. That does look violent to me.
Bingo! Noticing a lot of this along the Elkhorn path.
I still want to know what they found at the house near Bennington that had its basement exposed. I wonder if the truck being shifted out of the driveway but not thrown will keep it at EF3 though?
Tomcats Forever!
Member
Almost sad how many houses we find out aren't quite up to par as far as anchoring goes.
jiharris0220
Member
I won’t be surprised if the Elkhorn tornado is below ef4, I’m gonna play devils advocate and say the damage doesn’t look violent to me.
The vehicle damage is what you would expect from an ef3, the tree damage wasn’t extreme, sure some were slightly debarked, but I’ve seen hurricanes do the same.
And I knew getting an ef4 rating would be difficult the moment I saw those vehicles practically untouched in their parking spots despite their respective houses swept away.
Definitely not saying a higher rating is off the cards, as this was definitely more impressive than Newman, but I would be fine with ef3.
The vehicle damage is what you would expect from an ef3, the tree damage wasn’t extreme, sure some were slightly debarked, but I’ve seen hurricanes do the same.
And I knew getting an ef4 rating would be difficult the moment I saw those vehicles practically untouched in their parking spots despite their respective houses swept away.
Definitely not saying a higher rating is off the cards, as this was definitely more impressive than Newman, but I would be fine with ef3.
tornado examiner
Member
Yeah…the tornado definitely peaked in open fields at extreme power though…
Equus
Member
For one's personal mental tornado catalouge, remember to replace 160/165+ with EF4 and 190+ with EF5 - as that's what those are equivalent to prior to about a decade ago - and rating today will seem a lot less frustrating
That said it's pretty interesting how there's an obvious failure mode on so many of homes that are swept; straight nails and marginal contextuals will certainly do it though I still personally really don't like rating any sweeping and slabbing of even nailed homes lower than 170 regardless. Not my call tho
That said it's pretty interesting how there's an obvious failure mode on so many of homes that are swept; straight nails and marginal contextuals will certainly do it though I still personally really don't like rating any sweeping and slabbing of even nailed homes lower than 170 regardless. Not my call tho
tornado examiner
Member
Cough* cough* (Newnan, caviness, clarksville) *cough cough*
Marios Wallace
Member
Elkhorn definitely had the tree damage to support it But I think survey teams in general had a more strict interpretation of the scale, one of which did value flat-out structural damage way higher than the surroundings.
The lead takeaway should be how bad American suburban construction is. You can get EF4 level tornadoes with 100-knot vrots and 70DBz debris balls over populated regions in a sprawling metro region, and not even see the light of day in a violent tornado rating anymore. You can argue that contextual damage should have raised the rating here, but inevitably the construction was so bad, that most of these homes were wiped out by EF2 winds.
Make no mistake though, this had some serious EF4+ damage capabilities had it hit something well-built. But as long as trends like this continue, EF4s will likely become as rare as how F/EF5s used to be.
The lead takeaway should be how bad American suburban construction is. You can get EF4 level tornadoes with 100-knot vrots and 70DBz debris balls over populated regions in a sprawling metro region, and not even see the light of day in a violent tornado rating anymore. You can argue that contextual damage should have raised the rating here, but inevitably the construction was so bad, that most of these homes were wiped out by EF2 winds.
Make no mistake though, this had some serious EF4+ damage capabilities had it hit something well-built. But as long as trends like this continue, EF4s will likely become as rare as how F/EF5s used to be.
jiharris0220
Member
Those last bottom two photos definitely do show at least low end ef4 contextuals.
Tanner
Member
I'm content with the contextually ignored EF3 165mph rating, but low-end EF4 would suffice as well. The context of Matador on the other hand...
jiharris0220
Member
The rating matador got irritates me just as much as vilonia. I’ve never seen such clear cut ef5 contextuals since Moore 2013.
Vehicles blown to smithereens, with at least two never to be seen again.
Structures regardless of construction (in the northern section of town) being swept away completely with little debris left.
And mesquite trees being completely debarked, along with extreme ground scouring.
Out of all of the ef5 candidates since 2014, matador is by far the most clear cut other than vilonia.
Equus
Member
I guess I just find it weird that we have a damage scale that's entirely based on construction that literally doesn't exist in 99.99% of the country; I never understood why we couldn't just have a scale based on fairly average construction since that's just what's going to be built and be hit regardless of how much engineers want people to reinforce new construction. Unless we want to tear down and rebuild almost every structure in North America of course. That's probably the whole point of engineers going for lower and lower ratings, but it's really not gonna convince anyone or their contractors to bolt their houses.
I'm mainly annoyed about the inconsistency it introduces with past tornadoes that were rated dramatically higher than they'd be rated today but unfortunately will never get changed to match, so that a modern EF3 160 could very much literally be the equivalent to an official F5 for which anchoring wasn't taken into as much effect as it is now. I'm fine with conservative ratings IF they are consistent from year to year and WFO to WFO but they really are not.
It's probably an objectively very good thing we're getting engineering involved in rating to find deficiencies, I just still don't think I fully agree with the applications of the conclusions sometimes lol
ON TOPIC tho, the line between 165 and 170 for these is pretty thin, could see it going either way but I suspect the usual 165 will suffice unless there's something really glaringly extreme involved
I'm mainly annoyed about the inconsistency it introduces with past tornadoes that were rated dramatically higher than they'd be rated today but unfortunately will never get changed to match, so that a modern EF3 160 could very much literally be the equivalent to an official F5 for which anchoring wasn't taken into as much effect as it is now. I'm fine with conservative ratings IF they are consistent from year to year and WFO to WFO but they really are not.
It's probably an objectively very good thing we're getting engineering involved in rating to find deficiencies, I just still don't think I fully agree with the applications of the conclusions sometimes lol
ON TOPIC tho, the line between 165 and 170 for these is pretty thin, could see it going either way but I suspect the usual 165 will suffice unless there's something really glaringly extreme involved
Well it looks like they went with 165 MPH EF3 at this house. This was the best contender for EF4 because of subfloor removal, but I’m guessing the vehicle barely being moved out of the driveway was a contextual dealbreaker. Whatever, I think 170 MPH would have been fine, but I can live with high-end EF3. It definitely wasn’t a slam-dunk, to be fair
