I was pondering the Enhanced Fujita tornado scale...

[phantom power]

while watching weather channel last night. They mentioned that some of those tornados yesterday would have been classified as F4 until February 1st, when the Enhanced Fujita scale went officially into effect.

[Ezlivin]

1. Here in Texas we're using the new Fajita Scale

If your house is flat as a tortilla, a tornado has struck.

All jesting aside I do wonder about the new classification system. Will we see higher wind speeds as a result of increased warmth?

[phantom power]

3. It seems plausible, but there are fewer predictions about tornados...

than, say, hurricanes. One generic prediction that has been relatively constant over time is "fewer storms, but more intense when they happen."

The thing I was thinking about regarding the EF versus "old F" scale is that if the frequency of strong tornados increases, the adoption of the EF scale will make it less obvious, if all you look at is the ratings, since the new scale downgrades the rating somewhat.

F4 and F5 tornados are rare. If that storm had happened last year, it would have made people say things like "holy shit, those were some F4 tornados!" But with the new scale, none of them were rated F4. The weather channel did a good job, mentioning the issue of the new rating system. I like the weather channel. They've never been afraid of the phrase "climate change."

I can tell you this, those tornados did a hell of a lot of damage yesterday. No ratings change is going to make that go away, now or in the future.

[uppityperson]

5. now that is funny. Thank you.

Having been through a F4/5 tornado as a young child.

[Iwasthere]

2. This confuses me too

How can they do any accurate comparisons at all if the structure is new???

[phantom power]

4. Well, you can map it back to wind-speed, and/or actual damage.

So it will always be possible to run comparisons. For the casual observer who just looks at "F3," F4", etc, it will make any intensity increases due to climate change less obvious.