DISC: May 4, 2007- Greensburg, KS

[dean]

i know some people aren't going to like what i'm about to say, but i was kind of suprised that the Greensburg tornado was rated an F5, and i dont think it would've been an F5 on the old F scale. my reason is that looking at the damage, although devastating, not all homes were completely destroyed, some foundations were still left standing, and cars didnt appear to be thrown. now there are other answers to these reasons but i wont get in to them. in my opinion it would've been a high F4 on the old scale. again, i'm not trying to say that the tornado wasnt devastating, because obviously it was, but i'm just saying i dont think it deserved F5 status. what do you guys think?

[Josh Richardson]

I think Jayson and I both said that we thought it would end up being a high end F4 due to the fact I only saw a few houses blown completely off the foundation.* Either way, one helluva strong TOR and I wont debate about this one due to the shear damage it did cause.

I would have to agree with Josh. It looks like hurricane damage, like Charley. No matter it was still a devastating storm.

[ARCC]

To quote MemphisWX from Talkweather.

Memphis Weather'
Larry Ruthi, the MIC of the Dodge City Office just discussed the EF-5 rating on TWC with Dr. Greg Forbes. Ruthi was joined by SPC's Dan McCarthy as well on the survey Today. The major justifications for EF-5 were...1) large portion of high school being crumbled, which was well-built, 2) city water tower destroyed (mentioned Hesston's water tower even survived in that famous F-5), and 3) a few well-built homes were swept away from foundation.[/b]

Also from what I've heard some two story houses were cleaned off. I think this tornado did infact reach the lower end of the EF-5 Category.

When you see just concrete slabs like the one in the left hand of this pic, you go wow.

[NWIASpotter]

It only takes one building to make the tornado an EF-5, the rest of the damage throughout the city could have been EF-4.* But, just one building or one little block of the 22 miles of the tornado has EF-5 damage then that is what it is labeled...

Reason behind this being EF-5 is likely due to the school building and the water tower destruction.* Most of the houses in town were only EF-4 damage or EF-3 on quite a few as well...

A lot of people are seemingly having troubles delineating between the scales and exactly how the tornadoes are rated.

[ARCC]

To pull up the school.



You can see how strong the school is. As with normal large buildings the ceiling did not collapse and destroy the structure. The main supports held, but the building was just eaten away from under it.

Also check out the car launched into the trailer on the bottom left. Thats just cool. :o

[Indy]

At 205mph the storm was an EF-5 not the F5 that the idiots in the media have been reporting.* At 205mph it was a high end F3.* Basically a high end F3 that lasted for 2+ minutes in any given spot.* That is why the damage is to extreme.

[NWIASpotter]

At 205 mph it was an EF-5 or an F5 no matter how you look at it!* The scale is based on damage and damage alone!!* The wind speeds are the variable here that the new research has shown it doesn't take as high of wind speeds to destroy structures as previously thought.* This doesn't take away anything as far as strength of the tornado winds go, as the old scale is essentially proven inaccurate in the wind speed estimates.* Both scales are based on damage and that is how a tornado is judged, wind speeds are an assigned value based on the damage...

I thought the Fugita scale was based on wind speed, and the enhanced fugita scale was based on damage, but I may be wrong.

[ARCC]

I thought the Fugita scale was based on wind speed, and the enhanced fugita scale was based on damage, but I may be wrong.[/b]

No, it was based on Damage-->= Windspeed. So they used damage to determine wind speed.