The EF Scale or Enhanced Fujita Scale is the scale used for rating the strength of tornadoes. In recent years it seems to be becoming outdated as there has been outrage in the weather community about how the scale works.
The Enhanced Fujita Scale was created in 2007 to replace the original Fujita Scale because of the lack of damage indicators. Damage indicators are things like houses, trees, and cars that have been damaged during a tornado. The EF Scale uses 28 damage indicators to determine the strength and rating of every tornado.
Public outrage in the weather community started with the 2013 El Reno tornado. This tornado touched down in the country between El Reno and Union City in Oklahoma. The tornado ended before going into Oklahoma City where it could’ve ended hundreds of lives as it was 2.6 miles wide and had wind speeds of over 300 miles per hour. AN EF-5 tornado needs to have wind speeds of 200 or more miles per hour. When this tornado had 300 mile per hour winds people believed that it should be an EF-5 as it was over 100 miles per hour more than it needed to be. When the damage was done it was rated an EF-5 for a couple months until it got reduced to an EF-3 because it didn’t go through a city.
There have been more cases of tornadoes doing EF-5 damage but not getting the rating which has brought up the question of whether or not the EF Scale should be replaced. The EF Scale was created before we could measure the wind speed of a tornado so we needed the scale to tell how strong a tornado was to use it for data. Now that we can measure the wind speeds of all tornadoes the data from the measurements can be used instead of the rating.
People have argued that changing the scale isn’t necessary and that lives matter more but I feel like we should still replace the scale so we can use the scale for data. Since the EF Scale is getting outdated since you can easily measure wind speeds.
Do you think changing the EF Scale is necessary?
Should tornadoes be rated based on just their wind speeds?
https://kanelandkrier.com/opinion/national-weather-service-tornado-rating-system-needs-updates/
Replies
I believe that we should change the scale. There is data that we could collect from the scales which is important overall. It can improve the accuracy and reliability of tornado intensity. The current scale is outdated. A new scale could bring more precise data on the impact of tornadoes. This means people could be more prepared for what kinds of tornadoes might occur.
I believe that changing the scale as technology advances is something that should be discussed. The more things we have to read data the more in-depth the rating will go which could not follow along the scale and be false data. I feel like tornados should be based on size, wind speeds, and the damage caused.
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