Could there be more violent tornadoes each year

[STurner]

It seems on average each year the US sees about 1000-1200 tornadoes and about 5-10 are rated as violent. As much rural area as there is in the US a lot of tornadoes occur out in open fields or they do very little damage causing them to be rated EF0 or EF1. Do you think we would see more tornadoes rated as EF4 or EF5 if the US was mostly urbanized and the quality construction of most structures were good?

 

[Shane Adams]

I think you'd see more violent tornadoes "discovered" through damage assessments if the country was even more urbanized than it is now...however I also think you'd see as many if not more changes in ratings as the F-scale is continually tweaked and changed in the future (which I'm betting it will be again before 2017).

I'm all for tweaks if they're legit and more accurate to reality, but please let's just call it the "F-scale". I couldn't bare the thought of the "REF-scale" should they decide to go with the "Re-Enhanced Fujita" acronym the next time.

 

[Greg Stumpf]

I'm all for tweaks if they're legit and more accurate to reality, but please let's just call it the "F-scale". I couldn't bare the thought of the "REF-scale" should they decide to go with the "Re-Enhanced Fujita" acronym the next time.

When the Enhanced Fujita scale is tweaked, it will remain the Enhanced Fujita scale. One of the objectives of the new scale was to allow it to be tweaked (new wind speed estimates, new DIs, new DODs). Perhaps what might happen would be dated revision numbers. None of that is known just yet, but in March, the NWS planning to convene a meeting of damage survey experts, including some from the EF-Scale committee, to determine the next steps for EF-scale "ownership" and evolution.

[Shane T - I'll reply to your email/vmail soon - been busy.]