• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

EF scale question and the classification of landspouts

Ethan Schisler

Ethan Schisler

EF5
Joined
Aug 9, 2012
Messages
585
Location
Macomb, IL

Landspout Tornadoes June 9th, 2019

www.weather.gov

On June 9, 2019 several landspout tornadoes formed over Northeast Iowa near Cedar Rapids. NWS Quad Cities has listed these as EF0 tornadoes with max winds of 50 mph. However I'm under the impression that EF0 starts at 65 mph, so does anyone have any speculation as to how a tornado can be an EF0 with estimated winds below 65 mph?

Mods: I'm not sure whether this belongs in introductory or advanced weather. Feel free to move it to the correct section if need be.
 
I think it varies from office to office with NWS. I've seen some CWAs list a tornado as EF? if there was little/no damage, but I've also seen other EF0 listings for tornadoes that had winds under 65 mph or winds that were not listed, probably due to a lack of damage, as would be expected in many landspout cases.

For climo/historical purposes, it's more of a grey area. I'm not sure if EF? gets converted to EF0 or what happens to tornadoes that were reported to have had maximum winds under 65 mph. Perhaps, by default, tornadoes like these get lumped into EF0 for statistics, even if they might have not had winds reach 65 mph in an official summary.
 
Ethan Schisler said:

Landspout Tornadoes June 9th, 2019

www.weather.gov

On June 9, 2019 several landspout tornadoes formed over Northeast Iowa near Cedar Rapids. NWS Quad Cities has listed these as EF0 tornadoes with max winds of 50 mph. However I'm under the impression that EF0 starts at 65 mph, so does anyone have any speculation as to how a tornado can be an EF0 with estimated winds below 65 mph?

Mods: I'm not sure whether this belongs in introductory or advanced weather. Feel free to move it to the correct section if need be.
Click to expand...

They classified those as weak landspout tornadoes with "non severe winds" where "no damage was observed" and the only evidence was via photos and videos. I'm assuming the fact that they considered them to have "non severe winds" explains the estimated wind speed rating, but that might be a better question for Andy or one of those local mets to answer.

There is an official document that explains some of the nuances behind the EF-Scale's original proposal, with some notations that the original Fujita Scale did go down to 40 mph.
EF Scale Proposal
 
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