STurner
EF2
I know this is a little strange to be discussing but I could not help but notice it over the past several years. It seems that most NWS offices have always put their violent tornadoes at the lower end of the violent categories. For example they may rate a tornado a low-end F4/EF4 and discuss about the damage and state that a well-built brick home was swept clean off its foundation. They will show photos of this home and all that was left was the foundation with little or no trace of debris. Now I know even to go low-end F4/EF4 it would have to be of pretty good quality construction but just how "well-built" is "well-built." By defenition some of these homes seem to fit as a solid F4/EF4 or near F5/EF5. To me a low-end F4/EF4 would be a well-built house that was flattened to a small pile of debris laying on top of the foundation or nearby. Now why I am no expert by any means but is there like specific types of well-built homes. While I am also not dogging on anybody but have seen that NWS in Paducah always assigns their violent tornadoes at the lower end value and some of them seem to have approahed F5/EF5 status. In addition I have seen it from quite a bit from other NWS offices as well. While it doesn't matter what part of the category you assign it for an EF4 tornado is an EF4 tornado but it just tended to make me wonder why other values are not used.
