Stan Rose
EF5
Bear in mind that the winds were presumably measured in the suction vortex, whcih was a tiny fraction of the width of the main circulation.
According to the EF scale, an EF5 is winds of more than 200 mph. Most EF5's are officially rated around 210 mph. This is the second tornado I know of in which the wind speed was measured at or near 300 mph. It seems like the old F-scale was more accurate.
I know the wind speed was measured a short distance above the ground, but I don't think there would be that dramatic of a difference in the wind speed at ground level.
As some have stated I think that rating tornadoes by mobile radars is a good thing as I have little doubt that it is far more accurate in determining the wind speeds within a tornado than a damage based estimate especially in rural areas where to tornado caused little to no damage. As comes better technology we should use it. I do have issues with it however... if we have for years used a damage based estimate and we now use measured wind speeds from radar on occasion we will likely create a bias in tornado strength climatology, especially so as mobile radar ratings become more frequent. 20 years from now when we are reviewing tornado strength since records began, 2013 may show up as a year that starts a spike in more intense tornadoes solely because we have rated so many by mobile radars this year. We'll be looking back wishing we could make some more accurate comparisons between damage rated tornadoes and mobile radar rated tornadoes.
I'm not suggesting that we not use these radars for rating but rather I suggest that we also note the damage survey results as well in our climatological records for comparisons sake. Using a satellite remote sensing analogy (I'm a GIS guy), when new technologies with better satellite resolutions come along it is certainly used but the older satellite with less resolution is still used so that the two satellites can be calibrated to each other. With this calibration satellite images from 2013 can be directly compared to satellite images from 1983 despite the change in resolution (with resolution: the accuracy of the the data). I suggest that the NWS/SPC/NCDC also record the damage indicated ratings as well for a fair comparisons sake. Thus the Rozel, KS tornado would be noted as an EF-2 by damage, EF-4 by mobile radar... similarly the El Reno tornado would be noted with both an EF-3 and EF-5 ratings (along with other tornadoes rated by mobile radar). Maybe a new scale other than EF should be used for a rating based on mobile radars?
These are just my humble opinions and I hope that we do find some way of keeping or noting these rating scale differences in tornado climatology records for sake of future research. I understand the EF-Scale has flaws but no matter the flaws we need a way of comparing a older more flawed rating to a newer less flawed rating.
Why can't we have 2 "ratings systems", recorded radar with no/little measurable property damage, and recorded damage with significant impact. Or at the very least put an asterisk next to the radar stated strengths. Future users can utilize the data they choose to. I too think we need both to cover different geographic scenarios, but there definitely needs to be a distinction.
I have to question the accuracy of wind speed measurement in a meso with very heavy rain and hail densities obscuring radar penetration. I may be way off and maybe radar may have no problem penetrating AT GROUND LEVEL some mesos with heavy and wide ranging rain/hail equivalent to excess of 3-4 inch/hr. I will defer to others on this aspect. If the measurements can be 100% relied upon for real-world accuracy of speed of rain and debris, I would tend to agree with the idea perhaps we should ONLY use radar based assessments in the future. How accurate can radar speed measurements be at the fringe of the range say on smaller tornadoes that may also even have a very short life span? Is Dual Pol extensive enough yet?
I have to question the accuracy of wind speed measurement in a meso with very heavy rain and hail densities obscuring radar penetration.
Tornadoes are typically EF-rated based on damage, true; but remember the whole point of that: the extent of the damage is used as a gauge to estimate wind speeds which are usually extremely local and therefore not measured by actual instruments that were not in the path of the tornado. Certain wind speeds are expected to cause a certain severity of damage. It's exactly like using the Beaufort scale when you don't have an anemometer.
.
Hopefully Jeff Snyder comes on here eventually and answers this question himself, because he has a better grasp on the theory than me. The radar they used is X-band, so it does suffer from attenuation in heavy rain and hail. However, they mitigate that by being very close to the action. Attenuation should not severely hamper measurements of a rain-wrapped tornado sampled at 4-5 km range with X-band. Yes, there is error associated with the electronic system (it's stochastic and should have a very low bias) as well as with the spectrum width (which he has already said was very high), but that just means the wind measurement is more like 295 mph with an uncertainty range of perhaps 20 to 30 mph in either direction. I doubt the uncertainty is higher than 100 mph.
I spent a lot of time in the fields where the highest winds were observed, and they literally are open wheat and vegetation (weeds?) fields. The DIs that we examined matched up relatively well with the radar measurements, which, combined with the massive "excess" of speed over the eF4/EF5 threshold, leads me to be confident that winds in the EF5 range were experienced at 2-10 m AGL. I'm running the math know, and the standard deviation expected from the observations is considerably less than 20 mph.
Thanks for weighing in Jeff. This was just east of 81, right? I was trying to find photos of those areas today to see whether there was anything of note, but I haven't found much yet. Of course, I doubt most people are very interested in taking photos of empty fields anyway. Poking around on Google Earth it doesn't look like there were even very many trees in that area.
Jeff, I have to ask.
Can I assume that the choice to rate the tornado as EF-5 was not based solely on the 295(6) MPH wind measurement at 500 ft AGL? I assume you measured >200 MPH winds much closer to the surface, and thus that was the leading cause of the tornado's rating, right?