Randy Zipser
EF3
Not so sure I agree with this "non-numerical damage labeling" approach. One-word-fits-all labels like those examples above are too subjective and convey practically no useful information without more detailed information (preferably from an independent source) to accompany them. People want to see numbers to understand what kind of beast they were dealing with! The non-meteorological public has heretofore been able to understand "hard" (more precise) numbers and putting these numbers into some sort of numerical context so that these labels (in the present system, "EF-range" categories) can be compared from weakest to strongest has always seemed a logical and acceptable way to handle this. That said, it does not mean that the present rating system is perfect and cannot (or should not) be improved...Fully agree.
The inconsistency in communication is what is most frustrating about the application of the EF scale.
I don't care if the EF scale is ever 'fixed', but please call the data more precisely what it is: 'observed damage indicators based tornado rating system'.
It probably doesn't help that we rate hurricanes with a similar 1-5 severity scale ahead of time for their potential for damage and then never adjust the rating based on observed damage, but we rate tornadoes after the fact for only their observed damage, and we are not allowed to talk about their potential for damage, that data is just thrown out. Obviously, it has to be this way due to wildly disparate forecast lead time scales of these events, but still, why can't we just use more accurate terms for these things:
"Potential Damage"
"Observed Damage"
"Unknown Rating"
etc.
Clear labels would go a long way in ending this controversy. No need to update the scale if it meets the needs of public safety (including messaging), building codes, etc.
Technically, however, you are correct in implying that "damage observed by a qualified professional civil engineer" is not the same thing as the windspeed that appeared to have done that damage (in the absence of actual measurement). For that reason, I've advocated for experienced professional engineers from the private sector (rather than NWS survey teams consisting of meteorologists with random qualifications) to do the field-data collecting and analysis. These engineers are specifically trained at analyzing failed-structures, so their results will likely be detailed and highly-numerical, which is more consistent with a numerical rather than verbal-description classification for the public.
Lastly, there is no easy way to reconcile differences between the Fujita Tornado Intensity Scale and the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Category Scale. The latter tags each hurricane's intensity based upon the highest windspeed (and more precisely, lowest sea-level pressure) recorded during the cyclone's entire lifetime, which could be measured over a period of one week or more. This frequently occurs earlier over open, deep-tropical-latitude seas, so later on, at landfall (often at higher latitudes), it is usually of lower intensity. On the other hand, local tornado intensity is measured over a period of seconds or minutes at any one location, so the intensity at each location along the path is what the damage appears to indicate, even though the maximum intensity along its entire damage path will be how it is actually rated. Both are rated for maximum intensity, rather than actual intensity, at any given point in time, which contribues to inaccuracy and confusion when trying to describe the damages observed at any particular location by the stricken public. I cannot come up with any good suggestion about how the difference between locally-observed and maximum lifecycle windspeed can be resolved when labelling tornado/hurricane intensity, but it seems that a verbal "damage label" is of little help, either.