What took so long for the EF-scale to be implemented

[STurner]

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the EF-scale was starting to be worked on as early as 2000 or 2001. It finally got put to use on February 1, 2007 which would be nearly six or seven years later. It is a little surprising it did take this long for I thought they would have had it done by 2003 or 2004. They must have had their reasons such as maybe making a few touch ups to this scale. It seems like it would have been nice to have implemented earlier so it would make tornado ratings more concise and not so objective. I also think it would have cleared up some of the rating processes done over those few years had it have been done earlier.

 

[Chris Nuttall]

Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the EF-scale was starting to be worked on as early as 2000 or 2001. It finally got put to use on February 1, 2007 which would be nearly six or seven years later. It is a little surprising it did take this long for I thought they would have had it done by 2003 or 2004. They must have had their reasons such as maybe making a few touch ups to this scale. It seems like it would have been nice to have implemented earlier so it would make tornado ratings more concise and not so objective. I also think it would have cleared up some of the rating processes done over those few years had it have been done earlier.

The same thing would be said no matter when it was implemented. Hindsight is 20/20. It's not a simple matter of just doing the study, writing a paper, and implementing the scale.

Prior to 2000 or 2001, construction methods were not nearly as closely looked at as they are now. It takes several seasons of several events to be a good sample of data. Once you have the study done, there's going to be several drafts and several revisions written before the final publication. Finally, as far as NWS implementation goes, things are typically tested for a year, such as CR's 1" hail criteria, before becoming "official." Keep in mind that most researchers have to split their time between duties, such as professors teaching classes or operational forecasters working forecast shifts.

It quite common for research to published about an event/study 2-3 years (or longer) have the initial research began.

 

[jladue]

Don't forget the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, and for this topic, justifiably. There are still lots of questions about whether or not the EF-Scale will do more harm than good. See the summary here.

The main concern is that with the EF-scale, there is no capacity to introduce methods to estimate tornado wind speeds except for that of individual damage indicators. So the EF-Scale would not be able to take advantage of this method proposed by Veronika Beck where entire treefall patterns can be used at once. Neither could the method shown by Alexander Curtis ever be used once the evidence comes in that it's viable.

The EF-Scale also suffers from the problem of two unknowns in that the same DI in one country, or part of a country, is likely not going to be constructed the same as that of another country. Consider houses in hurricane zones vs. outside have vastly different construction habits that are not accounted for in the EF-Scale. At least with a wind speed scale, the ratings always tied to specific wind speed ranges while estimating wind speed from damage may change. With the EF-Scale, both the relationship of wind speed to rating and the damage methodology for estimating wind speed may change. Even the developer's wish to keep rating and its relationship to damage the same may be threatened.