Statement on the rating of the May 31, 2103 El Reno, OK tornado

Editor/Photographer

From Dan: How the crime of copyright infringement took $1 million from me and shut down my operation.

My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.

DETAILED CHASE LOG: El Reno, tornado chase log with photos, videos and data

"There's no question this was an EF-5 tornado" - Dr. Howie Bluestein (source)

"I don't agree with the (National) Weather Service, it was not an EF3 tornado, I don't care what they think, they're flat wrong! - Dr. Chuck Doswell (source)

These quotes, from two of the most experienced and respected tornado scientists in the world today, should settle the issue by themselves regarding the 2013 El Reno, Oklahoma tornado rating. This 2.6-mile-wide tornado contained winds of EF-5 intensity as measured by both DOW and University of Oklahoma RaXPol mobile radars. The official EF-3 rating of the tornado by the National Weather Service is a result of an internal bureaucratic constraint to exclude the radar data and limit the rating criteria to observed damage only.

This tornado was unquestionably an EF-5 tornado, with EF-5 winds measured by two independent mobile doppler radar units. The Norman, Oklahoma National Weather Service office that assigned the initial rating has more experience and qualifications than anyone in the world when it comes to forecasting, warning and rating violent tornadoes. They are not amateurs! They know what they are doing.

One of the biggest myths being repeated everywhere about the Fujita scale (and its successor, the EF Scale) is that "it's just a damage scale". This is not true. The F & EF scales are tornado intensity (windspeed) scales that use damage to infer/estimate tornado windspeeds (intensity). The end goal is to rate tornadoes by how strong they are, much in the same way hurricanes are rated.

The original, official EF scale recommendation itself advocated the eventual adoption of other types of data/evidence (such as mobile radar) in rating tornadoes:

The technology of portable Doppler radar should also be a part of the EF Scale process, either as a direct measurement, when available, or as a means of validating the wind speeds estimated by the experts. - A Recommendation for an ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE (EF-Scale) (Link to original document (PDF))

Not only that, the upcoming revisions to the EF scale are expected to include mobile radar measurements in ratings(1). The idea that the F/EF scale is meant to strictly limit itself to damage and dogmatically exclude all other evidence or data is simply false. That may be the position of NWS leadership (at this time), but not the scientific community nor even the person (Dr. Ted Fujita) who conceived of the scale itself.

Since the scientific community is in strong agreement that mobile radar measurements should be included in tornado ratings (when available), it is highly likely that the El Reno tornado's EF-5 rating will be restored when the NWS policy is ultimately revised to reflect the scientific consensus. Therefore, I will consider this tornado an EF-5 with regards to its intensity, and will continue to refer to it as such on this web site. In the event that the scientific consensus on mobile radar ratings of tornadoes changes, I will revise my web pages accordingly.

The original intent of the F and EF scales was to estimate tornado intensity by surveying the damage one produces. Tornadoes in rural areas are typically under-rated by a damage-only application of the EF scale, as a rural tornado usually does not strike the necessary objects needed to satisfy damage rating requirements. This problem is offset when a tornado is sampled by mobile radar, in which case the damage survey is not needed to determine the tornado's true intensity. Currently, the NWS must exclude mobile radar observations as rating criteria, but only due to outdated policy. When this policy is ultimately revised, the official ratings of tornadoes sampled by mobile radar (including the May 31 El Reno tornado) will be updated.

For further reading on this issue:

An Update to the Enhanced Fujita Scale - March 2022 - by Tim Marshall, HAAG Engineering
Chuck Doswell: The EF-Scale Ratings Brouhaha
StormTrack thread on the El Reno rating: with relevant information by RaxPol radar operator Jeff Snyder.
Recommendation for an ENHANCED FUJITA SCALE (EF-Scale) Submitted to The National Weather Service by Texas Tech University.

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Veracity of data is science. Verifiable data trumps estimations based on observation every time. I think some of this is politics, and I will leave it at that. Hard to believe it has been a year...came back and re-read your blogs to reinforce the lessons from that day. Thanks Dan for the excellent work you did on following up to the events of that day.
- Posted by Doug from IN