thanks :thumb:

Consider if a tornado happened a hundred miles away from any human habitation: Regardless of wind speed it is not going be classified as an F whatever, because there was no damage. No?

Perhaps. I guess the issue is that there might not be anything to USE in the classification. They normally walk around and see how different types of structures were damaged, so theoretically, if there were no structures, I'm not sure they could classify them.

However, consider another scenario with a single uninhabited house in the middle of nowhere that was completely wiped off the map (nothing left but a foundation). I THINK they could still theoretically classify that as EF5. But again, it's a little tough to decipher the articles since it's a scientific system rather than a simple "if X then Y" kind of deal.

Here's a reasonable real-life example of the concept I'm talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie,_Manitoba_tornado

Fairly remote. It still caused $39 million in damage, but no deaths. Even so, houses were wiped off of their foundation, so they called it F5 (before the EF scale was implemented).

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/efscale/

Over the years, the F-Scale has revealed the following weaknesses:

* It is subjective based solely on the damage caused by a tornado
* No recognition in difference in construction
* Difficult to apply with no damage indicators
o if the 3/4-mile wide tornado does not hit any structures, what F-scale should be assigned?

There are plenty of Basements in Joplin, but most of them are in the areas where there are more hills. If you have a basement in a relatively flat area of town (where the tornado hit) and it rains really hard your basement will get flooded.

The Enhanced Fujita Scale

When the committee met to develop the Enhanced Fujita Scale (see original document) one point was made very clear: it must continue to support and maintain the original tornado database.; In other word, there must be some conformity to that of the F-Scale that is listed in the database. Other ideas were agreed to including:

* Consistent Assessment of Damage
o enhance description of damage with examples and photos
+ include not only structures, but also vegetation

So based on that and your previous link, it seems like the original F scale would have simply called storms in uninhabited areas as "unclassified," while the new EF scale should theoretically classify even those that don't do anything but damage trees.

I guess so.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?s...9812.726891164

Here are some interesting pics.

Posted this link last night and has been updated with quite a bit more pictures.....

http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=joplin&s=rec

I was just getting ready to post something similar. When I went to MSSU (When I went, it was MSSC). There were several houses with basements, but not in the area the tornado hit.

I think you need to have a talk with my wife. ;)

Ditto on your thoughts....I'm just not that familiar with the soil in Joplin.

I think Pizza by Stout is gone....

:crybaby: