re: More Central U.S. Severe Weather: 4/30/24 - 5/3/24

Here's the thing, even though no town was hit (thank goodness) there were plenty of damage indicators to be had for this tornado or tornadoes. Tree damage is a pretty well established damage indicator. Silos, I think are on the list. There were at least a couple of homes with discernable damage, houses are a DI. Ground scouring, if not on the DI list, is at least comparable across all sigtors or violent tornadoes.

Nothing was found on the ground to support anything close to a violent tornado. Yet, we have this nonsense in the replies to NWS Norman's Xweet about it:

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The EF scale is based on damage, in this case the damage indicated EF1, even though the winds may have been much stronger, or because it didn’t get hit directly. Other than that this tornado tracked over mostly open field giving it a Lower rating.

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Which is a completely asinine way of tracking and book keep tornados… especially when you have fully capable radars that can accurately tell you wind speed data

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Okay, the EF scale is, for a fact, a damage scale. Damage on the ground is surveyed and compared to the DI list and other violent tornadoes. People want to include radar data in the final rating of a tornado. Fine, but what happens when what you "see" on radar has no ground truth whatsoever?

They want to be able to rate a tornado by what they think they see on radar. Radar is complicated and imperfect. This isn't even a good case for what they want because everything on the ground contradicts what they think they saw on radar, and it isn't because "nothing was hit".