10 year anniversary of the last EF5 tornado, Moore, OK

I was driving from Dallas to Tulsa, listening to my IPOD! and out of the blue my phone blew up with 7 messages. Where are you!! Are you OK!! I called the wife back and was told about the F5, so I switched to the radio, and it was on every station. Phone systems must have been overloaded. That night is Tulsa was eerie as well, cause that system was moving that way.

Similar story, back in 2000 we were driving from Elk City, OK to OKC and again listening to CD's not radio when I started seeing cars in the ditch and 18 wheelers flipped, swapped to the radio to hear live coverage of a tornado going across I40 ripping shite apart. We slowed down and drove into OKC with damage everywhee.

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Moore, OK

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Toby Keith's hometown.

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F5

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Proof that the earth will, indeed, swallow you.

“Finger of God”

Flying in and out of OKC after that it was amazing and sad seeing that path it took.

A damn hurricane formed nearly instantaneously over land!!!

Amazingly, that was the last/most recent EF-5 tornado in the United States.

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Don't say that too loudly, you will start an argument.

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Even though we're in the midst of the longest absence of EF5/ F5 tornadoes in at least 70 years, the next one the world will inevitably get will stir up the immediate screams of climate change

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Ten year anniversary of the last official EF5 tornado. There have been several since but someone in the Obama administration put out an order to the NWS not to rate them as EF5. Villonia, Arkansas, Holly Springs, Mississippi, Chapman, Kansas, are three that most professional stormchasers will tell you were EF5 and they aren't the only ones. Those were all listed as EF4 but the surveys done either ignored obvious evidence or used flimsy excuses to justify not rating them EF5.

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Ehh....

It has more to do with the way DIs are listed and used and the construction of homes and buildings relative to wind. Take the most recent candidate in Mississippi for example. There was little-to-no construction that would have survived a high-end EF-4 tornado. When that is the case, they will never bump the rating up to an EF-5. Could it have been? Sure. Was it undoubtedly a stronger tornado? We have no definitive way to answer that.

You can go down the list of all of the most recent examples and make a similar case. I think Mayfield is the strongest case for the bump. I will never jump on the "El Reno was an EF-5" (also in May of 2013) bandwagon because that one hit nothing at its strongest that would give any DIs of EF-5 strength.

That said, I 100% believe radar data should be incorporated in tornado surveys. If that were the case, El Reno 2013 would have certainly been an EF-5, along with others. However, that will always be limited by where the storm is relative to the radar. Every tornado survey won't be able to be backed up by quality radar data. Every storm won't have the "luck" of having a DOW near it when it produces a tornado. So, we are back to using DIs only for surveys.

Fortunately, we aren't too far away from seeing a revamp of the EF scale. Tim Marshall is leading those efforts. Some issues with rating violent tornadoes will likely be addressed with whatever "new" scale they come up with.

As to what the professional storm chasers say, as a community they have a habit of swinging the complete opposite direction compared to the NWS survey crews. I've seen too much flimsy evidence and EF-5 wishcasting from too many of them to allow their opinions to trump those of the pros (not just weather, but engineers and such) who are involved in tornado surveys. That's just a reality of being there and wanting to hype a storm they just experienced. I've seen too many initial claims of "catostropic destruction" that is certainly a "violent tornado" that don't pan out to put a whole lot of stock in many of their opinions in any official capacity, strictly in the immediate aftermath of a tornado. It is just how things are in that community, for better or worse.

The El Reno tornado hit 11 days later. Crazy week or two in that state.