re: This is why the tornado grading scale needs to be changed…

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The tornado had a gate-to-gate velocity reading of 260 MPH. Strong circulation could be detected up to 18,000 feet above ground level. Had this thing hit civilization it would have destroyed everything in its path. Thankfully it only damaged farmland. However, due to the way tornadoes are rated, this will only be an EF0/EF1.

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There was nothing on the ground to get anywhere near a sigtor, much less a violent tornado.

This......

......is a problem and a huge red flag. The Velocity data on that storm has issues.

While true that this tornado did not hit a town, thankfully, there were plenty of DIs in the damage area to survey. None of them came close.

Brett Adair's damage video.


I've watched too many tornadoes on radar that I just "knew" were violent tornadoes only to see them produce no damage near violent limits. Radar is not the end all when it comes to tornadoes (or any storm). Wind may be the aspect that is lagging farthest behind in radar understanding as it relates to ground truth.

This wasn't a violent tornado, no matter what pixels anyone picks off of a frame.

ETA:
We can look at this another way, using another controversial tornado, the 2013 El Reno tornado. It didn't get an EF5 rating because when it was at its strongest it was in an actual open field. Yet, there were still enough DIs to give it an EF3 rating. This tornado seems to have had more opportunity to create damage than the 2013 El Reno tornado, but only managed EF1 damage.