A very peculiar ef scale idea
I've been working on a fictional story that has its own version of the EF scale, and one of the ideas I implemented into it was adding Doppler radar wind measurements as a method of rating tornadoes.
The idea was, if a tornado has recorded 3 second windspeeds that fall within one rating of the damage recorded, then it can be upgraded. (IE, a tornado that has EF4 recorded windspeeds but only EF3 damage, then it can be upgraded to EF4.)
As an example, this would do the following for two existing tornadoes:
- The Greenfield, IA 2024 EF4 would be upgraded to EF5
- Clearwater, KS 2013 EF2 would be upgraded to EF3
Above a certain height, these windspeeds would be pretty much redundant and likely wouldn't reflect winds near ground level, but as I am not an expert in much of anything, I'm not going to try and comment on what height that would be or from what distance.
The reason I decided on within one rating of damage was because using the tornadoes we have taken doppler radar measurements of, the average windspeed is a blistering 205mph. If it wasnt restricted to within 1 rating of recorded damage, it would be possible we'd have an abundance of tornadoes rated EF4-5 while only producing EF2 damage.
I was told this concept could apply decently to real life, so I was curious what you all would think of this. And if this violates rule 3, I apologize.
Posted Apr 8, 2025, 9:24 PM UTC