Talk:Tornado outbreak of April 13–15, 2019

Non-tornadic fatalities

There were a total of nine fatalities related to this severe weather event. Two of these were caused by the Caddo Mounds tornado and one by the EF2 that struck Hamilton, Mississippi. I have information on what caused all six of the outbreak's additional fatalities. Would it make sense to create a brief section explaining them (no more than a few sentences)? TheRMSTitanic (talk) 13:52, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that would be a good idea. Either covering all the deaths or just the non-tornadic, either way would be good. United States Man (talk) 15:03, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

A lot of outbreak articles have a section on non-tornadic impacts. It is definitely worth including since most of the deaths in this outbreak were non-tornadic. I'm not sure if hail is worth mentioning; my local news station reported hail that was larger than anything that was officially reported. TornadoLGS (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay. I'll add the information regarding the six non-tornadic fatalities. If I make any mistakes, please let me know. Thanks, TheRMSTitanic (talk) 22:24, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

EF2 possibly upgraded to EF4

An academic paper was published last month titled (Damage Analysis and Close-Range Radar Observations of the 13 April 2019 Greenwood Springs, Mississippi, Tornado during VORTEX-SE Meso18-19). In the article, I updated the tornadoes chart section with a sentence from this paper (So you can see which one was wrote about), but after reading it, I found some things that make me believe it really was upgraded to an EF4. One of the three authors is a NOAA/OAR/NSSL employee and it says in a acknowledgement section that "This project was funded by NOAA...". The abstract of the paper says "The second tornado, near the Greenwood Springs community, formed within the “no data" region near the radar and passed about 900 m to its east, rapidly strengthening into an intense tornado. This tornado produced forest devastation and electrical infrastructure damage up to at least EF4 intensity. The maximum radial velocity from GWX was 81.5 m/s (182 mph) in a resolution volume centered at 56 m (183 ft) above radar level. This paper presents a damage survey of the Greenwood Springs tornado and compares this assessment to the GWX data." Apparently, there was a section of the tornadoes path not surveyed during the preliminary surveys, but this project surveyed the damage and came to this conclusion. Winds did hit 182 mph, which in this case is equal to DOW measurements, plus other methods mentioned in the paper have winds exceeding 200 mph. Possibly something to mention on List of F5 and EF5 tornadoes, but don't quote me on that yet. I need to read more into this, but either way, it does appear they came up with a solid 182 mph EF4 rating.

Not sure what to really do in this circumstance, because this is a rare instance where a paper, funded by NOAA, updates/upgrades a rating. Most papers we see are like DOW papers, but aren't funded by NOAA nor change the ratings. Normally, just the max windspeeds are changed (like 2013 El Reno tornado). Thoughts on how we should handle this? I am torn between fully upgrading the tornadoes rating in the article (similar to how we did the new ESSL IF4 rating and damage survey on the 2021 South Moravia tornado) or creating a tornado seperate section for this, which is easily given with a 21-page academic damage survey funded by NOAA but keep it EF2. ChessEric, United States Man, TornadoInformation12, TornadoLGS. Elijahandskip (talk) 23:06, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Wow. That's totally nuts. Its rare you get a possible upgrade on a tornado like this, especially since it would jump two categories and from strong to violent. Although this probably not enough to mention in EF5 tornado article, I think it is worth mentioning in the summary of this article. ChessEric (talk · contribs) 23:24, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

The article is paywalled for me; I can't even get institutional access, so I can only really see the abstract. Since the assessment of EF4 is still unofficial, I'd say it's best to keep it as EF2 on the charts, but note that this study indicated EF4 intensity, unless a NOAA source decides to make said change in the official records. I cannot make any judgements on the assessment of possible EF5 intensity, since I can't see that part. TornadoLGS (talk) 00:56, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

First time for me, at least. Never before had I seen a study that produced a re-assessment of damage intensity of a tornado with so many years in between the event, and the date of re-analysis. 3 years is a lot, and nobody could have guessed. However, we must act accordingly, and only edit the article to be aligned with official, published statements coming from verifiable sources. As Elijahandskip points out, the 2013 El Reno tornado is a good example, as wind speeds within that tornado certainly exceeded that of the EF5 damage threshold, but only EF3 damage was found. We should do the same here. If the "deforestation" found within the damage path is found to be consistent with that of EF4 intensity, and this is pointed out in a source, THEN we should undertake all the proper changes to all articles feauturing tornadoes from this article, like Tornadoes of 2019. Only then. As it is right now, it is wise to leave the current EF2 intensity, until confirmation is given. Mjeims (talk) 13:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)