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TeamPupNSudz t1_iu9toqo wrote

Reply to comment by kay14jay in TIL We are currently amidst the longest gap between EF5 tornadoes in history by Danielnrg

I think part of this may just be better alerting. When I was a kid, they'd just give an entire county a Tornado Warning and you'd have to listen to the radio to have vague "yeah it was spotted 10 miles west of the interstate". Now, the warning is specific to a particular storm path, and doppler radars are to the point where you can track rotation in real-time. I'm not taking shelter unless the thing is within walking distance anymore.

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Freakazoidandroid t1_iua5rmk wrote

Sure, you might be right about the warnings, but they don’t affect the strength of the storm. That’s what this interesting fact is talking about. Not the death and destruction, but the actual strength of tornadoes being irregularly low in recent years.

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AsterCharge t1_iua9we3 wrote

no, the comment they replied to was talking about frequency of tornado warnings in Indiana.

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Freakazoidandroid t1_iud72dw wrote

Oops, I may have replied to the wrong comment. I saw a comment discussing the lower levels of death due to an increase in accuracy and timing of warnings/evacuations.

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IndigoFenix t1_iucn6ja wrote

Although the Fujita scale is theoretically based on wind speed, the actual tornadoes themselves are rated based on the damage they cause, since people rarely manage to get proper measuring equipment inside a tornado.

The scale was actually changed in 2007 to account for more complex variables, and it is believed that the earlier scale may have frequently overestimated the wind speed of tornados.

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Freakazoidandroid t1_iud75tp wrote

Woah! I’ll take what you’re saying as fact, stranger. Thanks for the knowledge :) didn’t know that

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