I’ve found it so weird. I adore the sight of tornadoes when not in their path due to meteorology being something I want to achieve a degree in someday (my current one being in I.T, loved weather since i was little), and it surprises me that EF5’s are so insanely uncommon, even with massive changes that have occurred in weather activity over the past decade+ due to issues referring to Climate Change.
Is there a concrete reason why it has been a decade since, or is it a more complex/deeper reason?
EDIT: turns out i dont understand years, rather nearly 9 years, not 10
In: 26
A few reasons.
Since the Enhanced Fujita scale came about (that’s the “E” in EF-5), ratings have been assigned by the damage a twister does, and EF-4 and EF-5 damage is nearly indistinguishable, especially if the only affected buildings were 100-year old farmhouses. This is how the infamous El Reno tornado, with measured >290 mph winds, only rated as a EF-3.
The strongest tornadoes tend to form in the least dense parts of the country. And even though a tornado’s rating is determined by the highest amount of damage it ever did, the area affected by the highest winds can be as little as 1-2% of the total area a tornado affected. You have to be extraordinarily unlucky (Joplin, MO or Moore, OK unlucky) to line up the strongest winds with a well-populated area.
**Slightly speculative**: studies show that climate change is pushing tornado alley east, into the mid-South and away from the Kansas-Oklahoma hot spot.
It is possible that the conditions needed to support the strongest tornadoes do not occur here as often. ELI15: dry line initiation of monstrous supercells just isn’t a thing in Little Rock, AR or Birmingham, AL.
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