Parkersburg Tornado and EF-5 History

UPDATE: Here are photos taken by NOAA during their storm survey, and I have added radar links below, as well as a note about the NWS math quoting percentages (please forward your comments to The NWS). I also went back and updated the graphs and stats for the weeklong outbreak - we now have 1,784 warnings issued and 1,462 reports gathered.

ORIGINAL POST:

As I predicted yesterday,* the Parkersburg Tornado has been rated an EF-5, though interestingly enough, NOAA doesn't have it on their webpage about the Tornado as of this writing. You need to click here to read the report. Here is a video from ABC showing the destruction (with additional raw video at the end).

NOTE: VIDEO MAY HAVE ADS; VIDEOS NOT AVAILABLE ON WIRELESS DEVICES

VIDEO CAPTION: The National Weather Service now says the deadly tornado that tore across Iowa Sunday was the strongest storm in that state in 32 years. And tonight, one small town is trying to come to terms with staggering losses. Almost everything has been shattered in Parkersburg, Iowa... where many people say they'll be grateful to salvage just one precious item. Here's ABC's Eric Horng.

I feel bad that I don't have better radar to provide... I was a real slacker on this storm since it happened over the Holiday and I just wasn't paying enough attention to archive radar images. However, the NWS web page has some great shots such as the one below and you can download some animations I saved from by clicking here (from Plymouth State and The SPC... this one showing the warnings over the duration of the storm is of special interest - the storm generated more than a dozen countie's worth of Tornado Warnings in Iowa alone).

The NWS also gave us a slice of Iowa F-5 history on that page:

Also to quote a later statement that they issued regarding F-5's in general...

**This math is incorrect, as some of you have pointed out in the comments. Please email the NWS about this at w-dmx.webmaster @ noaa.gov. I will continue to carry what they reported until they issue a retraction.

*Of course, you can't predict EF-Scale damage because it requires trained professionals in the National Weather Service to survey the damage, but even they said it was above EF-3 and I gave my reasons for believing it was an EF-5 in yesterday's blog entry.

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