Meteorologists Have A Theory Why EF5 Tornadoes Aren’t Happening

You and I talked a few weeks ago about how Oklahoma and the nation is currently experiencing the longest EF5 tornado drought on record. Clearly nobody is complaining about it, but it is curious and science thinks it has an answer.

Of course, the elephant in the room is climate change, but this phenomenon isn't being attributed to that—like, at all. Some people think climate change is pushing Tornado Alley Eastward, and while they complain about it, Okies are OK with that, too. We've had enough big twisters for the next few decades.

Instead, meteorologists are pointing to the same thing that made the ultra-rare F6 a thing of the past. Techinically, F6 is the EF5... and the EF5 status these day is reserved for only the worst storms imaginable. For a lack of better words, EF4 is the new F5.

Get our free mobile app

It's all about the F-Scale.

Back when Ted Fujita came up with the original Fujita Scale to measure tornadoes, there were definitions from F0 up to F12 tornadoes. It's crazy to think what an F12 twister could do, but at the time they didn't really know what was happening in a nader.

The theory at the time was a tornado spun a the speed of sound, creat a sonic boom, and that explained why building literally exploded when hit by the spicy winds... but as the science evolved, they later came to understand the devastating raw power of the mesocyclone.

There were only three F6 tornadoes in history on the original Fujita Scale, but they've all been downgraded when science evolved the Enhanced Fujita Scale. It measures damage instead of wind speeds, and this is one reason science wants to change things again.

It can't be one or the other, it needs to be both.

The largest tornado ever recorded came to the ground outside of El Reno, Oklahoma back in 2013. It was 2.6 miles wide and contained some very intense, almost-record-breaking measurements, yet it remains at a mid-EF3 status.

Because it didn't hit much in terms of structure, and the Enhanced Fujita Scale measures solely in damages, it was classified well below what it was capable of. This is one reason why the EF-scale needs to be married with the old Fujita Scale, a measurement of both power and damage.

This topic came up again in 2024 when one of the most powerful twisters ever recorded slung its way through Southwest Oklahoma near Hollister. It happened way out in the country, hit very little, so it was classified as an EF1.

EF5 status is mostly unattainable anymore by the scale.

Used to be, when a tornado swept through leaving a clean slab of concrete where homes and buildings once stood, it was an automatic F5/EF5 status. That was the base, but a clean slab is also used to describe EF4 tornadoes.

There are a few pretty in-depth peer-reviewed papers on the subject, but they all agree. The reason we aren't seeing EF5 tornadoes anymore is because EF4 is the new limit to most events.

That's not to say an EF5 couldn't happen. Imagine the El Reno EF3 in a populated place like OKC, Moore, and Norman. It would easily score an EF5 rating... but we haven't seen a tornado that big or destructive since the long-track Moore 2013 twister.

All in all, we're in an EF5 drought because it has been replaced with EF4 damage definitions.

Weird.