In its preliminary report on the tornado that struck St. Bernard Parish this week, the National Weather Service says it MAY have been a record breaker. NWS New Orleans forecaster Lauren Nash says preliminary damage assessment indicates the twister WAS a very stronger EF-3. “EF-4 starts at 166, so this is a high-end Three. And that was mostly rated on two or three houses that were pulled off of their foundation and moved. And also, most of the walls were collapsed a destroyed on those houses.”
The Enhanced Fujita Scale ranks twisters with winds of 136-to-165 miles per hour as EF-3. Nash says the Arabi tornado had max winds at 160. Nash says the NWS is tasked with going into tornado-ravaged locations, to evaluate the strength, speed, width and duration of each tornado. She says, “yesterday we did go out and survey all of that damage. It ended up being an 11 & 1/2 mile track; all the way back up into New Orleans East after it tracked through Arabi.”
The NWS report is preliminary, and Nash says there is still satellite data and drone footage to be considered in their final report. However, she expects the basic data – EF-3 strength with winds at 160 – will not change. She says it COULD be the strangest twister to hit the New Orleans area, but she cannot yet confirm it. “The EF-3 that went through New Orleans East in 2017 had a maximum speed of 150. So this one was slightly stronger than that,” says Nash.
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