Engineers examine the damage, taking into account the type of structure and the quality of construction, and estimate what wind speeds would be needed to cause that damage. That wind speed is then used to assign a rating on the Enhanced Fujita scale. The highest-rated damage on the tornado's path will be the tornado's rating.
A tornado's width is measured at bottom, usually by the width of the damage path.
Most damage in a tornado is caused by the extremely fast winds.
The intensity of a tornado is estimated based on the severity of the damage it inflicts.
The strength of a tornado is determined by the damage it does to man-made structures and vegetation. When a structure takes damage from a tornado, the degree of damage, the type of structure, and its quality of construction are used to estimate the strength of the winds that caused that damage. This is then used to sort the tornado into one of six intensity categories of the Enhanced Fujita Scale, ranging from EF0 at the weakest to EF5 at the strongest.
The F-scale, a measurement used to categorize the intensity of a tornado, is measured on the Fujita scale based on the damage caused by the tornado. The scale ranges from F0 (weakest) to F5 (strongest) and is assigned after a thorough survey of the impacted area to determine the extent of damage to structures.
The intensity of a tornado is rated based on damage done on the ground.
Tornado strength is measured using the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale, which ranges from EF0 (weakest) to EF5 (strongest) based on the estimated wind speed and damage caused. The EF scale takes into account the type and extent of damage to structures, vegetation, and other objects.
The greatest amount of damage in a tornado is caused by extremely strong winds. Additional damage is from flying debris.
When categorizing a tornado, meteorologists measure its intensity using the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale. This scale takes into account the damage caused by the tornado to estimate its wind speeds and assign it a category from EF0 (weakest) to EF5 (strongest).
Tornado damaged is caused by a tornado's powerful winds and objects carried y those winds.
The largest tornado even recorded caused about $160 million dollars in damage, but keep in mind this wasn't the most damaging tornado or the strongest. The tornado with the strongest recorded winds caused $1 billion in damage (about $1.3 billion in today's dollars). The most damaging tornado recorded caused the equivalent of $1.7 billion in today's dollars.
The Joplin tornado caused about $2.8 billion worth of damage to the city of Joplin.