At this point the tornado is moving through the Pella area. There’s not much of a yes/no warning decision to be made here…it’s obvious that a tornado is ongoing.  However, I think it’s noteworthy to see both algorithms outputting extreme values.  This could aid forecaster confidence in “upgrading” a warning to the “Considerable” threat tag, or, depending on reports, a “Tornado Emergency”.  While we have several ways to ascertain tornado strength in real-time (rotational velocity, TDS height, etc.), having an extra nudger is very useful.  It can also be challenging to know when to discontinue the higher end wording in the warning; seeing the trends from these algorithms will be valuable data points.

– Rabbit