Thread:SilentShadow87/@comment-32033566-20170612025300/@comment-9154802-20170612084248

SilentShadow87 wrote: First of all, thanks - hard to believe I'll be 20  years old in less than a week!

You're right - the EF scale is open ended so a tornado with 470 mph winds (!) would still be an EF5. Winds that high would definitely peel pavement off the ground - it would probably scour the subgrade beneath that as well!

The Philadelphia, Mississippi tornado on April 27, 2011, one of the strongest ever recorded, scoured pavement and subgrade off of roads and dug a trench 2 feet deep through empty fields. For comparison, the 1997 Jarrell, Texas tornado and the 1999 Bridge Creek, Oklahoma tornado (both have been called the "strongest ever" a fair bit on the internet) only scoured the ground down to 18 inches (Jarrell) and 8-9 inches (Bridge Creek).

Ground scouring from the monster with 470 mph winds would probably look similar to the Philadelphia tornado since above a certain point damage doesn't really get any worse. This link shows what that looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcIqU6w-_04

Not to mention the Philadelphia EF5 was moving at 70 MPH when it did that. The other tornadoes were moving far slower.