<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/gettyimages-169792110.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/gettyimages-169792110.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/gettyimages-169792110.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > Mark Reynolds pauses while looking through debris to find personal items after a large tornado ripped through the area a day earlier on June 1, 2013 in El Reno, Oklahoma. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Fujita scale has been the standard for measuring tornadoes since its implementation in 1971. Ten years ago, the scale was updated for the 21st century, but now, meteorologists say they can do even better.

A 90-person committee, led by James LaDue, a senior instructor at the Warning Decision Training Division of the National Weather Service (NWS), is drafting an update to the scale which, if approved, would use a slew of additional guidance to estimate the strength of tornadoes.

In 2007, LaDue developed the course that taught NWS meteorologists the new Enhanced Fujita scale, as each office is responsible for performing damage surveys in their own county warning area. For further guidance and to ensure the scale was applied correctly, LaDue was consulted to help survey damage from the first few major severe weather events of 2007.

"That’s when I started noticing a lot of the vagary cropping up," he said. "Especially with trees. It was at that point where I just said, 'Yeah, OK, the EF scale is a great addition – you get a lot more guidance. I think we fairly adjusted the winds and made them better according to the damage we saw. But there was a lot of distance yet to go.'"

The scale was developed by meteorologists and engineers, not arborists, LaDue said, so the knowledge of what a tornado does to trees wasn't as thorough. The current damage indicators are limited to just two factors for trees: softwood and hardwood. LaDue wants the updated scale to account for a specific type of tree, as well as its size and age.

Currently, a clear sign of a strong tornado is debarked trees dotting the aftermath. LaDue said that isn't necessarily caused by the tornado's winds (it isn't seen often when a twister hits a forest), but rather a battering from residential debris. Additionally, strong softwoods can often be more resilient than weak hardwoods, and and the downing of a 100-year-old oak might not mean an EF5 felled it.

"As it turns out, they should be more impressed by the 20-year-old young mature tree that got knocked over, as opposed to the big old tree," said LaDue.

Finding additional damage indicators is especially helpful in rural areas, like much of Tornado Alley. The EF scale measures damage, so if an EF5 hits an open field, it can be difficult for a survey crew to confirm it was actually an EF5. If a tornado hits only a grain bin, crews would be able to give the twister a more accurate rating than they can under the current guidelines.

LaDue is hopeful that the changes would work in concert with the new impact-based tornado warnings, which will soon be operational. Warnings will soon be tagged with "basic," "significant" or "catastrophic," giving the public added detail about the size of tornado anticipated. As the damage scale gets more exact, experts can better communicate the threats from a tornado-warned storm.

There's also the hope that a more exact damage scale can help other professions.

"If we have these standards, we hope to build with better building codes," said Dr. Patrick Marsh, warning coordination meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center, who is not a member of the committee.

The scale won't be renamed, but it may be known as a Version 2.0 or by some other name, which would allow historians to know the survey on a particular tornado used the more specific guidelines.

LaDue hopes the enhancements will be in place by the end of 2019.