[Elsie]

President Donald Trump says U.S. military generals have told him that they think the massive explosion that rocked Beirut on Tuesday, killing more than 70 people, was likely a bomb.

Really?

[Cvengr]

Yeah, I saw that, but it’s fairly premature to announce much.

IMHO, it was far less than 2700 Tn, but more than 20,000 lbs, probably closer to 40,000-400,000 lb TNT equiv or say 20 - 200 TN, probably around 40 TN. Those metrics are just based upon the fireball. The white vapor blast cloud should yield better metrics in forensic analysis. IMHO, 2,700 Tn is about 2 orders of magnitude off. A 2,000 lb bomb is more than one order of magnitude less than observed physical phenomenon.

Looking at my Morse & Feshbach, who held chairs in Atmospheric Acoustics, an academic buzzword for atomic and nuclear blast forensics, the flash, blast and fireballs provide more accurate metrics with given atmospheric conditions.

Who knows, maybe another DUMB was attacked and it really was a bomb.