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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by E. Brown (talk | contribs) at 02:31, 20 March 2006 (→Storm Articles that did little: my thoughts). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
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I just created this wikiproject, after several months of contemplating doing so. I hope everyone working on hurricane articles will get involved. I went ahead and wrote a bunch of guidelines, basically based on current practices...naturally since this is something I just wrote it doesn't necessarily represent community consensus and needs to be discussed. That discussion should probably go here for now...although eventually we may make these pages a little more structured. For a general TODO list, see the "tasks" item on the project page. Jdorje 23:17, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization

Over the last couple of days I've undertaken a categorization project which would have boggled my mind had I actually stopped to think about it ahead of time...creating well over 100 categories and adding maybe 1000 new categorizations to articles. This work is ongoing; I'd guess I'm 60-75% done. In no particular order:

  • I went through every top-level and second-level category (Category:Tropical cyclones and its children) and cleaned them out. Cyclone articles were moved out of top-level categories and into the basin and season categories. I created new categories as needed for each basin (Category:Pacific typhoons, Category:Southern_Hemisphere_tropical_cyclones, etc.). I checked for entries listed in the wrong alphabetical order and fixed them. I also re-categorized the categories slightly so that everything fits in a tree under Category:Tropical cyclones (though many articles and categories are also categorized outside of this tree, for instance).
  • I made new categories to help people in finding articles to work on. See Category:Hurricane articles needing attention and its children (yeah, I know, it should be "Tropical cyclone articles needing attention").
  • I categorized every Atlantic, EPacific, and WPacific season article. To make this easier I created {{Atlantic hurricane season categories}} and other templates (one per basin, obviously, though all basins aren't taken care of yet). (I did not go back before the 1880s since the categorization for multi-season articles hasn't quite been worked out.)
  • I created categories for every Atlantic, EPacific, and WPacific season (to match the categorization I'd just done). Here I used another template, {{Atlantic hurricane season}}.
  • I created a new category, Category:Retired Atlantic hurricanes to work on as my testbed for categorization. I categorized all retired hurricanes (yes, I know it's a name that's retired not a hurricane...particularly in some older seasons before retirement was worked out properly) into this category.
  • I went through all Atlantic hurricane articles (starting with the retired ones, then the cat5s, then going through all of them). I included {{hurricane}} in each. I added {{Template:infobox hurricane needed}} (a new template I created for categorization) where no infobox was present. I categorized each by season.
  • I did the same for the Pacific typhoon articles (and I'm now working through the Pacific hurricane ones).
  • For disambiguation articles (already categorized as, e.g., Category:Atlantic hurricanes) I've added them to the categories for each season. This has some disadvantages since someone looking at the season category might be drawn to a disambiguation page that isn't actually helpful for them. However it is pretty cool to look at (for instance) Category:1997_Atlantic_hurricane_season and see each storm listed.

TODO

  • Go through each article and categorize it by strength (e.g., Category:Tropical storms or Category:Category 1 hurricanes). For west pacific storms (which don't use categories), we need to decide whether we want to use this system or a different categorization (typhoon versus super-typhoon). We also must decide whether these categories should be separated by basin.
  • Figure out how to handle other basins. The N Indian ocean can probably be handled on its own in the same way as the current three (but emptier since we have much less data). Southern hemisphere basins are a little trickier, particularly since the pacific and indian tend to run together (are these the same basin or not?). Currently the categories are Category:Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone seasons, which I didn't create but seems okay; I moved the south atlantic articles (all 1 of them) in with these. One problem here is because these don't fit a single year (e.g., 2004-05_Southern_Hemisphere_tropical_cyclone_season) categorization outside the tropical-cyclone tree is a bit harder (does it go in Category:2004, Category:2005, or both?).
  • Finish up the current categorization efforts on other basins. As I said I'm working through the EPac now.
  • Figure out how to do more categorization automatically. For instance the infobox already has "2005 Atlantic hurricane season" in it; we should be able to fit Category:2005 Atlantic hurricane season into the template to have it entered automatically.

Jdorje 04:15, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the Western Pacific basin does classify storms by category (per the Saffir-Simpson scale; with 75mph (Cat 1 hurricane) being a Cat 1 typhoon etc - see the 2005 Pacific typhoon season - it lists the scale), only it's more commonly not referred to by categories, and only by typhoon vs. super typhoon (>130 knots)... -- NSLE | Talk 10:10, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
OK. In that case the problem is simply that the categories are misnamed (they use "hurricane" instead of "tropical cyclone"). Jdorje 21:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Just want to note: the Atlantic and Pacific basins have different criteria for categorizing tropical storms (in the Pacific, storms have to be a little bit stronger to reach the different categories as opposed to in the Atlantic, reflecting the different nature of the two oceans).
Mkieper 22:01, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale has 119, 154, 178, 210 and 250 km/h minimum sustained winds for Category 1 through 5 hurricanes respectively; the typhoon scale has 119, 154, 178, 210, 240 and 250 km/h for Category 1 through 4 typhoons, Super Typhoon and Category 5 typhoon respectively; I don't know where you're getting the above from. -- NSLE | Talk 00:25, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Update

  • I finished filling out the existing categorizations.
  • I made sure all hurricane articles are categorized by strength. I created new categories Category:Hurricanes of unknown strength and Category:Tropical cyclones by strength.
  • I filled out some categories for the N Indian ocean basin.
  • I started working on the S Hemispher basins, but here I didn't get far. The hurricane articles are no problem, but the season articles are. Currently there are three season articles, all with different naming convention. I feel the convention should be 2005-2006 Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season. However other articles call it seasons (which is just plain wrong, but an easy mistake for northerners to make) or 2005-06 (which will be fine until we get to 1999-2000, 1899-1900, 1500-1799, 0000-999, etc.).
I started the S. Hemisphere basin pages, so I should be able to help out in that area. I think it should be kept as 2005-06 and for the turn of the century it should be 1999-2000. Those articles may never happen though, I spent a lot of time just trying to find information on the 2004-05 season. --Holderca1 22:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Jdorje 07:03, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Two questions for discussion

First, in the hurricane season templates, there are spaces for first formation, number of storms, etc. In the East Pacific, should those dates and totals include the Central Pacific? For example, if there were 14 East Pacific named storms and 1 Central Pacific named storm, at the end of the season, should put 14 or 15 in the space for number of named storms in the infobox? Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 18:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

East and central pacific are lumped together into one article/category. Mostly this is because of naming () which leaves no room for distinction. However, they are two separate basins so if you want you could probably have two separate sections in the article for them...with two separate infobox tables...as long as it's consistent among all the season articles either is fine. Incidentally, the same issue applies to the 2004-05 Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season which includes at least 2 and possibly 3 basins. Jdorje 18:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The HURDAT data from NHC and JTWC is separated by basin. It goes NAtlantic, EPac, WPac, NIndian, and South. SIndian is lumped in with SPac, and CPac is lumped in with EPac. See [1]. Jdorje 20:39, 31 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Second, I have taken the unilateral action of restoring year by year links for Pacific hurricane seasons from 1960-1969 because they named all storms from those seasons. Should we lump the 1950-1959 seasons into one big article, or should we have them seperate like (for example) the 1930s in the Atlantic? Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 18:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on how much there is to write about them. If it's too long for one lump article they can be split. I don't think it would hurt to write them as a lump article and then if necessary it can be split later. I held off on making the categories for the older seasons since I wasn't sure if they would stay lumped...but once that's decided the categories can be built. Jdorje 18:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have 2 questions about the infobox now. Should tropical depressions be included for Dates, damages, and deaths? Say for example TD 1 formed on May 18, caused $500 million in damage, and killed 20, then TS Alberto formed on July 3. Should the TD, if mentioned in the article, be included, or should we only use named storms? Second, should the infobox (and many other areas as well) include storms after they transition to extratropical? For example, the Longest lasting Tropical Cyclones in the Atlantic Basin is completely wrong IMO because it includes the extratropical portion of their lifetime. I am under the impression that for tropical cyclones, when they become extratropical they're done. Hurricanehink 15:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Those are good questions. Unfortunately I don't know what is best or right. I have the same problem when making hurricane tracks however...whether to include the extratropical portions. For instance Hurricane Mitch has an extatropical portion several times larger than its tropical portion, and including it causes the image to be scaled down so you don't see the tropical portion as well. But for some storms like Hurricane Faith, including the extratropical part is the whole point. Jdorje 17:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If TD1 formed and was destructive, then YES, it should count...as for the extratropical part, my opinion is that the date of dissipation should be just that - dissipation - regardless if tropical or extratropical. Here is what is necessary to make a dissipation in my books:
  • Absorption by another tropical or extratropical low or front
  • Circulation completely lost
  • Sight of storm lost
In 2005, the only dissipation date that is incorrectly marked on the infoboxes right now is for Hurricane Maria (its damage had not yet been done when it became extratropical), but I cannot find the exact date of dissipation. The best way to figure it out correctly is by the NHC reports - if it says "Remnant Low" or "Wave", it doesn't count (unless in a break between tropical periods), but if it says "Extratropical", it does count.
Here are three examples: Hurricane Isabel, Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane Isabel is listed as September 20, 2003, and should be, the correct time should be listed as 0600 UTC September 20 (2:00 am EDT). That was when Isabel, still with its identity, merged into a larger extratropical low at high latitudes. (It was over James Bay at the time around 53°N!)
Hurricane Dennis is listed as July 13, 2005. That is also correct - it never actually became extratropical (due to tropical air reaching well past 45°N), but rather lost its identity. The time was 0600 UTC July 13 (1:00 am CDT).
Hurricane Katrina is listed as August 31, 2005. That is also correct (although it was found to have merged with the front at about 44°N, not 48°N as I first thought). It became extratropical but kept its identity until the amalgamation at 1200 UTC August 31 (8:00 am EDT).
Exceptions should be made, however, if the remnant low is still destructive (i.e. with Ivan - although it redeveloped), in which case it should be done case-by-case. CrazyC83 02:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, extratropical portions of storms should not count. They are for tropical cyclones, with subtropical included due to ambiguity between tropical and subtropical. Isabel should not be listed as September 20. It should be listed as September 19, the day it turned extratropical. For convenience, dissipation should include became extratropical. Remember, these are tropical cyclones. Hurricanehink 04:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

I was not aware of this project when I first started converting over tables to templates. So, I want to make sure that any work I have done, or will create is compatible. Therefore, I have a few suggestions/questions:

--Mcmillen76 18:32, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have just a few thoughts on this:

  • Make sure to keep these templates separate from the article-building templates. They may need a separate section in the project page.
  • Make sure they all have a consistent appearance. Current templates follow the style of {{most intense hurricanes}}.
  • Don't go overboard in making them. I really don't see why we would ever want to know what season had the second-earliest third storm of a season, and adding that column makes it impossible to integrate the table with text.
  • For the earliest-formed-storm table, how do you resolve it with the one in 2005 Atlantic hurricane season?
  • The most important one that is missing is {{deadliest hurricanes}}.

Jdorje 05:57, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Storm articles

I have recently gone through almost all the storm articles.

  • I added structure where needed. Usually a short summary, then a "storm history" section, then an "impact" section. Longer articles generally already had their own structure which I didn't mess with (except sometimes to rename "effects" as "impact").
  • I improved grammar, spelling, and wikification. My guideline for dates is that the first date in each paragraph, and the first date in each month, must have the full entry (like "December 3"). Each following date may be shortened ("the 4th"). Previously some articles were confusing because halfway through the article it gets hard to follow what month you're in.

Jdorje 22:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and next up: making sure every article has a storm track. I now have the technology to create storm tracks to add to every article, and with the help of a bot in future I hope to be able to update these storm tracks easily (as the best-track data is improved). I may someday use a bot to upload a storm track for every storm, to add tracks to lots of season pages...this would be rather pretty (imagine 1988 Atlantic hurricane season with a bunch of small storm track images) but the storm-track generator isn't ready for it yet. Jdorje 22:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Qualifications for new articles

What should be the qualifications for new articles? Ignoring the text requirment (because any topic could have enough information for a new article), how should we decide what articles are worth it and what should be merged back to a seasonal article (if one exists)? Here are a basic outline that will be fine tuned for qualifications:

Atlantic

  • Over a certain dollar figure in damage
  • Over a certain number of deaths (50 in U.S, figure differs elsewhere)
  • Extremely notable (Longevity, extremely unusual location like Vince or Alice)
  • Any retired hurricane (already done)

South Atlantic

Eastern Pacific

  • Deadly landfalling hurricane (Liza, Pauline, 1959 storm)
  • Longevity (John)
  • Any retired hurricane (already done)
  • Epic damage (Kenna)

Western Pacific

  • Important Record holder (Tip)

(See below for possible ideas)

  • Over a certain number of deaths

North Indian and Southern Hemisphere

  • Over a certain dollar figure for damage
  • Over a certain number of deaths

For Western Pacific, there seems to be no continuity. As with any other basin, current storms get an article without much thought. Haitang (which was a Cat 5 before weakening and hitting Taiwan, only 7 deaths), Khanun (only 14 deaths), or Nabi (21 deaths) are perfect examples of this. Maybe it is just my raging anti-sub pages attitude, but I am sure there are other typhoons much more deserving than these 3. The problem is that few know or care about the area until a big one comes. In the last 10 years, 13 storms with over 100 deaths didn't have an article (2 of which I redirected back to their seasonal articles), while all of the recent typhoon Articles caused less than 25 deaths. Were their tracks notable? Not particularly. There weren't overwhelmingly damaging. So why, aside from that they were current, do these have articles? I just want to reach some sort of concensus.

In addition, should storms like Forrest, whose record isn't terribly important but still a record, have their own article when the record and history could simply be mentioned in the seasonal article?

Feel free to edit the list above to more accurate qualifications. Hurricanehink 03:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Don't want to too my own horn here or something, but I agree and would think that this season in the WPac (awfully quiet!) the only real "noteworthy" storm was Typhoon Longwang, for the fact it has killed the most people of all the storms this season, and caused quite a bit of damage. Then again, Longwang could still probably be expanded a bit more, with an impact section or something. I say that a NWPac storm should cause at least, say, 75 to 80 deaths or US$50 million in damage, or form at an awkward position to get an article. NSLE (讨论) \<extra> 05:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Why would you want to ignore the text requirement? The text requirement is the only one that's really neutral. Damage, deaths, and longevity are all just estimates by whatever source you happen to trust (and most current hurricane articles have NO sources for these values). In my opinion the SOLE criteria should be article quality (not length, but quality). And yes, the Forrest article is entirely useless, except for the pictures. Jdorje 08:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I am saying that just about anything could have enough for an article. It just would be really boring and repetitive. You could say all the circumstances on its formation, why it moved where it did, elaborate like hell, and have a long article for a pointless storm. We should have a reasoning for making an article other than the text requirment. We need some sort of continuity so we don't make too many articles. This way we won't create too many articles in the coming years. I am not saying getting rid of all the pointless articles (just some), but having a concensus so we don't give an article for every new storm. Hurricanehink 14:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Surely. That's why my criteria is article quality, not article length. By these standards I agree (for instance) that Arlene should have been merged back in, but I don't think Cindy should be. In particular, no amount of lenghth of text on storm history is enough to justify a separate article, since the storm history can be summed up with a single picture. But if there's enough info on the impact, then that can justify an article. Jdorje 23:10, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You have a point about quality. However, if the quality happens to a copy and paste of the seasonal article, I say it should go until either more information is available or more is actually written. Plus, what about Southern Hemisphere storms? When and if someone does a historical archive, what do we do about all of the storm pages? I had the same dillema with the Pacific Typhoon articles. Should those articles be merged in (with the exception of extremely notable) or should they remain as is? Hurricanehink 20:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Can we agree, for the sake of archiving this section, that the 2 requirements are:

  • Sufficient information
  • Notable enough for its own article

Though notable can be disputed, use discretion. Here I define what I think is notable enough.

Longevity: Longevity is typically rather boring for its own article, and only record-long storms should get it. John (longest worldwide), Ginger (2nd longest Atlantic, was long believed to be the longest until re-analysis), and 1899 San Ciraco (extremely damaging and long). Alberto, the longest in August with a big loop, was deleted because it was not extreme on its own.

Strength: Category 5 hurricanes should not automatically get their own articles. If it was a fish storm as a weak Category 5, then it should remain a section in the seasonal article. Not unless it was extremely intense or damaging at sea should it have an article.

Damage/Deaths: As of now, nearly every storm that caused more than $500 million in damage has their own article. If a storm causes only $60 million in damage, no deaths, and made landfall somewhere, it will likely not have its own article unless there is another factor about the storm that made it notable. Hurricane Bret from 1999 is an example of this. It was the least damaging major hurricane since 1964, and hit the only unpopulated area on the United States Atlantic/Gulf coastline. Deaths is a different story. Old hurricanes that were very deadly do not have information. Every hurricane since 1950 that killed more than 50 is at least on the suggestion list.

Off-season: Typically, off-season storms don't get an article, mainly due to lack of effects from the storms. Those that were especially notable like Alice (2 calendar year hurricane), 1952 Groundhog Day Storm (Only Feb. storm and made U.S. landfall), or Ana (Only April storm, 1 or 2 deaths) get one.

Just use discretion, and wonder this when creating an article:

  • Can this information be added to the article?
  • Is this storm worthy of having an article: notable enough or enough information.

Are these rules sufficient? Hurricanehink 17:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but notability is a fairly loose term. Different people may have different definitions of "notable". This is the only reason that I see why it has failed to enter official Wikipedia policy. That's why we need to come to a consensus on exactly what is and what is not notable. We also need to have a criterium for offseason storms. My view is that not all of them deserve their own articles. Intensity should not be a main factor for article creation unless it's a record-holding intensity (a la Tip). Damage post-1950: $100 million minimum (sorry Alex). Pre-1950: $40 million minimum. Deaths pre-1950: 100-150 minimum; there just isn't enough info for storms that did anything less. 1950-1970: 50-100 minimum depending on availability of information. Post 1970: 30 minimum. Those are my typical criterium. -- Hurricane Eric archive -- my dropsonde 02:39, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Storm tracks

I've uploaded a vast number of tracking charts. See [2] for a complete list. All Atlantic and EPac storms that have articles should now have tracking charts to go with them. I also uploaded charts for Atlantic cat5's that didn't have articles (these are included in the season articles, though I don't rule out the possibility for writing articles for these storms). Also (as an exercise) I uploaded tracks for all the named 2005 storms. I don't have much for wpac, nindian, or southern storms yet though; these are harder since the JTWC "best-track" data doesn't include storm names (only numbers). It is now well within the realm of possibility for me to upload a storm track for every known Atlantic hurricane (1851-present) to be included in their season pages...although with the controversy caused by including the 2005 tracks I don't plan to do this any time soon. One thing that could be done to help here is to help set up redirects from the "canonical" name I have used for linking storms from their tracks on wikipedia commons (like Hurricane Hugo (1989) or 1900 Galveston hurricane) to the actual articles. Jdorje 19:38, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

One problem is the naming of numbered storms like Tropical Cyclone 05B. If I treat this as an unnamed storm it should be Image:1999 05B tropical cyclone track.png. As a named storm it would be Image:05B 1999 track.png. Jdorje 20:03, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, interesting problem there. The 5B will probably be sufficent, but that's just me. Not sure what to say about the storm tracks. Not every year before 1950 mentions every storm. Hurricanehink 20:41, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am interested in generating some images, but the links to the software on freeciv.org are outdated. Could anyone please provide current links to the (software)files? TIA ghw 13:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Storm Article Request/Suggestion List

If there are any hurricane/typhoon/cyclone articles that you think should be created, list them here. It will go like this. Note: Not all of these will get an article. It is simply a list. Feel free to debate. Hurricanehink

The entire list is located here. Hurricanehink 03:49, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of T.D. in articles

From what I've seen, the Atlantic articles from 2003-backwards don't include the tropical depressions in the articles, but are featured in the button bar (where it has one). I think that either we include depressions in articles, or leave them out entirely, taking them off the button bar in the process. No half-and-half business. What do you think? -- Sarsaparilla39 23:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Include 'em! Or remove them from all articles (including the 2004-onwards ones). Jdorje 00:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, all or nothing. Personally, I say nothing, unless a tropical depression was notable. For example, if a depression caused $1 million in damage and killed some people, it deserves to be mentioned. There should be a separate section for them if anything, but I believe that most tropical depression references can be removed. Hurricanehink 04:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's not all or nothing. If you consider a notable TD worthy of inclusion, then all TDs should get a mention. Jdorje 01:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. We should be consistent across all seasons. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Would you lot consider this worthy of discussion? -- Sarsaparilla39 12:03, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, it should be discussed. I say get rid of all of them, unless they cause moderate damage or deaths (SD 22 might be an example of this). Otherwise, get them out! Hurricanehink 13:30, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I'm on the notability bandwagon, and let's face it people, these TDs contribute NOTHING to the season. I personally can't see much in the way of notable tropical depressions. That means that the button bars need to be fixed, but that shouldn't be too much of a hassle. We should leave the 2005 ones until the end of the season, to save on bother and arguments. On the other hand; if we're noting them at all, maybe we should use an "Other Storms" section, not unlike the unnamed TSs of the 50s and 60s, and have two sentences or so about them. There, they're kept out of the way of the main storms, but still written about. How does that sound? -- Sarsaparilla39 13:46, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that's a really good idea. You have my vote. This way, you can mention what the TD does, while keeping it short and away from the main article. Hurricanehink 13:48, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Check out the sandbox. Post your comments somewhere at the bottom. -- Sarsaparilla39 14:08, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Some weeks ago I suggested moving the whole 'storms' section of the 2005 season to a separate article, 2005 Atlantic hurricane season storms. All notable storms (with their own article) would be removed from this article, and it woudl only include info about the otherwise-non-notable storms. Jdorje 18:36, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Southern Hemisphere Seasons

The current setup for southern hemisphere seasons is confusing and hard to follow because it sometimes seperates individual storms into different sections when it enters a new basin. I propose abolishing the major basin headings and replacing it with a season summary/activity section that goes something like this: "This season, 4 cyclones formed in the south Pacific, 9 formed in the southeast indian ocean, and 14 formed in the southwest Indian Ocean. One of the south Pacific cyclones crossed into the SE Indian Ocean, and 3 of the SE Indian cyclones crossed into the SW Indian."

Under the current system, if a cyclone crosses into a different basin, it gets a new heading. Thus, if Cyclone Alice gets crosses into the SW Indian, it would get renamed to Cyclone Bob and get a new heading elsewhere in the article. It would not go into the Cyclone Alice section. Under my proposal, it would simply get the heading Cyclone Alice-Bob, and the Bob part of Alice would go under the same heading. The headings would be in the same order that all storms in the Southern Hemisphere formed. In the 2004-05 season article, some of the headings for systems in one basin are empty just because all the info on that system is under a different heading because it entered a new basin. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um, whos doing the Southern Hemisphere seasons?, because im the only one who is doing them and nobody had added any storms to the seasonal articles in that section.Storm05 15:47, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After doing the 1492-1889 for the Atlantic, all of the North Indian, and much of the Western Pacific, I made a promise to myself that I would not do the Southern Hemisphere, so I cannot help you there. Based on what I see, you seem to be alone. Considering no one else has helped you, you do not have to continue, but it would be nice for Wikipedia. Hurricanehink 16:17, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think it is good just to create dozens of new stub articles. Go through systematically and fill out the articles completely before moving on to the next one. Jdorje 20:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Storm05, why do you insist on creating stub articles that you then leave for the rest of us to fill out or delete? Why do you refuse to discuss creation of new articles before you create them? 1977-78_Southern_Hemisphere_tropical_cyclone_season is currently the worst, but every new southern hemisphere article you have created is a stub. We don't need more stubs. We need more content. Jdorje 20:27, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agreed. You really need to calm down on the article creating, and actually listen to what we say. Why do you want help from us when you can't listen to the constructive critism we give to you? Hurricanehink 20:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry , but information before 1993 is hard to find and I have to rely on these Internet Sources: [3], [4]Storm05 13:55, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

....So don't. No one has a gun to your head, and if you can't find good information, then you don't need to worry about it. It is better to work on bettering existing articles than making new, short ones. Hurricanehink 04:22, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Mergeable Existing Articles

Are there any existing tropical cyclone article that you think should be merged with a season?

Possible ones (just possible examples, and excluding 2005 season ones, I have no opinion on these as of yet):

Possible Mergable Articles

Note: If and when you merge one of these, please add it to the "Merged" list and strike it through using <s> and </s>.

Merged Candidates Failed candidates

East Pacific

John should probably be renamed to include the year in the title.

Merge discussion

Added Khanun and Nabi. They aren't near notable enough. Storms with identical stats are common in the west Pacific. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 01:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bye bye, Nabi. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Madeline merged Khanun. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 23:04, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
1776 'cane has been merged. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 02:19, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I added The Mameyes disaster to the list. I propose that be merged with Tropical Storm Isabel (1985), due to the fact that Isabel contributed to the disaster. OK, voting time.
  • Nina- If it were a typical storm, I would say get rid of it like spoiled food, though based on deaths, it can stay, provided someone ::coughStorm05 cough:: adds some more to it.
  • Chebi- Unlike Nina's 1000 death toll, this is only moderately notable, and should be merged as it is.
  • Yuri- Merge it. Damage was too minor, and the storm surge section does not mean notability.
  • Earl- Not notable enough. There's a lot of information... that's good, but the information is mostly trivial and doesn't show its notability.
  • Yunya- Merge it... again. Sure, it hit the same day of a volcano eruption, but this is a tropical cyclone article, not the Mount Pinatubo, which covers the typhoon well.
  • Danny- I say no, mainly due to the tornado outbreak.
Hurricanehink 01:47, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability

A.K.A. what article deserves to stay, we have two opposing view points on this. Should an article be entirely based on impact, or can fish storms have articles, provided they have enough records or reason for their existence? Two storms, Ginger and Faith, have recently been brought up as possible mergers, despite their content and notability. We should decide once and for all (and I don't mean a discussion between E. Brown and Jdorje ;) ) what defines notability. Let's all gather round and discuss this. I'll give my view later to not influence opinions. Hurricanehink 03:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion it is not about notability but about content and organization. If there is enough content to justify splitting the storm article off from the parent article, then it should be done. BUT: storm history and trivia should not be considered in this content: they are filler, inasmuch as if you keep looking you can potentially make them infintely detailed. Records and impact can be considered (and I suppose we can argue about which records are just trivia). But if an article has no chance of making it to B-class, there is no reason to keep that article around. Jdorje 04:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I guess the storm history and trivia can be considered to some extent (otherwise there's no justification for splitting off of some 2005 storms). It's not that storm history is unimportant: it is crucial to any storm. It's just that it will only go so far before you hit the maximum level of detail at which point you should simply be referring back to the best-track file. Jdorje 04:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that these storms are plenty notable enough for an article. Just expand them to desireable lengths. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 19:26, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Storm Articles that did little

There are a lot of articles... a lot. Though an article might be well-written, some storms weren't very damaging. Here is a list of storm articles that hit the U.S. and caused less than $100 million (2005 USD) in damage. Here, we should justify their existence, and decide if something should be done about it. Hurricanehink 00:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no objection to any merging, provided that all important information is merged and the season article remains balanced. — jdorje (talk) 00:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just thought we'd discuss it a bit, especially those that remain here due to status quo. Hurricanehink 01:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion is a must IMO. Here's my thoughts:
  • Ophelia-Debatable, storm didn't do much but the article is pretty informative.
  • Alex-Leaning merge, storm didn't do much and the article is mostly storm history.
  • Gordon-Weak keep, I don't really see much wrong with the article.
  • Bret-Keep, damage was light but the article is pretty informative.
  • Charley-Undescided, this storm kind of cheated. I'm leaning merge simply because the article doesn't have that much info.
  • Earl-Merge, this storm did little and the article is largely a copy of the NHC report.
  • Emily-Keep, the article isn't bad. It uses info from the NHC report without too much copying.
  • Amelia-Keep, notable enough and the article is informative enough.
  • Ginger-Keep, it is without question notable enough and the article problems can easily be fixed by just expanding the impact section.
  • Gladys-Keep, there's a point where the article quality negates the notability of the storm. There is a lot of info in this one.
  • Esther-Leaning keep, the article is quite informative and Esther was an interesting storm.
  • Ethel-Merge, just because it was a Cat. 5, which is in doubt by the way, doesn't make it notable. This storm did next to nothing and the article is skin and bones.
  • Helene-Keep, the storm was fairly notable, the effects were pretty stiff and the article is plenty informative.
-- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 02:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Zone Crossers

We need a naming convention for renamed cyclones. Atlantic to EPac crossers Hattie, Fifi and Joan are all under the Atlantic name, but Hurricane Cesar redirects to Hurricane Cesar-Douglas. There are five options as I see it:

  1. Give the article the double name and redirect the parts to it (as Cesar Douglas has)
  2. Keep the double name, but only redirect the retired name to it. (None do this)
  3. Keep the single name unless it makes landfall under both names (This would mean renaming Cesar-Douglas to Hurricane Cesar, and renaming Hattie and Fifi to Hurricane Hattie-Simone-Inga and Hurricane Fifi-Orlene.
  4. Keep it at the retired name, and redirect the new name to it. (None do this)
  5. Keep it at the retired name, and mention the appropriate storm at the other name's disambiguation (As Joan/Miriam and Fifi/Orlene do.)

This would also apply to TS Allison in 1989 if it gets an article. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC) Screw that previous comment.[reply]

On a related note, I managed to build and upload combined track maps for these 4 hurricanes. Are there any other basin-crossers? Typhoon Gay I know about. Jdorje 09:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is a problem. (1) seems reasonable...(2) I don't know what it means...(3) is not a good criteria...(4) is a reasonable criteria, though it's possible both names are retired...(5) is not good. An additional problem is crossovers aren't well or officially documented AFAIK...for instance I've read it is disputed whether Hattie-Simone was actually also Inga. Jdorje 04:38, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The way it is is fine. The more notable of the location should determine the storm, unless both are fairly notable. Fifi may need to be changed to Fifi-Orlene, but the others are fine IMO.
My view: it depends on the situation. If it was notable under both names, it should have the double name. If it was only notable under one name, it should take the more notable name and the other name should redirect. CrazyC83 04:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So what do you guys think of Hurricane Hattie-Simone? Should it be Hurricane Hattie-Simone-Inga? Personally I thought it was good as Hurricane Hattie. Jdorje 18:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I think it should only be given a double name if it stayed at least a tropical storm the whole way. This would apply to Cesar and Joan. It would also apply to Irene of 1971 but that storm doesn't have an article that I know of. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 02:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Storm track request list

What storms need storm-path images? I can easily make such images if I know the info for the storm. The info needed, of course, is the year and the name of the storm. For wpac, spac, and nindian storms I need the storm *id* instead of the name. Also needed is the title of the storm (Hurricane, Tropical Storm, Typhoon, etc.). Currently AFAIK all Epac and Atlantic storms have tracks...any that do not can be posted here. Jdorje 18:45, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline

Cyclone 05B I already set up (along with some others), but I haven't uploaded it because I haven't decided on a naming convention. I think it should be "year basin type number", like "1999 North Indian tropical cyclone 05B". But are north indian storms called cyclones or tropical cyclones? Jdorje 22:49, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Err, compare to "1975 Pacific hurricane 12". Note that "Hurricane 12 (1975)" isn't sufficient because the Atlantic had a hurricane 12 too (although the Atlantic one probably had a name, there are certainly other storms where only numbers were used, like "Hurricane 7 (1938)"). Jdorje 22:51, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Tropical depressions in the Pacific Ocean have the suffixes W, C, and E for Western, Central, and Eastern respectively. The JTWC labels (N and S) Atlantic storms with an L suffix. B and A are used in the North Indian Pcean for the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. Hurricane 12's track picture could have "hurricane_12C_1975_track.png" as its name, for example. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline
I don't think that's good, since it distinguishes cpac from epac (which we don't do) and doesn't cover the other basins (e.g., the perfect storm which is "1991 Atlantic hurricane 8"). Jdorje 16:51, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at {{storm path needed}} and Category:Hurricane articles needing a track map. Jdorje 17:41, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I know you typically only do Hurricane articles, but Michelle had a good idea for Hurricane Lili in 1984. Rather than making a hurricane article about the long-lasting December hurricane, it would help readers understand the storm more by having a track map of the Hurricane on the seasonal article. Though Unisys (Lili's Track) doesn't show it, NHC indicated that Lili was subtropical until Advisory 33 when Lili became a hurricane. The NHC best track is located here. Hurricanehink 21:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think every storm we mention anywhere should have a track map. But I think it would take a bot to upload them all. Anyway, Lili is done. Jdorje 00:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Lili track brings back the problem of telling what direction the storm is moving... Jdorje 00:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick response. That might be a ton of work to do one for every storm, and is probably not needed. People should have a good enough sense of geography to be able to read the summaries, and if they can't, will they be able to read a map as well? It would be neat, but I personally wouldn't want to see you spend all that time for those storms. Maybe we should just get a list for the unusual tracks and uncertain paths. As the direction, if they read the storm summary they should be able to figure it out. Maybe have an arrow or a "Start" and "End" on the paths, not sure. Hurricanehink 00:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused about the max winds of the Louisiana Hurricane of 1915, and I'm afraid it may be because of a bug in my track generator program. However the error shows up in the UNISYS tracks as well. The problem is the max winds for the hurricane are given in the best-track as 115 knots. This is 132.25 mph which rounds off to 130 mph which is Category 3. however 132.25 is really into the Category 4 range. I thought I had accounted for rounding properly, but it seems my track and the unisys one do show this hurricane as reaching Category 4 status. Anyone reading the article will therefore be greatly confused since the article lists it as a Category 3 hurricane. Jdorje 17:20, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good question about the Lousisiana Hurricane. I personally have no idea except to call it a 120 knot hurricane. I know it is incorrect, but this way, it can show the Category 4 intensity. In addition, you can't tell the intensities other than the SSS in the maps (i.e. no difference on map between 75 and 90).

On a different note, I have a potential track map for Catarina. Here in Gary Padget's Tropical Summary, it shows a track map for the hurricane/cyclone/whatever for its lifetime. It isn't the official NHC, but considering no official agency recognizes the storm, this is probably the best bet. Hurricanehink 03:11, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All right. I just went through and added a number of storm paths in bulk. So, in future to get a track map put up, do this:

  • Add {{storm path needed}} to the article.
  • (Except for named epac/natlantic hurricanes) make sure the article has a link to the unisys track or storm ID#, prominently placed.

Jdorje 00:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Bhola cyclone's track needs to be changed. It shows it as a tropical depression the whole way which is clearly not true. Let's use gray because we really have no freaking clue what the intensity of the storm was. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 05:10, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
We have no set color for "unknown strength". Once we pick one I'll be happy to use it in the tracks.

I added some more tracks, including South ones. The best track for older southern hemisphere storms seems to have the windspeed really low. See Cyclone Tracy, Cyclone Ada, Cyclone Althea for instance. Anyone know why that might be? Jdorje 07:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good question, and I'm not sure. It might have to do with the Australian hurricane scale or something? Hurricanehink 21:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. The wind speeds are supposed to be given in knots; the SSS or cyclone scale aren't supposed to have anything to do with that. And Cyclone Zoe shows the correct speeds. Cyclone_Leon-Eline is from 2,000 and actually shows some of the same problems: the storm is shown weaker than the article claims while hitting madagascar, but at the correct strength for its mozambique landfall. For older storms the speeds are simply too low. Jdorje 21:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, then I have absolutely no idea. Maybe an email should be sent to JTWC? Hurricanehink 22:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Storm track question

In the older storm track images, extratropical is indicated by using the gray color. This ran into problems with some storms because the storm's strength when extratropical is fairly important. The biggest example is 1959 Mexico hurricane where it didn't reach cat5 until extratropical (according to the best track at least). So, I changed it: now the color always indicates strength and shape is used to indicate type. Tropical cyclones use circles, extratropical use squares, and subtropical or non-tropical use triangles. I haven't uploaded any new tracks except for 1959 Mexico hurricane. This does make it harder to distinguish tropical from non-tropical, but when looking at the full-sized image it conveys more information. (It also needs a key, which I will add shortly.) So my question is: is this new way better, or is something else needed? Jdorje 21:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure the 1959 cane was extratropical? Unisys says it wasn't, but that's beside the point. The new way might not be better. The circles and squares look similar, and at a quick glance, they could get confusing. I don't remember how you did it before, but could you have one for ED, ES, EH, and EMH (extratropical depression etc.)? I personally don't have much of an opinion, as I appreciate the long and arduous work you put into making the track files. Hurricanehink 21:59, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty sure. From the HURDAT:
03335 10/23/1959 M= 7 15 SNBR= 102 NOT NAMED   XING=1                           
03340 10 23*126 967  75    0*127 976  75    0*130 985  75    0*135 993  75    0*
03345 10 24*1401000  75    0*1451008  75    0*1501016  75    0*1561023  75    0*
03350 10 25*1611029 100    0*1651034 100    0*1681039 110    0*1701045 110    0*
03355 10 26*1721052 120    0*1751056 120    0*1781058 120    0*1831057 120    0*
03360 10 27X1881053 120    0X1931048 120    0X1971044 140  958X2011040  45    0*
03365 10 28X2051037  45    0X2101033  25    0X2161029  25    0X2221026  25    0*
03370 10 29X2281023  25    0X2341021  25    0X2401020  25    0*  0   0   0    0*
03375 HR
However the 'X' isn't explained in the documentation. '*' in that position means tropical and 'E' means extratropical. I assumed 'X' also means extratropical. So the entry 'X2281023 25 0' means extratropical(?), 22.8 lat, -102.3 long, 25 knot winds, 0 mbar pressure. Jdorje 22:20, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think 'X' actually means they don't have a clue as to whether it was tropical or not. 'X's in other areas of NOAA mean 'not available', so I'm assuming that holds true for the Best Track too. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 05:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds right. I seriously doubt there can even be an extratropical category 5 hurricane, let alone an extratropical major hurricane. Hurricanehink 01:56, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't a Category 5 hurricane be a major hurricane by definition? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 06:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think he got a little tongue tied. I think he accidentally reversed "Category 5" and "major". -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 01:36, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Typhoon disambiguation

Right now we have typhoon and hurricane disambigs (either at Tropical Storm heading or Typhoon/Hurricane heading, depending on the storms). I've thought about it, and perhaps we want to disambig the Philippine names for typhoons too? For example, see Typhoon Maring. NSLE (讨论+extra) 00:59, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Surely. However, there is certainly possibility for confusion in categorization when a single storm has multiple names in the same category. Jdorje 01:39, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Uh... do explain? NSLE (讨论+extra) 06:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have a good example present, but one contrived one is that Typhoon Maring and Typhoon Longwang (disambiguation) would both show up in Category:2005 Pacific typhoon season, but would actually be the same storm. Jdorje 20:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
List of 2005 names to dab. Note, names Huaning, Isang and Maring were also used for 2000, 1996, 1992, 1988 etc under the old naming system. I say we just include the ones in the 2001 and on naming system with a note about the old system, see Maring for example.
  • Feria (2005: STY Haitang; 2001: TY Utor)
  • Gorio (2005: TY Gorio; 2001: TS Trami)
  • Huaning (2005: TY Sanvu; 2001: TY Yutu)
  • Isang (2005: TY Talim; 2001: TY Toraji)
  • Kiko (2005: TY Khanun; 2001: TY Nari)
  • Labuyo (2005: TY Damrey; 2001: TY Lekima)
  • Maring (has been done)
  • Ondoy (2005: TS Tembin; 2001: TS28W - not recognised by JTWC)
That's about it for 2001/05. NSLE (讨论+extra) 06:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't seem complicated though...that's exactly the purpose of disambiguation. Jdorje 20:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, we could then use Tropical Storm Kiko to dab it, noting that the typhoons named Kiko also had a second, official name. NSLE (讨论+extra) 00:55, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the names that were also used for TDs and invests. NSLE (讨论+extra) 11:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion about disambiguation articles is below:

  • If the storm name is used in more than one basins (except only in the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific), the title is of the disambiguation article begins with "Tropical Storm".
ex.1) Fran is used in the Atlantic and the Western Pacific: the name is used as hurricanes and typhoons. So the title of Fran disambiguation article begins with "Tropical Storm Fran".
ex.2) Olaf is used in the Eastern Pacific and the Southern Hemisphere: the name is used as hurricanes and cyclones. So the title of Olaf disambiguation article begins with "Tropical Storm Olaf".
ex.3) Emily is used in the Atlantic and the Eastern Pacific: the name is used only as hurricanes. So the title of Emily disambiguation article begins with "Hurricane Emily".
ex.4) Wilda is used only in the Western Pacific: the name is used only as typhoons (not used as hurricanes). So the title of Wilda disambiguation article begins with "Typhoon Wilda".
  • If some individual articles of the storm exist, the title of the disambiguation article ends up with "(disambiguation)" (to distinguish individual articles from a disambiguation article definitely).
ex.1) Alex has an individual article "Hurricane Alex (2004)". So the title of Alex disambiguation article end up with "(disambiguation)".
ex.2) Hermine doesn't have an individual article. So the title of Hermine disambiguation article is without "(disambiguation)".

--HERB 13:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Known Vandals

I am personally sick of the vandals, so why not list them all here. This applies to any basin or article that is continually vandalized by one person. Hurricanehink 01:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not to say anything about these guys, but make sure you don't confuse vandals with idiots. There was some guy who kept changing the "29 direct, 36 indirect" deaths on Hurricane Andrew to "65"...but that's not vandalism, it's just failure to understand our system. The entry was changed to "65 (29 direct; 36 indirect)" and I hope there will be no more problems. Jdorje 07:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
65 is fine in the article, but not the infobox. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 05:17, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Knots and nautical miles

I grow increasingly frustrated by the overuse and interchanging of knots and nautical miles with real units. When writing an article, the first priority is to keep the same units for everything. If you use nautical miles, you have to use them (and knots) everywhere. But knots and NM are bad since nobody knows what they are. Use mph and km/h instead. Jdorje 18:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I see you changed quite a few, and I can see why you're frustrated. I just took it right from the JTWC or NHC report, figuring the exact versions are better (I see I was wrong). I'll try and remember that for the future. I don't think I use knots (I hope I don't, I hate them). I know, you're not directing your comment towards me, but I'm letting you know what I do and what I will do for the future. Hurricanehink 21:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there is the issue of exactness. Most info is given in knots so converting it loses information. A related problem is with inHg in older hurricanes. In 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane, I gave the original inHg pressure values, with mbar/hpa as followups, whereas normally I don't think it's important to include inHg. With knots it's an even bigger problem since they all get rounded off to units of 5, so sometimes the mph and km/h will not match for hurricanes. So if you do give knots you have to be consistent and give knots/nm as the primary measurement everywhere through the article - and even more importantly, you have to make sure to give the miles (mph) and km (km/h) measurements alongside each value. Jdorje 21:54, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I guess what's more important is to include mph and km/h conversions always, no matter what the primary form is. Jdorje 21:56, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Hopefully other Wicanepidians will follow this (what? we hurricane wikipedians need a name). Hurricanehink 22:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Prehistoric officialness

I already commented on the Discussion page for List of Atlantic hurricane seasons but I think this really needs examination.It's misleading to say (as even the 1492-1524 article does) that any season that happened before the June-1st-to-November-30th definition was decided "officially" began and ended on those dates.Some different terminology should be used to make clear that retrospective standards are being employed.--Louis E./[email protected]/12.144.5.2 00:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Surely. I already considered using a template for the rote-introduction paragraph, and suggested in talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season that the rote-introduction paragraph does not make for a good introduction. Jdorje 07:34, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Tropical cyclones by region

Check out Category:Tropical cyclones by region. Some user created the Mexico sub-category, and I decided this should be a whole collection of categories. However at this time it's quite empty. I hope to create a sub-category for each U.S. state and one for every other nation...for Atlantic hurricanes anyway. This can replace the "history" categories in each hurricane's article. Unlike the by-strength, by-basin, and by-season categories however, this category is not as precise: each hurricane may have more than one category, or none at all (though maybe a new category "hurricanes not making landfall" is appropriate here). Jdorje 19:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

They don't have to make landfall to affect an area, and IMO, extratropical counts if it is damaging there. What about storms that reach into inland states and are damaging there, will they be included? (Of course, we need to be realistic, don't include states like North Dakota and Montana where tropical cyclones will likely never reach - they'd be blocked by a ridge or front coming out of Canada if they tried to go that far in that direction). CrazyC83 19:33, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One blanket category should cover that I think, like Category:Inland United States hurricanes. As for landfall, I agree...Hazel should go into Category:Hurricanes in Canada, obviously. About extratropical I'm not sure. Jdorje 19:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Many storms will go into multiple locations, for example Hazel would also go into the lists for Grenada, Haiti, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York... CrazyC83 22:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. For the Caribbean however, I find it hard to tell how to break things up. Currently I'm just changing any "XXX history" entries to "XXX hurricanes", which I then make as a new category that's a subset of "XXX history". However there are so many Caribbean islands/countries that this might give way too many categories. Instead we could categorize them as Cuba/DR/Haiti/Jamaica/PR/Leeward/Windward/Bahamas...but a few islands (like Grenada?) may still not fit into any of these categories. Jdorje 02:46, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go for the safe side and include a separate category for each island nation. After all, some storms were small enough that they only affected 1 or 2 of them (i.e. Ivan and Emily in Grenada). CrazyC83 06:42, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of the subcategory names in Category:Tropical cyclones by region should be changed, in light of a comment someone made on Category:Hurricanes in the Canary Islands. That category only contains one storm: Tropical Storm Delta. Delta was never a hurricane, and it wasn't tropical when it affected the Canaries. I think the categories should be renamed to something like "Tropical cyclones in XXXX" instead of "Hurricanes in XXXX", and/or a note indicating that the systems need not necessarily be tropical when they reach the area in question. That would probably prevent further confusion in the future. --Coredesat 07:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New French Tropical Cyclone templates released...

Hello,

I'm a French Wikipédia user and I've created new templates to insert useful data into tropical cyclones articles.

Active and inactive tropical cyclones infobox :

  • There's a section to put a satellite-taken picture
  • There's a section showing the cyclone's track
  • Label to show the cyclone's maximal intensity
  • Summarized statistics for inactive cyclones
  • Détailed statistics for active cyclones
  • Contains info about locations and countries affected
  • Total compatibility between the active and inactive states

Tropical cyclone footer :

  • Initially translated from the English version
  • Rewritten using the strict Wikipedia syntax
  • In the legend zone, the maximal strength of the cyclone is put in bold

If you can understand French a little bit at least, I suggest you to take a look at this link : fr:Ouragan Dennis (2005).

--The Shadow Knows

That infobox looks very good. Jdorje 06:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's beautiful, I love it.
They also made articles for every storm.
Including Lee.
Eh, to each pedia her own. --Golbez 06:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Truly amazing. You've jumped ahead of us!!! We should do the same thing here, including articles for the least notable storms (fish-spinners and depressions), and create those infoboxes...you'd be a big help! We have all winter to work on them too... CrazyC83 02:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

{{infobox hurricane}}/Lowest pressure

Do the lowest pressures also need a conversion to inches of mercury? NSLE (T+C+CVU) 08:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unlikely. Doesn't everyone use millibars or hPa these days? But since the row title takes up 2 lines, it won't expand the table at all to include it - particularly for older hurricanes, where the inHg measurement is the "original" one. Jdorje 10:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Subproject of a new WikiProject Weather and Climate?

Should we broaden out some to make this part of a larger project covering all weather events and details? After all, many of us have worked on other non-tropical sites too...(I'm currently debating on whether the current snow/ice storm, with 500,000 without power and one dead so far, warrants an article) CrazyC83 05:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think this wikiproject should remain distinct; most of the guidelines here would not apply to other weather events. However a WikiProject:Meteorology (or Weather and Climate? What's the difference?) could be a good "parent" project. Jdorje 06:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wikisource?

Would Wikisource be a useful place to put things like notable (or maybe ALL) discussions/public advisories, the tropical cyclone reports, etc.? We can't assume that they will always be available on the NHC's site, and they ARE public domain... Any thoughts? --Golbez 00:38, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not everything, but stuff like the TCRs should definitely go there. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 05:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of adding the best-track files there. Jdorje

Infoboxes

Some time ago we discussed adding new fields to the infoboxes. Well, I went ahead and added the pressure to the hurricane infobox. I also used some template magic to create Category:Incomplete hurricane infoboxes which I believe should become populated with the articles that have no pressure in their infobox (it's empty now; I think it will be built slowly as the caches are replaced). Next, I'd like to rename "total damages (USD)" as "total damages"; the "USD" is irrelevant since the field has to include the units anyway (including the year) and USD may not always be the best choice; this should be possible to accomplish with a smooth transition using some more template magic. Jdorje 20:13, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, might not have so many ones without pressures now. Still a great idea. Question: How will the caches be replaced? Mind you, I am more or less computer illiterate, so I am not sure what it means. Do we have do change them one by one, just change the infobox template, or is it automatic? Hurricanehink 21:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't know what causes the categories to be updated. I'm guessing several levels of cache need to be regenerated. This will happen automatically periodically I guess but I have no idea how long it will take. Once one of the pages using the template is actually edited it should be updated immediately in the category. Eventually they should all make there way there...we're not in any big rush here so we can just wait for them to show up. Jdorje 21:12, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, and I did notice some pages showing that category at the bottom (some WPAC ones, Catarina). Something weird happened, though. In the list of Hurricane articles without pictures or infoboxes, they show every last hurricane season and quite a few hurricane articles that already have pics and infoboxes. I assume that problem will also be solved automatically? Hurricanehink 21:17, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Images for each storm

I am in the (long) process of trying to upload an image of each storm in Atlantic history. Obviously there are older ones that won't, but I am trying to get, let's say, a lot of them. A lot of storms, particularly retired storms, have them, but what about the lesser storms that don't have articles? The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season article used this in a great way, by having the storm track and storm pic right next to each other. If an image helps the reader understand the storm, then why not? I have gone ahead and put what I propose on the 2003 and 2004 Atlantic season talk pages. I am interested to see what is the most recent season in which not every storm has a pic... Is what I am doing fine? A waste? Comments welcomed. Hurricanehink 00:27, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Navy site (all images PD, {{PD-USGov-Military-Navy}}) has images back to 1997. NSLE (T+C+CVU) 00:29, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know, thanks, but some of their image archives are temporarily down. Hurricanehink 00:32, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now I got an example. The 1994 Atlantic hurricane season has an image for each storm. What should we do with them? Should we have a repeat of 2005? That is, having the storm track and image for each storm. Obviously, this can't go back very far, but it helps people understand the storms better. Hurricanehink 02:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, we should show a satellite image and storm track for every storm whenever possible. Jdorje 02:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I have 2 years completely done (1994 and 2000). Does Alberto in 2000 work? I will go ahead and do the rest. Will you be able to get the storm tracks for 2000? Hurricanehink 16:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, what do you mean by "completely done"? I see only a few pictures. Jdorje 17:26, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Check their talk pages. I should have said that. Every tropical storm or hurricane has a picture in those 2 seasons. For 2000, I went ahead and put the pics in like 2005. Hurricanehink
I uploaded 2000 and 1994. I also uploaded 2004; I think we should be moving chronologically here. Jdorje 21:30, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's just what they're expecting though... Just kidding. That sounds good. I'll try to fill in the gap. Hurricanehink 22:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Storm track seasons completed

Storm track seasons completed
NAtlantic EPac
  • 1950-2004
  • 2005 (some based on forecast data)
  • 1997-2004

Design

Ok, before we go further with this, I think we need to stop and think about it a little bit. First of all, we should be using a template for the little storm picture table, that way we can resize or restructure it later if needed. The table's a little ugly as it is (it is asymmetric and has white space for seemingly no reason), and someone could probably fix this with a little wikitable magic. Something like {{storm pics|maintext|image1|text1|image2|text2}} is pretty lengthy, but probably still worthwhile. We could in theory make it even shorter if we use more clever templating, but this would also cut down on the flexibility of the gallery. Jdorje 07:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That would be {{storm pics}}. Jdorje 07:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okeydoke. 2004 done, working on 2003, and will get 2002 later. I am currently trying to align them so they don't overlap by adding more information. I know that every screen is different, but more info can't hurt either way. Hurricanehink 15:52, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Got them. Now on to 2001's pictures. Hurricanehink 16:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Uploaded 1995-1999. Jdorje 06:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Uploaded 1990-1993. Jdorje 03:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No!

NO!

Time out for a second. We don't need images for every freaking storm back to the days of Donna! Let's not do this, it clogs the page with unhelpful images. Many of them suck so bad it's hard to tell what it is. Some are spectacular. But regardless of their quality, so many of them distract the reader from the article and all they do is think about the pictures. Not to mention the fact that people with older, slower or crappier computers want to shoot themselves every time they try to load the page. The bytes add up my friend. That's just a fact. '05 and now '04 load slow for me and my computer is relatively cooperative. I could be talked into pics for every hurricane but not every storm of the season! And this is coming from an obsessive lover and collector of hurricane satellite photos (I have over 200!). My instincts tell me to just find better images to replace sucky ones and leave it at that. But I think it is detracting from the article and many should be removed. I don't know how many seasons you've done it for but please stop, at least for now. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 04:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. However this argument should be taken over to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones, where it is already being discussed. Jdorje 07:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Crap, I forgot about the slower computers. Perhaps they can have a subpage, like Images of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. This could solve the problem of slow computers, but also allows for more than one image for some storms. There could be a warning near the link warning slower computers about the size of the article. Would this be a better solution than removing them all? Some can probably stay, but even every hurricane could get a little much. In addition, this solves the problems for when images are too big for the paragraphs. E. Brown and Jdorje, is this a suitable compromise? Hurricanehink 21:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Technical limitations are a concern, but we cannot let them dominate - users with poor connections can always turn off images. Or to put it another way, technical limitations are the reason for the wikipedia guideline that pages should not be over 35k. If you violate this (which those two articles do), you cannot blame it on the pictures when the page loads slowly; the 35k limit is no doubt chosen in part because with a reasonable number of pictures pages larger than that will load slowly on poor connections. Jdorje 21:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Since I am fine with any way, I'll let you and Eric battle it out! I just don't want to see another button bar fiasco. Hurricanehink 22:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Jdorje, why do you want pictures for every storm? What value do they hold? If you want each hurricane season article to be a frigging picture gallery, that can be arranged! The text is and should be the most important part of the article. The text tells the story, the pictures tell little. I'm not saying remove all of them, I'm saying at least remove the ones for menial tropical storms. Also, you are basically telling people with sucky computers to go to Hell. The pictures are largely to blame for slow load time. The text is very light. The pictures ARE NOT the focus of the article. What about that fails to go through? Wikipedia is not a frigging picture book. Geez, this is ridiculous. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 22:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For most storms the picture is more useful than the majority of the storm history. For the Template:Tcseason and Template:Tcseason the amount of text is much larger than the pictures, so the text still does dominate. Including pictures to accompany the text performs many useful functions that make the article more enjoyable to read. And what's the disadvantage? As far as I can tell, the only drawback is that it makes the page load more slowly. But pages that are too big are going to load too slowly anyway, and you can't blame pictures for that. My question is: why wouldn't we want pictures for every storm??? This is an encyclopedia after all, and wikipedia is not paper. Jdorje 23:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NCDC pictures

Good news! I have found a website that, provided no one is angry about it, allows me to get pics for every Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane back to 1983. The website, located here, has archived data of satellite imagery for 6 times a day, every day, for 22 years. It isn't limited to the Atlantic either. Most days have imagery of the Eastern Pacific, Eastern Atlantic, Western Pacific, and parts of the Indian Ocean. Hurricanehink 17:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Holy crap! That's amazing! That's really, really awesome. The point you should take away from this rant is that it's really cool!
Now, first of all I found and uploaded a pic for the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone: Image:Cyclone_1991_04_29_05_29.jpg. This image isn't that great, and it taught me that the false-color IR images (which are what you've been using) are a lot better than the visible-light images, since (1) they work at night and (2) they have less distortion from the high angle; compare the above image to the IR image. Secondly, I'll note that because all the satellites are geosynchronous, many storms will have a steep angle. However because they're geosynchronous, we can use some image magic (or ImageMagick) and create animated gifs really easily! I'll try to work up a system for doing so and get back to you. Jdorje 22:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cool, and glad you liked it. Hopefully the gifs will work, cause that would be insane for any article! Got a bit of a problem, though. I am currently on 1998 for images for each storm, and there is an image of four simultaneoushurricanes. It works for the article, but what do we do with the image for each storm? Hurricanehink 16:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, either label them appropriately in the article (enough text in the caption to explain it), or we could even cut up the image and upload the individual parts of it. Jdorje 22:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That archive isn't perfect by any means. GOES sometimes goes on vacation. I was looking up images for the 1992 East Pacific hurricane season and found, much to my dismay, that GOES images were not available from early September through the rest of the year! This leaves me without images for 8 of the last 9 storms. I DO have one of those nine (Tina) that I found on a different site. I also found another GOES archive, but the images are full disc and completely zoomed out, with the storm tiny and far away. So, every good thing has its drawbacks. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 05:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pacific

Is this going to be done in the east Pacific as well, or perhaps only track maps? 2005, 1997, 1989, 1977, and 1976 have summaries for each storm. Perhaps we could restrict pictures to landfalls, perhaps? Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. This was just a mini-project of mine, though because I have trouble staying on one project, I may not finish the Atlantic to its entirety. If someone else does it, I would recommend just landfalls and Cat. 4+ hurricanes. Just landfalls would include powerful hurricanes that were impressive, like Linda. In case anyone cares, my current project is Mediterranean tropical cyclones. Hurricanehink 00:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Screw my previous suggestion. The 1997 season has a picture for each storm now. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 18:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Category colors

Everybody's arguing about the category color changes, but they are doing it all over the place. I've seen separate discussions at {{Saffir-Simpson}}, User:AySz88/Sandbox#New_hurricane_color_palatte, 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and 2005 Atlantic hurricane season statistics, and they all repeat the same arguments. To actually reach any kind of consensus this discussion needs to be unified, either here or at Template_talk:Storm colour cat5. Jdorje 23:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the discussion is going on at Talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season statistics Titoxd(?!? - help us) 21:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Acceptable Infobox Pics

I believe the chain of command should go, from top choice to last resort, like this:

Thoughts and opinions? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 01:13, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good, though I'd make one tweak. I personally think Visible satellite photos should be first, followed by Infrared satellite shots. I think Visibles give a truer perspective of the storm. Hurricanehink 01:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think no pic should be preferred to using the track pic. The track pic should go in the storm history section to accompany the text there. An having no pic leaves the nopic category intact so somebody will look for a real picture. Jdorje 01:30, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Hink on the Visibles. They're my favorite. Jdorje, the nopic would still be in place for all storms prior to 1851 and plenty afterwards, so let's not fret about it falling by the wayside. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 01:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That brings up something that was brought up on the Dennis FAC: The track pic (or any other pic) shouldn't be left-adjusted and starting a section at the same time. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:54, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? And where should it go and how should it be aligned? Jdorje 03:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I don't know why. It is a style issue which I'm trying to find in the Manuals of Stlye. However, I read somewhere that a picture needs to be right-aligned if it is starting a section, unless there is an infobox or another image that would cause problems with text flow. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, how is this related again? And the problem with being left adjusted is the heading right? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 02:06, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this is related to this because Jdorje brought up the location of the track picture above. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 03:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, whether it's related or not I'd like an answer ;-). There are hundreds of storm articles with storm tracks and almost all of them come at the beginning of the "Storm history" section, left-aligned. I don't see what could possibly be wrong with this, but it would be a pain to fix (unless we just change {{storm path}} to be right-aligned by default, which would have its own problems). Jdorje 22:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Userbox

{{User WPTC}} gives

This user is a member of the Tropical cyclone Wikiproject.

NSLE (T+C+CVU) 10:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying trying to add it to my user page but it conflicts with my contents box. Is there a way to fix this? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 05:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Done NSLE (T+C+CVU) 05:21, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement drive

Hurricane Katrina has been nominated to be improved by WP:IDRIVE. Support it with your vote and help us bring it up to featured standard! Vote here. --Fenice 12:45, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Clearing the overloaded "Storms" sections of season pages

Since many older storms have too little information to warrant their own articles, yet the overall length of the season pages are too long in most cases, what about splitting them off to a Storms page, i.e. Storms of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, with the information - and infoboxes - for the storms that do not have their own article. (If a section gets too long there, it can quickly take its own article) Storms with their own articles should only have a link there, no information. (Should not be done for 2005 and future seasons as articles are all planned - even the least-notable storms from 2005 I've been able to make more than stubs for) CrazyC83 17:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For 2005 I believe a simple table listing all the hurricanes with links to the individual articles should replace the entire storms section. Jdorje 18:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What is a hurricane season but the sum of its storms? Removing them would be like writing about the World Series without entries for the individual games. People just need to learn how to follow summary style. If a storm has its own article, you don't need to put very much in the season article. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And that's exactly what the "Season summary" section already does! (Well, right now it's a bit incomplete since nobody cares about it much, but it already gives all of the actual important information about each storm.) Jdorje 18:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But for most seasons, there would be so little stuff left. I would agree to having each storm having their own article before this, because at least the storm links are right there, though for the record I am still against that. Hurricanehink 20:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agreed. Jdorje, in most season summeries, only notable storms are mentioned. The storms section describes them all. Without it, we would be devoid of info on a lot of storms. And Cyrius hits the nail on the head. A table just simply won't cut it. And I'm against creating articles for every storm for any season. The main article is and should remain king, the subpages secondary. -- Hurricane Eric§ archive -- my dropsonde 05:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Enhanced hurricane template

The {{hurricane}} now holds the article quality class. We can (and should) embed other "meta-data" about articles into this template! But what is needed to be known for each article? Maybe we should start with a date on which the quality class was last visited and who assigned it, like {{hurricane|class=Start|date=January 2006}}. Or maybe that's not ambitious enough, and we should embed a whole set of explanation text: {{hurricane|class=Start|reason=This article documents a current event and should be re-assessed when the event is over.}}. Or maybe both, of course. Jdorje 04:18, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scope

Some user has been adding {{hurricane}} to tc meteorology articles. The original scope of the wikiproject, however, was just to cover historical data about tcs. Should these articles be removed from the wikiproject or should the scope be expanded? Jdorje 21:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Annular hurricane and 1-2-3 rule; there may have been others. See Category:Tropical cyclone meteorology. Jdorje 05:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of tc articles in the spanish wikipedia

I've noticed that Spanish wikipedia has very few information about this important assignment, can I help translating these articles into Spanish. Would it help? I need an answer juan andrés 02:21, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No need to ask, just go ahead and start! I can't help, as I can't speak a word of Spanish (bar Este usuario no entiende espanol :P :P) but the more languages the better. -- Sarsaparilla39 23:46, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
At Talk:List of notable Atlantic hurricanes there is a discussion over the most notable Atlantic hurricanes of all time. If you're translating articles, you might want to start with those. Jdorje 23:50, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article intros

Every article has an intro. For storm articles, this introduction should always mention certain things:

  • A mention of the storm's name, in bold: "Hurricane Wilma was a hurricane."
  • A link to tropical cyclone (possibly piped through the text "hurricane", "typhoon", "tropical depression", etc.): "Hurricane Wilma was a hurricane."
  • A full mention and link to the season: "Hurricane Wilma was a hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season."
  • A mention of the storm's month (in most cases exact dates are not required I'd say, though in some situations it can be appropriate): "Hurricane Wilma was a hurricane during October of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season."
  • A brief mention of where the hurricane went: "The storm formed in the western Caribbean, sweeping over the Yucatan Peninsula before crossing Florida and heading out into the open Atlantic."
  • A brief mention of areas affected: "The Mexican state of Quintana Roo and the U.S. state of Florida both received very heavy damage."
  • A brief summary of damages and deaths: "At least 62 deaths have been reported, and damages is estimated at $18-22 billion dollars (2005 US dollars)."
  • A brief mention of any meteorological records set. "Wilma became the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record when its pressure dropped to 882 mbar (hPa)."

All of the above are things I would consider manditory for a B-class article. Of course there are other things that can be mentioned:

  • A link to the basin; i.e., Atlantic hurricane (IMO this should be somewhere in the article; maybe it should be added to the infobox).
  • Storm "numbers": "Hurricane Wilma was the twenty-first named storm, twelfth hurricane, and sixth major hurricane of the season."

Overall introduction should be kept brief. Jdorje 19:06, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with most of that and can live with the others. I also agree that the intro should be brief. That's why I support the current intro for the season articles. I think that you should start with a basic sentence and then give the most notable fact about it. Example: "Hurricane Wilma was an intense Category 5 hurricane that heavily damaged Mexico and southern Florida. Wilma is the most intense Atlantic hurricane on record with a minimum pressure of 882 millibars..." -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 21:42, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by season articles? IMO the problem with the current format is that it is too wordy because the first sentence (or two) gives the official bounds which are not particularly notable. Jdorje 06:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The bounds of the season are notable. They're something that the reader should keep in mind when reading records and stuff. The current intro is a nessisary evil Jdorje. We're still an encyclopedia, no matter what kind. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 04:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The bounds of the season are notable, and worth mentioning in the article. They are not necessary for a two-paragraph overview of the season. Jdorje 04:43, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TfD nomination of Template:Tropical cyclone

Template:Tropical cyclone has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Template:Tropical cyclone. Thank you. --Golbez 22:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Future storm addition: Tornado list

I made this for tornado outbreak pages, but I think it can apply here when a tornado outbreak occurs within a hurricane. This list should keep track of all the tornadoes and when they occur. It could be included in a sub-section "List of tornadoes" (or, in a large outbreak, as a sub-page to a storm). It should be a section introduced for the 2006 season.

F# Location County Time (UTC) Path length (miles) Damage
{state/country}
bgcolor=#Template:Storm colour cat1 | F1 Anytown Unknown 0000 5 miles
(8 km) 		Several barns were destroyed and one home was damaged. No injuries reported.
As verified by Public Domain This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Weather Service.

If a tornado outbreak inside a hurricane gets a separate page, it should be named Hurricane (name) Tornado Outbreak. I wouldn't worry about doing it for past storms, but for future storms, it is an idea I came up with.

CrazyC83 03:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good idea. Never hurts to be organized. Hurricanehink 03:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it was more of an afterthought for here - I was trying to reorganize recent tornado outbreaks and realized with the number of tornadoes reported in recent hurricanes, it wouldn't hurt to bring it over here too. It would include any part of the storm, including the extratropical phase or areas of inland states. The Fujita scale background color is basically the same color scheme as the Saffir-Simpson scale, with F0 = storm. The "List of tornadoes" sub-section will be in the "Impact" section, after the regional impacts. If there were only a few isolated tornadoes, I wouldn't worry about adding it. CrazyC83 03:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, I am starting to work on research to find all the information for past storms - starting with the last few years. I am also working on trying to find specific death toll information to current standards, although that could be difficult. It won't appear on the pages until I have the information (if I find it).

Make sure you include source links for any info you find! Lots of storms have no references for their "total damages". Jdorje 19:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For direct deaths, the source is always the Tropical Cyclone Report. Often I'm able to get the state but not the county so they will go down as "unknown". CrazyC83 23:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've managed to get the lists for Charley, Ivan, Jeanne, Dennis and Isabel, and the numbers sometimes go over the NHC figures (i.e. Isabel at 53, not 50). I don't think I'll be able to compile lists from before then (at least to the current levels of detail) because of the fact that information becomes more prevalent with recent storms. However, if I find the information, I will include it. CrazyC83 16:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Note, even if the source is the TCR there should still be a reference. It needs to be obvious where every bit of data comes from so future writers can verify it. Also, I'd say differentiating death tolls by country is more important than by state...a lot of Caribbean hurricanes affected many countries and could use tables. Hink's been adding these, and I've added a few...but our tables look very different than yours. Why do you prefer that weird blue/yellow color scheme? Jdorje 16:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The blue and grey was always there since it was first introduced by someone else (as an experiment) with Katrina. At first, it was only for US storms, but Wilma was the first that affected both the US and other countries to a great degree. The yellow was added to make sure that each section had its own color. I see it has been changed since - that should be the color scheme used for 2006 and beyond as it becomes an operational template. I'd only add it though when the death toll reaches about 10 or so, since a small toll could easily be written out well in the impact section.

It will also be used for other weather-related disasters as well (as necessary), not just hurricanes. CrazyC83 18:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tornado project update: March 5th

I have made sections on my user page for the tornado outbreak charts for storms that indeed had a confirmed outbreak (Cindy, Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Emily pending TCR). In most cases, they would be sections of the existing article (except Katrina, which will definitely have its own subarticle, and possibly Rita which will be discussed further). CrazyC83 18:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Level of detail in season articles

One thing I notice many season articles do not follow is the principle of increasing detail. The amount of detail given on a particular storm in the intro should be less than what is given in that storm's section; often the intro has more detail on the important storms than those storm sections have. Also, more detail should be given on more notable storms, regardless of the presence of other articles. Just because a hurricane has a separate article does not mean it deserves less mention in the season article. The season article needs to stand on its own - with other articles providing only supplementary information.

For older articles, this means we need to remember to balance the article. For new articles, it is a problem because the level of detail will just grow and grow. Eventually you have the decision of cutting information out and losing it, or splitting data off into a separate article. But the principle of balance means you can't just cut from one storm to shorten the article a bit - all storms sections should be kept balanced in length so you may need to cut equally from all storms. The format currently in use for the 2005 season (with a separate List of 2005 Atlantic hurricane season storms articles solves this by allowing information to be moved back and forth, but there are other ways we could solve it too.

Jdorje 05:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Jdorje, we need to excercise a greater level of discretion on what is said. There are some facts (like the name of a Hurricane Hunter pilot) that just don't need to be said. Those are the facts that I try to cut from the longer sections, like Bonnie in 2004AHS. The different sections can have different, but not disproportional lengths. We don't need a set length for all sections, that's instruction creep. We get an attachment to these menial facts and demand that they stay, but that causes the length problem, therefore cut the menial facts. And that doesn't mean cut the entire storms section, that was one ridiculous proposition that made me upset. It sounded very smart-alec to me. The storms section is the heart of the article. For a reason I have yet to understand, you guys saw a need to give 2005AHS a heart transplant. That's why your first paragraph has been my policy ever since I came to the hurricane pages back in the glory days. The restrictions on length should be much looser than your personal preference. Your length restrictions are too strict. We shouldn't even get nearvous until 80 KB and start cutting stuff at 100 KB. 40 KB is WAY too strict. There needs to be more information on the current season pages than that (on the same page and not on subpages, Jdorje). Cutting or moving all that information does more harm than good. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 14:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, length insn't an issue in FAs. The only reason why there is a recommended size of 32 KB is that some old browsers choke with pages that are longer than that, but otherwise, it is usually not an issue in FA nominations. For example, Attack on Pearl Harbor is 52 KB long, and Race is a whopping 127 KB. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 02:11, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

tcexpand

I added a new template, {{tcexpand}} that is similar to {{expand}}, along with its own category Tropical cyclone articles to be expanded. The category is somewhat unpopulated at this point. — jdorje (talk) 04:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Storm pics templates

Storm pics are working pretty good. I only wanted to advice this: Please do not put storm pics for old seasons (before 1950). altough this has not happened I'm warning because it will be very hard finding images for older seasons juan andrés 01:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The storm tracks exist separately from satellite images. Eric has some (partially founded) concerns about adding pictures to articles unnecessarily, but in any case whether we add storm paths is a separate issue from whether to add satellite images. However, before 1890 (or perhaps 1893) the quality of the best-track data deteriorates and it is probably not worthwhile to add storm tracks. — jdorje (talk) 01:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the first satellite image was taken on April 1, 1960. The earliest satellite image of a hurricane that I've seen is of Hurricane Carla in 1961 (and it sucked, by the way). I've heard reports that one exists of Hurricane Donna in 1960, but I haven't seen it. So you're not going to find any satellite images of storms before 1960. I've also seen radar images of storms back to Hurricane Alice on New Years Day, 1955. Beyond that, you're going to be looking at aerial photos from Hurricane Hunters, damage photos, action shots (during the storm), or nothing at all. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 02:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2004 EP needs love

As I just stated on its talk page, when I was alone in making 2004 Pacific hurricane season, I only wrote about the notable storms. Since the precedent has been set in others to mention ALL, someone really needs to flesh this article out. --Golbez 21:22, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been going through the atlantic seasons (currently 1950-2004) and making sure all the storms match up with what's in the best-track (s:Atlantic hurricane best track), and in the proper order (the only one that was missing was a 1981 storm, though several were out of order). Somebody should do this for the other basins too. Talk:Accumulated_Cyclone_Energy/EPac_by_year gives a complete list of EPac storms (sometime soon I will make up a similar list, but containing tables for max wind speed, formation, dissipation, etc., for all storms). — jdorje (talk) 21:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New articles

As the portal has a space for new articles, I think that we should only create one new article per week so we won't run out of new articles for the portal. We could perhaps "release" the new article every Monday (or whenever) so that there is one new article for the portal each week. Since it is extremely likely certain that there will be bad/notable hurricanes and typhoons and tropical cyclones in the future, by judiciously conserving our new articles, we won't run out of candidates. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "selected articles" on the portal are for good articles, not for new articles. However the idea of having one article per week to focus on improving is a good one IMO. — jdorje (talk) 01:42, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. We should have an Tropical Cyclone Article Improvement Drive of the week. Hurricanehink 03:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a bit more aprehensive about that. It sounds a little too restrictive. There are pretty strong pros and cons. So I'm not sure if I'm "fer it or agin it". I'll have to think on it a bit. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 07:41, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I disagree, I don't really think there are particularly strong pros or cons. Pros: it will help focus our efforts on one article, potentially leading to faster work since we communnicate about things more. Cons: potentially overlapping work if more than one person works on an article at the same time. It's not like everyone is forced to work on that article though. We've already been doing this to some degree; as HurricaneHink's been going through the retired Atlantic storms one by one, I've been following and making my own improvements. — jdorje (talk) 19:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What I meant was the "Did you know..." Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:30, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

H. Katrina

In an effort to improve the Hurricane Katrina family of articles, a new project has been proposed:

Evolauxia 11:52, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wind speeds in hurricanes vs. tornadoes

Several TC project members have also been very helpful in contributing to tornado events. There does seem to be some confusion, however, in regard to wind speeds. In hurricanes, the direct wind speeds are an integral part of the process in measurement (data collection) and determining strength and category (differentiation). With tornadoes, this just isn't possible, wind speeds are not directly used because they aren't known and aren't measured directly. The Fujita scale is what is used to differentiate tornado intensity and it utilizes damage, it estimates wind speeds correlated to damage but these speeds are not exact, are open to great effect from inordinate variables, and are not calibrated by actual testing.

Wind speeds have been added to infoboxes and event article boxes, as well as used inproperly in the manuscript of some articles, and should immediately be removed (or modified in the manuscript of articles) and it understoood that it is pseudoscientific and unecyclopedic.

It's totally unjustified and not something that should be perpetuated by Wikipedia or any encyclopedia. Ask a NWS meteorologist if they really can say that those exact speeds are known and they would say no. NSSL, SPC, researchers, Fujita, Grazulis, etc. would tell you the same and it is very well reflected in the literature. Given that *some* NWS offices do unfortunately post this information, here are a couple of authoritative online sources in support of my position:

http://www.srh.weather.gov/jetstream/mesoscale/tornado.htm "The F-scale is to be used with great caution. Tornado wind speeds are still largely unknown; and the wind speeds on the F-scale have never been scientifically tested and proven. Different winds may be needed to cause the same damage depending on how well-built a structure is, wind direction, wind duration, battering by flying debris, and a bunch of other factors."

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/#f-scale1 "Tornado wind speeds are still largely unknown; and the wind speeds on the original F-scale have never been scientifically tested and proven. Different winds may be needed to cause the same damage depending on how well-built a structure is, wind direction, wind duration, battering by flying debris, and a bunch of other factors. Also, the process of rating the damage itself is largely a judgment call -- quite inconsistent and arbitrary (Doswell and Burgess, 1988). Even meteorologists and engineers highly experienced in damage survey techniques often came up with different F-scale ratings for the same damage."

"So if the original F-scale winds are just guesses, why are they so specific? Excellent question. Those winds were arbitrarily attached to the damage scale based on 12-step mathematical interpolation between the hurricane criteria of the Beaufort wind scale, and the threshold for Mach 1 (738 mph). Though the F-scale actually peaks at F12 (Mach 1), only F1 through F5 are used in practice, with F0 attached for tornadoes of winds weaker than hurricane force. Again, F-scale wind-to-damage relationships are untested, unknown and purely hypothetical. They have never been proven and may not represent real tornadoes. F-scale winds should not be taken literally."

Evolauxia 21:48, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bring it up on the discussion pages of those particular articles and then change them. This problem shouldn't be a hard one to fix. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have but it seems to be a pervasive problem of sorts and I'm guessing part of that is due to the influence of wind speeds for tropical cyclones, so I'm covering the bases. It's also applicable to the tornado tables that will go into some hurricane articles. Evolauxia 08:37, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Longest Articles in WikiProject Tropical Cyclones

1.- Hurricane Katrina

2.- Hurricane Gaston

3.- Hurricane Floyd

4.- Hurricane Georges

5.- Hurricane Rita

6.- Hurricane Wilma

7.- Hurricane Dennis

8.- Hurricane Lili (1996)

9.- Hurricane Hugo

10.-Hurricane Stan

Storm05 18:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where does this data come from? — jdorje (talk) 18:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Our goal should be for this list to line up 1:1 with the list of most notable tropical cyclones. Of course this is hard since newer storms always have more data. But there are some very notable storms - like Andrew - that should be on this list but aren't. And there are some storms - like Gaston and Lili - that have more detail than is justified. — jdorje (talk) 18:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That list is wrong. Of those, the list is Katrina (98), Wilma (37), Rita (36), Floyd (25), Georges (24.5, though it is under construction), Dennis (17.5), Stan (13.6), Gaston (13), Hugo (11.67), and Lili (8.5). A quick check shows the 1900 Galveston Hurricane is 22, Ivan is 29, and Frances is 17.66. Jdorje, that's a good idea. We should make up a list of the most notable storms, and that could be another mini-project. Hurricanehink 21:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we already had an argument over notability in List of notable Atlantic hurricanes. Of course we couldn't agree on the most notable storms, but it should give a pretty good idea of what's out there. However it is much easier to find information on storms since 1995, and on storms that impacted the U.S. It is unlikely, for instance, that Hurricane Janet will ever catch up with Hurricane Floyd in level of detail, even though it is a more notable storm — but we can hope that it will catch up with Hurricane Gaston. — jdorje (talk) 22:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Why all the interest in Gaston? Sure it did some damage, but it was still less notable than Hurricane Cindy (2005) which everyone seems to want to merge. — jdorje (talk) 22:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure about Gaston. I don't really see the point of it. It caused some localized damage, and I feel badly for those in Richmond who were greatly flooded, but it really wasn't that notable. I'll keep to my old philosophy; lots of information does not equal notable. Judge the storm, not the article. I know others think otherwise, but that is my personal belief. I was originally against Cindy, but based on its damage figure I'm fine with it staying. About the notable ones, you are completely right, and it's ashame. Based on its effects, Janet should be just as informative as Floyd, but due to when it was, that's never going to happen. I suppose we're getting there. Floyd was re-done, and Georges is almost re-done. Other low-quality yet notable articles, mark my words, will get the information they deserve at some point in time. Hurricanehink 22:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would have wanted to merge Gaston too if it didn't have twice the substance that Cindy did. When I first read it, gramatical errors aside, it had much more information than the Cindy article did. Still does. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 00:59, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notes on AHS writing

I've copyedited most of the post-1950 AHS articles (up to 1990 at this point), and I have some notes that we should keep in mind when doing future writing (of past seasons).

  • Don't use the term "storm strength". "Storm" is too generic to be used as a shortening of "tropical storm". Instead say "It reached tropical storm strength" or better yet "It became a tropical storm".
  • Make sure to include units for damages. We always need to include the damage-at-the-time figure, and should also include an inflated amount next to it (which can be updated periodically). I prefer a format like "caused $500 in damages ($2000 in 2005 USD)" but other forms are possible too. The same should probably apply to the infoboxes (as is done with hurricanes - we should make it standard to list uninflated and inflated damages, in order) as well.
  • Don't be too precise with damage amounts; there's no need to say "caused about $32.574 million in damages", since it's just an estimate anyway. No way should more than 3 significant digits ($32.6 million) be used, and usually 2 is sufficient I'd say ($33 million).
  • Give references. Right now nothing in the season articles is referenced. The MWS is listed as an external link and presumably this is where most information comes from. But from now on when adding info we should give a reference. You can just use the simple inline reference format, and we'll convert it to <ref>/<reference> later.
  • Remember to make the length of each storm's summary proportional to that storm's importance. In a bunch of the seasons of the 1980s and 1990s, the important storms are the ones with the least detail since the author knew these storms had their own articles and just gave a short summary. But each article needs to stand on its own and be internally consistent, so the most notable storms are the ones that should have the most information.
  • I'm not always sure what words should be hyphenated and what shouldn't. For instance northeast is in some places written as north-east, which is simply wrong. But should it be "upper-level low" or "upper level low" - I tend to think this one should be hyphenated. What about "low-pressure system" - this is usually just written as "low pressure system" and I haven't changed it. This is a minor issue, but it would help to be consistent in our writing.
  • Don't insert confusing links. tropical storm and tropical depression and hurricane should not be linked since those are just redirects back to the monster article tropical cyclone. Category 3 hurricane could be linked since that goes to SSS which a straightforward explanation of what the term means. subtropical and extratropical (or subtropical storm/extratropical storm) should be linked since those articles explain what the terms mean. Another common example is linking to "Yucatan peninsula" - Yucatan is a state, so what should be linked here is Yucatan peninsula.
  • Don't use "mid-Atlantic" to mean the middle of the Atlantic. Mid-Atlantic is part of the United States. Use "central Atlantic" instead.

More to come. — jdorje (talk) 00:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just say I'm sorry for some of that. I basically wrote all of the 1950-1978 storm summaries. I felt by writing only a little bit about an important storm, it would draw people into the storm article. I guess that was wrong, oh well. You're exactly right about references (again sorry!), and eventually someone should do that. Hopefully we'll be able to use these simple guidelines when writing in the future. Hurricanehink 01:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AHS naming lists

Naming lists for Atlantic hurricanes go back to 1950, but not a single one of them gives a source. This makes it hard to verify any changes. For instance some anon came through and made this and this edit. Are these correct? I have no way to know, so I just added {{not verified}} to the whole section of the AHS article. However whoever wrote these originally surely does have a source for them. So where are the online sources? — jdorje (talk) 21:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I got your note. Maybe we should look to see if one person added all of them. If so, he/she/it/they might have where they got it, and would be able to resolve the whole situation. Worst comes to worst, we could just ask NHC. Hurricanehink 21:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Assessments sub-page

I added /Assessments as a sub-page, and copied over assessment discussion there. Add it to your watchlists if you're interested in following those discussions. I also nominated 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane for FA; see its section on the sub-page for the discussion. — jdorje (talk) 03:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Commons Category

I created a new Category at the Commons, [Category:Tropical cyclone impacts] (it is plural because tropical cyclones impact in more than one way) for damage photos, rainfall charts, etc. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 18:37, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. There are so many hurricane pictures (maybe 10,000 of them?), categorizing them will be a task beyond monumental. — jdorje (talk) 20:02, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, this will be worse than going through every last tropical cyclone article. I'll try to help over the 4-day weekend. Hurricanehink 21:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm concerned that's a project for the far future. Just make sure to categorize new pictures somewhere under commons:Category:Tropical cyclones so we'll be able to find them. I have made a few categories for media for individual storms, like commons:Category:1928 Okeechobee Hurricane or commons:Category:Hurricane Dennis - probably all FA should get categories like this which can be referenced in the external links. — jdorje (talk) 22:22, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Before this would go any further, should it be subdivided? Like Jdorje said there are thousands of them. Maybe it would be better to go by decade, or even by season. All of 2005's would be all be apart in one huge glob of a category. If this is going to happen, it should go Basin, then decade, then season, then by storm if necessary (like the Okeechobee Hurricane or Dennis). Hurricanehink 16:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Atlantic hurricane best track

So last night while browsing the NHC web site I stumbled on the motherlode: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/Data_Storm.html. This has a whole host of useful data. Perhaps the most useful single entry is the easy hurdat file, which provides the whole thing in HTML format, including anchors - this can be used to link directly to hurdat sources. Also quite interesting is the US hurricane list, giving every hurricane to affect the united states - perhaps most interesting here is the gaps; it seems that 1915-1979 has not fully been re-analyzed. Next, the data-by-year provides some very interesting data although it's inconsistent; the most detailed years seem to be the oldest ones (which were most recently added), for instance 1851 lists all measurements on which the best-track is based as well as the NHC comments. — jdorje (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More Assessments

Wikipedia article assessments have begun. They are starting with Natural Disasters. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

Shouldn't we use the template for the individual storms on the 2005 page on all the other seasons? I don't see why we havn't.Icelandic Hurricane 01:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're asking. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 06:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you're talking about the button bar, it is in use for others. If you're talking about the table of contents, that was only because of the massive number of storms. Hurricanehink 14:14, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. The thing where you put the Storm's pic and track on the main season aricle, next the each individual storm. Icelandic Hurricane 00:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh. Well, here might not be the best place to ask, mainly because Eric and I both voted no and Jdorje abstained. Just kidding, but I still don't see the need. One thing we could do instead of that is ensuring every summary of every storm lists the longevitity and peak. Hurricanehink 00:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bad News

Ive got bad news, the the NCDC website is down because I cant get any storm pics. Storm05 15:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, I noticed that the other day. It seems to be off and on. Hurricanehink 16:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's been down for the past several days and it's beginning to annoy the crap out of me. I've been trying to replace images in my hurricane archive and I can't do that when the GIBBS site is down. HSEI site is back up though. It moved to a new URL and was down for almost a week. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 17:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's back up, for now. Hurricanehink 01:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sister project planned

I've decided to propose a new WikiProject for all weather-related topics called Meteorology and Weather Events. This would be a sister project to it. The proposal link is User:CrazyC83/Meteorology and the sign in and approval link is Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Meteorology_and_Weather_Events. CrazyC83 21:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is already a weather wikiproject? Or am I confusing it with the weather portal? — jdorje (talk) 23:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Probably confusing with the portal, if that even exists (you may be thinking about the portal within this project). CrazyC83 01:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, there is such a thing as Portal:Weather, although it isn't maintained much, by the looks of things. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Hurricane Huron"

I think we should create an article under the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season because clearly had the structure of a Tropical Cyclone and it also had an eye. Even though it formed in the Great Lakes, it should have an article. Funnybunny 22:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Having an eye does not mean it is a tropical cyclone. Unless it is warm-core, it was almost certainly a polar low or extratropical cyclone rather than a tropical cyclone, and should not have the term "hurricane" anywhere near it. For instance the Blizzard of 2006 had a very well-defined eye structure (see images in that article), but was certainly not tropical in nature. I suspect the 1996 Huron storm was the same. — jdorje (talk) 22:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not bad

There was a recent assessment of Natural disasters articles, and we didn't do too bad. The listing shows that all of our articles had high scores, with no article being lower than a 6, and a couple of 9's. Also, we're the WikiProject with the most Featured articles and A-class articles in the science field: the listing can be seen here. Overall, we're tied for 5th for the WikiProject with most FAs, and several of our articles are slowly being improved from B's to A's and finally to FAs. A few Wiki-projects have all their articles listed; in that case, we would have to include an extra 83 articles, and that would make us the WikiProject with the most articles assessed overall. Overall, it seems that we're doing a good job during the "offseason", don't you think? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 05:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Completely agreed. Good work everyone! Now we got to beat the WP Elements, as we're tied with them for most FA's. Hurricanehink 14:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You wont Beleive this!

But look what the people at Uncyclopeida did to the 2005 storms! ---> [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Storm05 17:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actually like "Silly string attacks the Atlantic coast" the best. [10] —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 18:08, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The ironic thing is their Katrina article is actually better organized then wikipedia's... — jdorje (talk) 18:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tracking to do

Made a copyedit pass on Great Havana Hurricane of 1846, listed on the portal page to do list [11]. Should list be updated? DavidH 18:29, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good work. Yea, we should probably discuss a new list here, given that not too many people worry about the portal. Here's my thoughts:

Obviously, not all will be listed. I know needs sources isn't a task, but it should be. For the expand section, I put every retired Atlantic hurricane that it is pretty bad. A current goal for the project is having every Retired Atlantic hurricane article to be at least B class, and those above are pretty bad in need of a complete makeover. We should pick 5 off the expand list for now. I vote Janet, Carla, Camille (which just needs impact), Gilbert, and Mitch. Hurricanehink 20:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gilbert, Camille and Mitch should become featured eventually, as they are almost household names due to their impact/intensity, so those should get top priority. After that, I would say Iris and Dora, but those aren't really as important as the other three. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good point about the "household name". I personaly think Camille should be first. Hurricanehink 03:13, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of tropical cyclone names

Would Wikipedia have any use for a list of every tropical cyclone name ever used? I made a list of exactly this over the last few weeks, and I believe it could be benificial. This is what I have done so far. Hurricanehink 16:20, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure there's already an article that lists this. But yours looks better. — jdorje (talk) 18:02, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The existing article only lists the basin's names, but I thought it would make more sense to list when every name was actually used. Hurricanehink 18:05, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This list is pretty good and I can see that a lot of work went into it, but (there's always a but, isn't there?) it would need some more work to actually be an article. For example, it lumps Delores and Dolores together, but keeps Kirsten and Kristen apart; it links Michelle but not Mitch; it mentions Kendra as a TD but not Dolores (1970) and so on. On the plus side, it would be usuful in finishing disambiguation pages. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:36, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, I'm only human. Nice catch, and I got those you mentioned. Though it is mostly tables, what would be required to have this be a real article? Hurricanehink 00:59, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The article I was thinking of is List_of_tropical_cyclone_names_used_in_more_than_one_basin, which is a totally unnecessary list and is replaced by your list (that list is basically an incomplete, inferior version of yours). There's also Lists_of_tropical_cyclone_names which is a good article but misnamed; this article simply explains cyclone naming in the different basins and it isn't really a list at all (though it does include several lists). — jdorje (talk) 01:25, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lists_of_tropical_cyclone_names should be renamed as Naming of tropical cyclones, and should probably be split up by basin: Naming of Atlantic hurricanes, etc. It can then give the history of the naming systems for each basin (enough for a full article for the Atlantic anyway) as well as the upcoming (and possibly older) lists. — jdorje (talk) 01:28, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I brought up the renaming over at the List of tropical cyclone names talk page. While we're talking here, should we put the List_of_tropical_cyclone_names_used_in_more_than_one_basin up for deletion or for merging? Like you said, the list I created sort of supersedes that page. Hurricanehink 01:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it should be merged, once your article is up and running. — jdorje (talk) 07:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pre 1850 tracks

File:Great Havana Hurricane Track (estimated).JPG
Map plotting the storm's track and intensity, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale
Map key
Saffir–Simpson scale
  Tropical depression (≤38 mph, ≤62 km/h)
  Tropical storm (39–73 mph, 63–118 km/h)
  Category 1 (74–95 mph, 119–153 km/h)
  Category 2 (96–110 mph, 154–177 km/h)
  Category 3 (111–129 mph, 178–208 km/h)
  Category 4 (130–156 mph, 209–251 km/h)
  Category 5 (≥157 mph, ≥252 km/h)
  Unknown
Storm type
triangle Extratropical cyclone, remnant low, tropical disturbance, or monsoon depression

I created an estimated track of the Great Havana Hurricane of 1846. The track nearly matches what is described in the article. (note, I had to use a unisys map since I do not know how to work that storm path generator). Storm05 18:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since there is no best track data, there is no basis for such a map; it constitutes original research. — jdorje (talk) 19:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then what happens if the original research comes up short then, if so can we make estimated track maps for pre 1851 storms because im planning to make a track map for the Great September Gale of 1815, the 1837 racers storm ,the Norfolk-Long Island Hurricane of 1821, Great Hurricane of 1780 and the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635. Storm05 20:04, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That looks good, but how do we know if it is correct? The article says the hurricane hit Cuba then Key West, then Cedar Key, but yours has it making landfall south of Tampa Bay. There's also no evidence for a Florida mainland Cat. 5 landfall. Something like that would be fine for the talk pages, though. In addition, here is an estimated track map. It is by no means official, but see how different yours and its are? They are simply estimates, and nothing is official, meaning, sorry, it can't go in the actual article. Hurricanehink 21:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, we cannot make estimated track maps based on our own research. What we can do is pester the NHC to continue the best-tracks backwards. I suspect that in time they will do so anyway. — jdorje (talk) 01:57, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inflated costs

OK, the totals are conflicting for each page, it seems. Starting now, I propose one inflation calculator is used to avoid different numbers. The one I have been using, located http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ , seems to be less than others, but is, IMO, more realistic. We should have one uniform calculator so the numbers remain consistant. Does this sound fair? Hurricanehink 15:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One problem is the NHC often has their own post-inflation list. We don't want to disagree with that one. — jdorje (talk) 17:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, whoops. Well, I fixed Bonnie using the costliest without inflation list, but most other ones aren't on the list. How should we fix that discrepancy? Should we use the U.S. Department of Commerce Implicit Price Deflator for Construction, which is what the NHC uses? Hurricanehink 17:14, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, if we can use a calculator that gives us the same numbers as the NHC, that would be good. — jdorje (talk) 17:23, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, that's actually really hard. Any idea of where to start looking? I tried googling the source of where the NHC gets it, but the first ~100 pages aren't that helpful. Hurricanehink 17:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Heh heh. Like I said, it is a problem. Not sure what to do about it. We don't want our articles showing one thing when the NHC's costliest-hurricanes list says something else. But we also don't want different articles to conflict with each other. — jdorje (talk) 18:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hurricane 12 (1975)

Ive found info for Hurricane 12 (1975) Storm05 19:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I've seen that. Great find. I thought all the Allenpress sites needed a password but I guess I was wrong. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 00:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of Hurricanes in each state?

Well, we have the List of California hurricanes, Catastrophic Florida Hurricanes: 1900-1960 and Catastrophic Florida Hurricanes: 1961-present, and now Catastrophic Texas Hurricanes since 1900. This could be an interesting project; having a list of the most important hurricanes for each state. Some states might be hard (like Delaware or Rhode Island), so that could be blanketed if necessary. Here's what would be needed.

Not sure about New England. Any thoughts? Hurricanehink 17:59, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

These could form good "top end lists" for each Hurricanes in Somewhere categories. Perhaps we could also do countries... like List of Bahamas hurricanes. Finally, we should probably all call them List of PLACENAME hurricanes so all names have a consistent pattern. Also, if a list gets too long, we can split them up like with Florida. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:02, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, I was thinking that eventually about splitting it up. Good idea about the top-level categories, though it could be hard for Europe or the Canary Islands. Hurricanehink 22:07, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think New England should definetly be done. I might be able to a bit extra with that. Icelandic Hurricane #12 22:11, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure I can dig up some stuff about Arizona tropical storms, as I'm from there... I've been focusing primarily on Nora and I'm surprised by the lack of information, so it might be hard. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 22:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll do New Jersey's. Hurricanehink 22:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa whoa whoa! Time out. Now why is this a good idea? Only three, maybe four states need articles like this: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and maybe Louisiana. The other states don't have an extensive enough hurricane history to warrent an article, especially not New Jersey. You want me to do Alaska while were at it? This is ridiculous. New Jersey? Come on. They've probably had like two hurricanes in the past 150 years. You've got to be kidding me. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 23:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, for New Jersey it is quite the contrary. I plan on using the California hurricanes as a guideline, which includes many storms' remnants. Though two have made landfall in the state in fairly recent history, numerous have passed through the state, and I intend to list them and, briefly, their effects. Remember, this isn't a list of Catastrophic NJ hurricanes, this is a list of every NJ cane. Hurricanehink 23:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For Arizona, there is significant information that can't really go elsewhere. For example, I can't add that the state is affected by a tropical storm or its remnants every 4 years or so in Tropical cyclone or in Arizona, as it isn't information that necessarily belongs there. However, a state sub-article can be the correct place to add it. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 23:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can't we just make catagories instead of an article and create redirects, like with North Carolina? -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 00:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see what's wrong with having it. What about notable storms that don't have articles, yet could use more mentioning in the list of ... page? The categories are there as a guide, while the list of page gives a summary to it. Hurricanehink 00:19, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones Government?

I was thinking, maybe we could have a government for this project. We could have elections the first day of each month. The person with a certain position would be in charge of a certain part of this WikiProject. Sound Interesting? Icelandic Hurricane #12 22:11, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you do or don't support this please sign your name:

  • Yes
  1. Icelandic Hurricane #12.
  2. Hurricanehink
  3. Hurricane Eric
  • No

Comments

It sounds interesting, but I think it should be more like a board of directors. Basically, there's about 10 of us that make up most of the entire project. If this goes through, there should be some basic requirements. Here's what I think. (rm qualifications, see below). Sound good for qualifications? Hurricanehink 22:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like I qualify. Hurray me! We should also make a userbox for the members and a list. Icelandic Hurricane #12 22:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We already have a WikiProject userbox:
This user participates in
WikiProject Tropical cyclones.
.
Those qualifications may sound good now, but I think we may find that we will have to up the anty a bit down the road. Like making it so that you have to have been a member of Wikipedia for at least 3 months and have a certain number of edits (say 500). Just fair warning. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 23:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, those are good as well and should be added. Hurricanehink 23:29, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"(basically, you need a good understanding of hurricanes)"...and have reliable sources to back up your information. Although that's subjective, it should be made known that you will be expected to provide links to reliable sources that back up your information, even if you're just answering a newbie's question on their talk page. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 00:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on! Three months! I'm only 16 days from that! How could you add that! Icelandic Hurricane #12 00:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
LOL, don't worry. By the time this is even official, I'm sure you'll be there. Eric, if you're answering a simple Newbie question (like what's the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon), you probably don't have to reference it in the talk page, unless you meant by linking to where you could find more (like linking to tropical cyclone). If it's that, then very true. Hurricanehink 00:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When will this be official? When we get a certain amount of yeses? When its qualifications are decided? When? Icelandic Hurricane #12 00:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I say when we get 6 yesses. It's qualifications are decided once all 6 people agree to them. Below are the qualifications so far, which is where you vote yes or not. Hurricanehink 00:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. More than 100 of your edits are for a Atlantic hurricane article pre-2000 or in another basin
This may sound a little steep, but I believe that a focus of an official should not be for present Atlantic hurricane articles, rather a well-rounded individual. Hurricanehink
  1. You need to be a member of the Wikiproject
Obviously. Hurricanehink
  1. You must have created at least 1 tropical cyclone article that is still in existence
This is to show that you don't just contribute little things, but that you also take the time to research an article. Hurricanehink
  1. Most of the work you have done has not been reverted
This qualification will limit those who have made controversial edits, and will be at the discretion of the committee to define most. Hurricanehink
  1. You must be willing and able to answer questions about tropical cyclones from newbies, as well as be able to direct them to exising articles.
This is a must. Officials need to be able to thoroughly explain their topic and show where they got their information. If they ask something like, "Do hurricanes occur in Middle Earth" (which I've gotten before), you should be able to explain why or why not to the best of your ability, even if there is no source for it. (If anyone's curious, here are some bad questions I got, to which I answered here). Hurricanehink
  1. You must be a Wikipedia member for 3 months
This is mainly to show your committment for the site and that you will stay here. Hurricanehink
Hink, I agree that you wouldn't need to cite for simple questions like the one you listed above but you should cite if you're giving something like damage figures and stuff. And it shouldn't be just newbies. If you're leading the project, you should respond to pertinent questions from everybody. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 02:01, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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