Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Archive 13

List of notable tropical cyclones, List of Atlantic hurricane seasons, and other pages - a plan

Recently, List of notable tropical cyclones was moved to List of tropical cyclones. The same was done for List of notable Atlantic hurricanes, which was moved to List of Atlantic hurricanes. Personally, I don't think either are a good idea. "Notable" is completely subjective, and by including it in the title it leads to an ill-defined page scope. Omitting the word changes it completely, as it is certainly not a list of every tropical cyclone, nor should it be. Therefore, I propose changing it to become a page of records. This is where it gets interesting.

There is already a page at List of tropical cyclone records, and so the useful information on List of notable tropical cyclones should be merged there. Yes, I am proposing getting rid of the List of notable tropical cyclones page, which has had thousands of edits. The thing is, it's gotten pretty messy, while the List of tropical cyclone records is much neater and better defined.

There is no need to do the same for the Atlantic, however. A while back, there was some talk of revamping the List of Atlantic hurricane seasons page, as it is currently a glorified disambiguation page. The article would still remain as a list of seasons page, but it would also include some of the more important records, like most intense, deadliest, etc. However, its main job is to link each season. Another proposal was to give a sentence of information about each season, like how each storm gets a mention in the List of XXX hurricane pages. There are several options, and it doesn't have to be done at once. List of Atlantic hurricane seasons could be moved to List of Atlantic hurricane records, in the mean time. However, I just wanted to bring this up and talk about it. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Analogues to Saffir-Simpson small for other basins

Template:Saffir-Simpson small, when used in an article, displays a compact version of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. There is no particular reason I see for there not being analogues for other basins. These could potentially be useful in past seasons, rather than having a lengthy scale on the side like active ones do. Hence, the following:

JTWC typhoon scale: Pacific typhoon seasons 1959-99

JTWC Typhoon Scale
TD	TS	TY	STY

JMA Typhoon Scale: Pacific typhoon seasons 2000-present

JMA Typhoon Scale
TD	TS	STS	TY

Tropical Cyclone Severity Levels: Australian region tropical cyclones

Tropical Cyclone Severity Categories
1	2	3	4	5

Meteo-France Scale: South-west Indian Ocean tropical cyclone seasons

SW Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclone Scale
TD	MTS	ITS	TC	ITC	VITC

IMD Scale: North Indian Ocean tropical cyclone seasons

N Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclone Scale
DD	CS	SCS	VSCS	SCS

Here is SSHS for comparison

Saffir–Simpson scale
TD	TS	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5

I made the scales by taking whatever was in Saffir-Simpson small and adjusting the text to fit a new basin. The names are basically "Basin name"+"Tropical Cyclone Scale", although the BOM actually does call its scale "Tropical Cyclone Severity Categories",[1] so I used that name.

The colours I chose are basically scope increases of previously used ones. If there was a level in one basin with the same name as one in another, and one already had a colour, I used the same colour for the new mini-scale. Using this scheme, colours do not match up with wind speeds (like SSHS vs. Australia) The NI colours were ones I saw used previously for a scale in one of the NIO season articles.

There is also the issue of appropriateness. I am not sure how long each current RSMC/namer has been forecasting its basin, so the analogues may be improper because a previous RSMC/namer may not have necessarity used the same scale.

Also, if we do actually make templates for these, we should probably consider the results of the Typhoon colour discussion. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 20:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a pretty good idea, although the JTWC uses SSHS and wouldn't need a separate analogue (Category 4 would have to be divided into TY and STY, as well). --Core desat 01:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

How does this look?Mitch32^contribs 13:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

JTWC Typhoon Scale
TD	TS	1	2	3	4	4ST	5

It looks okay, but again, I'm not entirely sure we need it. --Core desat 21:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Tampico flood of 1955

Inspired by Dean and its remarkable similarity, I took a look at Hurricane Janet and started filling it out and sourcing things. The information in the MWR alone was enough to make the article tremendously better. In passing I found some references to what I hereby call the Tampico flood of 1955...which is rather remarkable and probably deserves some comment by others. Anyone interested should take a look at Talk:Hurricane_Janet about it. — jdorje (talk) 01:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Inflation calculations

Currently, the template with the data powering the automagic inflation calculations in our infoboxes {{US Inflation}} is based upon consumer price index data. However, NOAA uses the implicit price deflator for construction (see NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS TPC-5). I'm looking to see if I can find IPD data, apparently from the DOC. Assuming I find it should I transfer the template to use that? Our figures should correlate better with the NHC ones then (we do have a bit of variation).--Nilf anion (talk) 23:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the best long term solution here - some input would be appreciated. However, I have finally updated the automagic to use 2007 figures. (Sorry for the loooooooow activity of late ;)--Nilf anion (talk) 22:22, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks to Eric Blake at the NHC I can now have the same data source, but due to a revision in the DOC data since TPC-5 was published the figures no longer correlate exactly. (The effect is our figures for pre-2005 storms will be higher than theirs). I'll look into how to dovetail it with the CPI for the older figures, the IPD runs out in 1915.--Nilf anion (talk) 16:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

"Estimated" central pressures

Over the last couple days I noticed a number of places claiming central pressures for certain storms were "estimates". One such place was fixed here. Another is in 1932_Bahamas_Hurricane. Using this term is in most cases flat-out wrong and in all cases misleading. Most places it was used in (in the retired storms list) involves not actual estimates but rather the lowest *recorded* pressure, with the understanding that that pressure doesn't come from the storm's peak strength; calling this an estimate is simply incorrect. Actual examples of estimated pressure include Hurricane Wilma and Hurricane Rita where the NHC made an educated guess as to what the minimum pressure actually was. I replaced the "(estimated)" in the retired storms list with ≤ which may also be misleading since it could apply to a very large number of storms (1935 Labor Day Hurricane, for instance, should also have a ≤ by the same logic). In the case of the Bahamas storm the value is unsourced so I don't know where the "estimated" term comes from. However in general, it's important to realize that MOST if not all modern-day pressures are estimated, even for the Atlantic, and certainly for other basins (*cough* dvorak *cough*). — jdorje (talk) 06:56, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It's a good point you bring up; modern storms are more "estimated" than the older storms. Having the ≤ works well for this purpose, as if we find a lower value (always possible, there are tons of archives that we haven't used), it can always be added without dispute. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Question is: What does the source say? If its like Rita then may be an estimate, but it is an estimate of the peak so = not ≤ should be used. If the source does not say "this is the peak", then we shouldn't treat it as such. Ultimately all peak pressures are estimates, whether they are based on Dvorak, dropsonde, recon or ground measurements; so saying it is an estimate is superfluous.--Nilf anion (talk) 11:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Basically, yes. All pressures are either estimated or measured directly, and rarely (never?) is the peak pressure measured directly. But by that logic one might apply the ≤ to many older storms that were measured regularly by hurricane - for instance Camille had a 905 mbar recorded, but who's to say that pressure was the peak? Compare to Rita where an 897 mbar was recorded but meteorologists estimated the peak was itself around 895 (IIRC). Even so I'd reserve the ≤ for cases where the data is incomplete; if the source (MWR/TCR) claims a particular peak pressure there's no need for us to go questioning it. — jdorje (talk) 22:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

IMO, the use of "estimated" and the estimated minimum pressure should only be for older storms when it is sourced, but unofficial when there is no reliable official number available (i.e. no pressure readings or an unrealistic pressure reading taken when much weaker). CrazyC83 15:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions: unnamed/numbered hurricanes

Capitalization

Should the "hurricane"/"cyclone"/"tropical cyclone" be capitalized? I was always of the opinion that it should not. However we do have conflicting standards.

Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane are capitalized. This seems to be the old standard for the Atlantic.
1999 Orissa cyclone and 2000 Sri Lanka cyclone are not capitalizated. This seems to be a standard for the North Indian basin (see this discussion).
The track maps use uncapitalized names by default. This is mostly representative of me thinking such things shouldn't be capitalized.

— jdorje (talk) 22:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind if we shifted toward a set standard - Year Location cyclone seems to work well for unnamed storms. That would mean moving Galveston Hurricane of 1900 to 1900 Galveston hurricane, which I am in full support. The primary reason I would like the switch is for categorization purposes - currently the Galveston hurricane shows up in G, while the 1928 Okeechobee shows up with the other numbered ones. Hurricanehink (talk) 04:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

This issue doesn't really affect category sorting - unnamed storms are in most cases manually sorted by *, and this has to be done manually for both of the current standards. See here where I just fixed the galveston sorting. — jdorje (talk) 05:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

It also depends on the sources we have, IMO. If a source gives the hurricane a proper name (e.g. "The 1900 Galveston Hurricane"), then I say we go by the source. Otherwise, we go by the default "YYYY Location storm" titles we use. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 18:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, how does that logic apply to the 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane? Most sources call it the "Lake Okeechobee Hurricane". However I don't in principle have a problem with what you say, or even with having either way be acceptable. — jdorje (talk) 00:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

We could move that one to Lake Okeechobee Hurricane, if there are sources calling the article that way. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Oy. I think it is referenced more as Lake Okeechobee hurricane than Okeechobee hurricane. I like the idea of using names, even if unofficial, for storms before 1950, as long as the appropriate reference is cited. Why not, let's start the article names with the year. Thegreatdr 21:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Numbers versus locations

In the north indian, some storms go by the number while others go by location. There have been discussions on each storm about which it should be. Is this something that should be standardized or decided case-by-case? — jdorje (talk) 22:05, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as this was never discussed, I agree it should always go by Year-Location-cyclone for the unnamed ones, as we have done. All NIO articles that are named should be Cyclone XX. --♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear...

Hi. Apparently User:Alastor Moody left a goodbye message on talkpage. User:Chacor left a retirement message on both userpage and talkpage. What should be done, if anything, to the list of participants pages? Thanks. ~A H 1^(TCU) 20:02, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Someone had an idea once to create an inactive members section, which I liked. How about using six months of inactivity as the standard? If they left a good bye or became a retiree, then they should be considered former members of the project, as was done in their cases. Thegreatdr 21:10, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

More assessments

I updated the WikiProject assessment charts, which I originally posted in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Archive 9. Here they are:

Total assessments
FAs v. total articles
As v. total articles
GAs v. total articles
Bs v. total articles
Starts v. total articles
Stubs v. total articles
Unassessed v. total articles

Some comments about trends in the last six months:

FA production has completely stalled. We had a four-month stretch in which no article or list gained featured status.
GA production also slowed down. We are making a GA in the time it would take us to make two just a year ago.
The number of GA-Class articles is closely approaching the number of B-Class articles. If an additional ten pages are sent to WP:GAC, we should be able to have more GAs than B's in less than a month.
The number of Start-Class articles leveled off for a bit, and now is increasing again, albeit slightly.
The number of Stub-Class articles is constant. It hasn't moved away from the 150-160 range since June 2006.

Overall, some new FACs shouldn't hurt, nor should GACs. Also, reviving Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Assessments should be a good thing. How can that page be modified to encourage participation? How can we recruit more users/reviewers? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:06, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Good assessment as always. Your last comment seems to be the biggest issue. We lost some key members, and thus our production had dropped quite a it. One idea is to harness the activity on the talk pages, which is admittedly dwindling as the seasons are slowing. Perhaps one solution would be to send a notice to our members. Though a lot may be inactive, if we ask them in the right way, maybe we can get them editing and writing. After all, we have 91 "members" in the WPTC, of which maybe 5 to 10 are editing right now. Something is not right.... Hurricanehink (talk) 04:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:USRD recently did a cleanup of participants saying to either update their status, or they will be removed. Think we should do the same?Mitch32^contribs 11:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm tied into the GAC for wind shear right now. My editing has dropped off due to work and home considerations, and embracing of a new, more tolerant, way of dealing with other editors. I think I'm past the 6th step of the 12 in my recovery. =) Once I'm done with that GAC, let me know which article you all think needs the biggest improvement. Do we still have a collaboration of the fortnight/month? Thegreatdr 19:33, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that thing never really got off the ground. I'm working on Hurricane Charley right now, and I'll be done with a major copyedit by hopefully tonight. A fact check and an expansion of the aftermath section would be really helpful... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:52, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Article name treatment re: likely retirees

During Dean and Felix, there was considerable debate due to the lack of a real standard regarding how to treat storms likely to be retired. In the past (up to 2005), it was up to us to make a guess using past precedent and move the page to the main article when we thought it was warranted. (It backfired for Emily, which we had to move back). In 2006, with the Pacific typhoons, we just left them with (2006) until they were officially retired or the retirement case was officially made. That seems to be how we treated Dean and Felix, but with no real Atlantic precedent for such.

Should we adopt an official standard? My opinion is that we follow the current precedent: All storms, no matter how bad, should have (year) added to them until either they are officially retired or (at least) the retirement case is made. However, the main article should point to that page as a redirect if so desired (especially for obvious cases like Katrina). Subarticles, if any, should not require a year modifier though. CrazyC83 16:05, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Thegreatdr 21:29, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

That also creates a policy that works well in all basins, since the retirement criteria can be different. Of course, it will be difficult to deal with if there is another Katrina-like storm, but I think consistency is best. CrazyC83 02:15, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

That sounds fair, having (practically) all storms with the year with an optional main page redirect to there (having Dean 07 with Dean redirecting there). Emily is a good reason why we should do that. Perhaps there could be an upper cutoff for the "obvious retirees", something like if first insured estimates are over $10 billion or if deaths are over 500, then it could get the main article. Hurricanehink (talk) 04:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah, agreed, but we should consider the case of the South-West Indian Ocean and North Indian Ocean. The RSMCs in question do not retire names at all - names are used once only. - SpLo T // 04:44, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, those haven't used and will not need the year dab. Hurricanehink (talk) 04:52, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a pointless discussion. We do not need to and should not codify things like this. We cannot make an official standard in any case; that is a contradiction in terms. A pagemove is cheap in any case, so if we make a "bad guess" it can be sorted. One thing to not do: If [[Example]] redirects to [[Example (1994)]], all the advantages and disadvantages of having a primary topic already apply. Therefore the redirect should be reversed.--Nilf anion (talk) 10:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The only fuel behind this discussion is such that we will not debate the same issues again - only on tens of individual articles. - SpLo T // 10:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

All this means is we have to have the same discussion on a dozen articles explaining why we have adopted this method. If we got a storm that made Katrina look insignificant, a policy like this would result in: move warring, pointless debates and ultimately page protection. This is because we will always have people who will want to follow rules to the letter and other people who have a rare commodity online "common sense".--Nilf anion (talk) 10:18, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Question

Hi, from time to time I am caring on hurricane articles in the German WP. I made a picture for a better differenciation of strike, direct hit, indirect hit and landfall of a hurricane (see on far right). Did I understand correctly how the NHC is defining those items in its glossary. In my example, r means the radius of maximum winds and the hurricane is striking on all three islands (A, B, and C), while the islands A and B are directly hitten and the island C maybe indirect, depending on the surge or wind strength in that area. Only island B has experienced a landfall. Please corrct me if I made an error. Thanks. --Matthiasb-DE 11:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Technically that is correct. A = direct hit (not landfall), B = landfall, C = indirect hit/strike. An example for case A was Hurricane Ophelia in 2005 in North Carolina (northwest eyewall hit the Outer Banks but the eye center remained over water). An example for case C was Hurricane Rita in southern Florida and Cuba. (The "impact" area often goes far beyond that diagram as it also includes the areas impacted by tropical storm-force winds, as well as heavy rain, surf or tornadoes beyond the wind radius.) CrazyC83 02:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation and hatnotes

The style of TC dabs is very different from the MOSDAB and ignores a lot of the guidelines. Furthermore, the usage of hatnotes also goes far far beyond the scope of those guidelines. Please discuss issues relating to the dabs and the use of hatnotes here. As for the other issue that is getting conflated in with this: Are all storms of the same name related to one another? Are all the 19 storms named Alice sufficiently related to each other by virtue of the fact they share the same name, or would we be better off being selective about which of those storms have a connection? IMO, Cyclone Katrina and Hurricane Katrina have as much in common as any arbitrary pairing of tropical cyclones, such as Galveston and Kong-rey (2007).--Nilf anion (talk) 00:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh and on a related note there are about 170 incoming links to project dabs that may well need fixing - see User:Nilfanion/Dabs.--Nilf anion (talk) 02:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Notice of List articles

Page(s) related to this project have been created and/or added to one of the Wikipedia:Contents subpages (not by me).

List of basic Earth science topics

This note is to let you know, so that experts in the field can expand them and check them for accuracy, and so that they can be added to any watchlists/tasklists, and have any appropriate project banners added, etc. Thanks. --Quiddity 19:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)