Talk:2005 Atlantic hurricane season statistics/Archive 1

Epsilon's ACE calcs
Note that the advisory links will not work until the advisory is issued. Please update the ACE section of the article after updating these calculations. --EMS | Talk 15:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Remember to use knots from the discussion instead of mph. --Ajm81 18:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Do Epsilon's windspeeds after midnight Eastern (end of season) count towards the ACE? NSLE  ( 讨论 + extra ) 01:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Based on last year's data, it looks like they do. --Ajm81 03:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Of course they apply. A storm is a storm, even if it occurs outside of the storm season.  --EMS | Talk 19:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Epsilon has now helped us crest the 230 ACE mark. Total ACE for the season=238.0. We are in second place now I believe. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 14:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually it's 239. See the ACE Table section below for why. --SapientHomo 15:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Moving Records into this Article
I want to see whether others approve or not before doing this, but I propose that, once this article has been fixed up somewhat, all of the "Records" section of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season article be moved onto this page. That will shorten the 2005 season's article considerably and allow this article to become more than a collection of random facts about 2005 mushed together. - Cuivienen 22:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I second this. NSLE  ( 讨论 + extra ) 00:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that the records should not be a part of the main article, but I think that they would work better as a seperate article. However, I will not oppose moving them here at first.  If it works, it is one less article floating around.  If it does not, then the seperate article can still be created. --EMS | Talk 04:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

ACE Table
HOORAY! Thanks to Epsilon at the 10pm EST Advisory, the 2005 Season's Ace Value(225.065) has finally surpassed 2004's value of 225.023! This takes the 05 season to third place. Now, If Epsilon can hold itself together until this weekend or so, the 2005 season should surpass 1995's value of 228 taking second place. Still behind 1950's value of 243 however, where it will probably remain unless we get a crazy December superstorm.Weatherman90 03:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

FYI: Using all the significant digits from the NCDC site, 5.15 for Delta, and 0.565 for Gamma, this year's ACE is currrently 225.1224 --> 225.12. --AySz88 ^ -  ^  04:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * That's not supposed to be good, Mr. Weatherman. Tropical cyclones kill people. NSLE  ( 讨论 + extra ) 04:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * True, but not this one, it's out in the middle of nowhere. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 04:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * We said that about Delta. It's killed 6. NSLE  ( 讨论 + extra ) 04:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

A December superstorm? Not likely, but not impossible. It would have to hold together for a long time (a la Irene, Ophelia) most likely. CrazyC83 16:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

We must be close to, if not surpassed, 1995's total! Now we are 15 away from another record... CrazyC83 15:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

1995 surpassed. TimL 21:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * What was Hurricane Lili (1984)'s ACE value? CrazyC83 03:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I calculated it to be 16.705. Something near Ophelia's if I recall. I could be wrong but it seems about right. I got my numbers from weatherunderground.


 * It is starting to look like my predicted 'December Superstorm' could perhaps be Epsilon. Weatherman90 22:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Highly unlikely. It would really need to strengthen, frankly I don't see that happening. 23:04, 5 December 2005 (UTC)Anon User

ACE as of 11am EDT, December 6 is 236. (224.6 + 10.9 = 235.5 --> 236 to 3 sig figs.) Think we can make it? =S

With the final reports coming out some storms ACE's have changed. Arlene has moved up to 2.5 and Dennis to 18.7. Should these changes be shown in the table?? Sapient Homo 14:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Please cite the source and go ahead and change them. With those new figures the current ACE as of 11 am AST is 238.

I think they should be changed...I am still holding to my prediction that the unstoppable Epsilon will take 2005 to the topspot...only 6 ACE to go. Weatherman90

I was using the best track data from the Arlene, Dennis and Gert Final Reports from http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2005atlan.shtml I have just double-checked my figures and the full figures for each storm so far are as follows. Arlene 2.555, Dennis 18.755 and Gert remaining on 0.5275. I suppose that actually means that to one decimal place they are Arlene 2.6 and Dennis 18.8. In keeping with the mid-range storms having two decimal places I have posted Arlene as 2.56Sapient Homo 12:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Updated Lee using TCR data also. (Now 0.245) --Ajm81 15:38, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I looked into it. This page says the ACE for 2003 was 175. Calculating the ACE with the data at this page shows that the 2003 "Best Track" value is 176.84. We should either update past seasons for the "best track" data or keep this season to the values here. --Ajm81 17:45, 15 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I would say that where we can we should use the best track data as it is more accurate. Sapient Homo 18:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Best Track of Epsilon: 13.3625 ACE. (Doesn't change anything within Significant Figures) --Ajm81 17:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Katrina's ACE is now 20.005. --Ajm81 21:47, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Is it concievable for the final reports to raise the ACE final total to equal or beat 1950's 243? Sapient Homo 15:49, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Zeta's arrival may help with that... Sapient Homo 17:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Table width
For the table of individual tropical cyclone statistics, I am trying to manage the inate width of the thing. Towards that end, I am trying to limit the width of the individual columns. My current tricks include: At the least, try to keep the entries as short as possible. I shortenned the landfall location for Beta, since the reader did not need to know there that "Atlantico Sur" is an autonomous region. I fee that this is important since this table will get very unruly very quickly if that is not managed. --EMS | Talk 18:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Date Abbreviation (i.e. 30 Nov. instead of 30 November),
 * Mutliple line entries (view embedded tables)

Date Format
There needs to be consistency here. I suggest using the "day month" (i.e. 30 November instead of November 30) format in this page, unless it can be shown that a standard exists dictating otherwise. That seems to be convention in the meteorological world, and by that I would prefer to abide. --EMS | Talk 18:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Even though it's been a month since you've written this...I'd prefer wikipedia to handle that automatically. Isn't it one of the options to format the date in our preferences? Are there special tags for it?  How would we force Wikipedia not to parse the dates?  Hopquick 13:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * All you have to do is to link the date, like 1 January/January 1 (produces 1 January/January 1). I think the default might be set to "No Preference" - either way, just in case someone has it on that choice, the article just needs to be self-consistent. --AySz88 ^  -  ^  17:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Overcoloration
Only the category and/or windspeed columns should get the category color. Other columns should be uncolored. Additionally, I think the "highest category achieved" column can be removed, since it's redundant with the windpseed column (and the color imparts the same information, although color cannot be relied upon for accessibility). Jdorje 18:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. The colors encode information on the relative strengths of landfalls, etc.  At the same time, the type/category column backs up the colors for those who have not figured then out.  So my view is that this is a very effective scheme, allowing someone to use the colors to find significant storms easily and the text to verify that this is what they want.  As for just restricting the extent of the colors: I believe that this will reduce the effectiveness of the colors, and so oppose even that.  --EMS | Talk 19:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Well that's fine then, but then there shoudl be a new column for the landfalling category, and only the two "category" columns should be colorized. The use of colors is helpful to draw the eye to the notable storms, but only one column should get each color otherwise the colors dominate the table. Jdorje 03:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Agree completely with Jdorje. Those frickin colors are blinding. The less colors, the better. The colors on the first column sufficiently give a good idea of the storm's intensity. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 23:21, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I personally think that it'd be better to change the colors to something more pleasing to the eye while still suggesting the same progression. (I think I'll be trying a different palette unless poor Jdorje would have to redo all those storm track graphics....) --AySz88 ^  -  ^  02:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I also agree with Jdorje; color is nice as a clarifier, but there is just too much color in this article. I would agree to restrict color to only the storm name column. (Actually, overall I think the table is hideous; I'm sure someone could make one more visually appealing.) - Cuivienen 04:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I conjured up a new palette, along with a sample of what the colors would look like - User:AySz88/Sandbox. --AySz88 ^ -  ^  05:11, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think those colors are a lot more pleasing to the eye than the current ones. Nice job AySz88! P.S. I think however that if we were to cut down on the color in this table, keep it only to the storm name and the landfall columns. That way it gives the reader an idea of the strength of the storms when they made landfall, if they did.66.66.245.85 20:17, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I like AySz88's colors in terms of eye care. My only problem with it is that it seems too nice. I mean they're all Easter egg colors; pale purple, pale blue, pale pink, pale everything... I like UNISYS colors are better. They have intense colors that aren't painful to the eyes. I have my own system, but it doesn't show the same progression. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 00:41, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I knew someone was going to say that (except pale pink, does that really show as pale pink for your monitor? o.O). I'm not sure how to get rid of the pale "Easter" colors without reducing intuition.  The UNISYS] colors (self-described as "green, yellow, red, light red, magenta, light magenta, white") are good for their maps, but they'd be horrible for color-coding tables.... --AySz88 ^  -  ^  02:29, 4 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know about horrible but yeah. That sounds like a problem then. Like I said, I have my own system, but I think that's probably too random to use here, with progression being close to nil. I really don't know what would be best to do here. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 23:38, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Oppose that color scheme. Main reasons are that the colors should be stronger at lower intensities for it to appear to be a warning. I remember the original palette had light green as Category 1 but it was changed to white because they didn't want it to make it look "safe". The aqua for depression mainly is there to emphasize rain. If any changes should be made, it should be simply to eliminate green shades, but I don't know a suitable storm color for tropical storm strength otherwise. CrazyC83 02:51, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It's a problem because the same color scheme is now used in text as is used on my track maps, and it's hard to make a color scheme that looks good in both. That said, I dislike white because when it's used in  it almost looks like no color. Jdorje 03:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't 'warning' color be in the foreground (text and border) and mostly unrelated? These are background and graphics colors, for the main use of the colors in tables (such as this) and the maps.  You can still make the text (and the border around it) bold and red (or some other reasonable color) if you want it to be a warning in the "current info" boxes. --AySz88 ^  -  ^  03:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That is completely unrelated. I was thinking about avoiding the color green, since it implies no danger, and all storms have at least some degree of danger involved... CrazyC83 04:02, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, changed the green to grey-yellow. It sorta still has a hint of green in it if you compare it side to side with yellow, but that keeps progression better where it matters and probably won't be noticed where it doesn't matter. --AySz88 ^  -  ^  04:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

CrazyC, what you seem to not realize is the fact that most of those colors are blindingly bright. I suggest at least reducing to the brightness to a point where people don't see spots for an hour after they look at it. We need something easier on the eyes. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 22:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If there aren't any additional objections, I think I'll be switching the templates over tomorrow (or possibly later today, UTC). --AySz88 ^ -  ^  04:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I still do not like the pastel pink for category 5. I did a little playing around with your table, and concluded that #d07777 (which is a light but dirty redish color) may work better.  (I did not save the change.)  I suggest that you try it and see how you like it.  The other colors look very nice to me, and I look forward to the change.  After it is done and stable, I may remove the cell-format ones.  (If all the text can be black, their reason to exist is gone, and I can refer to the color templates directly.) --EMS | Talk 05:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean, though #d07777 produced something nearly unreadable for my monitor (however, it's had lots of calibration and tweaking, so it might not be representative of the majority of monitors). I split the difference and used this (#f088aa) .  I might keep tweaking it, since it's still a bit pastel.  --AySz88 ^  -  ^  06:03, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * What about this? (#FFB0B0) (If there is an issue, it is in how well it is offset from the cat4 color.) --EMS | Talk 16:18, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * P.S. If you don't like it, then go with what you have here, or whatever you find that you like better.  Even the last color you used above gets us away from that silly pastel, which is good enough for me. --EMS | Talk 16:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * That's actually more pastel (or at least paler) than what I had before the latest change, as well as perhaps not standing out enough.... ( before after now ) Thanks for helping out, this sort of thing really needs lots of other eyes to contribute!  --AySz88 ^  -  ^  19:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. BTW - My concern was having a category 5 storm be a pretty pink that was ideal for a little girl's dress.  Let's say that I wanted to see somthing harsher instead.  So pale/pastel is not as much of a concern as the color being totally pretty and pleasant.  Lightly colored yet of a harsh hue is the effect that I am after.  Personally, I think that this murky reddish-brown of mine more-or-less does that.  (I won't say that the color is perfect, but we need not await a the coming of a Wikipedian who is an experienced web color consutlant.) --EMS | Talk 19:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Which color is the "murky reddish-brown" - #d07777 or #ffb0b0 ? I'm aiming for something similar as you are, but I see something close to the standard "lightpink" in ffb0b0, which is probably too 'nice'.  I can barely read the text in front of the first one. If you average the RGB channels, you get this color (#e79393)  Blue   Purple  - what do you think of that? --AySz88 ^  -  ^  01:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Forgot to mention - I'm switching the templates over now, but we can still change things. :) --AySz88 ^ -  ^  01:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Forgot to mention - I'm switching the templates over now, but we can still change things. :) --AySz88 ^ -  ^  01:09, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * If you don't mind, I've reverted them for now. I think we should wait for Jdorje to change his or her tracks for all the storms before we go back to the new ones. NSLE  ( 讨论 + extra  CVU ) 01:49, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * AySz88: I was thinking of #ffb0b0 . However, this choice of yours also works, and I am happy to go with it.  I think that the issue is now more of working with  NSLE  and Jdorje on when to do the conversion. --EMS | Talk 04:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Ehhhh! These are makeup colors. We went from Easter egg colors to makeup colors. Why? Can't we just dim the colors we have now? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 21:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Brightness isn't the only problem. "Just" dimming reduces contrast, something that needed to be increased (see old category 3-2-1). Increasing the range of hues was the first thing I thought of, though I couldn't use green....
 * You also have to consider which way to "dim". Dimming towards white creates the pastels you disliked (i.e. red to pink ); dimming towards black makes things even more unreadable.  (Red is the obvious no-go for either direction.) --AySz88 ^  -  ^  22:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

(cross-post)

More examples
At are all the storm images with the new colors.

I'm not entirely happy with the new colors, but I can't say exactly way. Maybe I'm just not used to them. Maybe they're too "pastel"...but this may be needed since they're used as backgrounds for text also. It's also a little hard to distinguish TD/TS/Cat1 I think. Jdorje 00:44, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems to work great for strong storms (Rita) and well-behaved (intensity-wise) moderate storms (Jeanne and Irene). But also seems to have trouble with storms that bounce between 1 and 2 (Marilyn 1995) or stay low but has dots far apart (Alpha).  That might be acceptable, though, since it doesn't matter much at the lower intensities.  Not sure what to do with the 1 and 2. --AySz88 ^  -  ^  22:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I identified the problem I'd seen about the lower categories. High contrast for the map backgrounds is lower saturation (on dark background), while high contrast for tables is higher saturation (on light background).  The hot colors make up for it because red on blue is high-contrast in terms of hue (there aren't any red-blue colorblind people right?), but I'm not sure what to do with cool colors - TD and TS.  For tables, the intensity is correctly intuitive (lighter TD weaker, darker TS stronger).  On the map, the effect is reversed - it feels that darker blue should be weaker because it blends in more with the dark background.  I changed TD to a purple with the same saturation and value as the TS blue, which should fix it.  Of course, now that purple's all pastel-looking. *headdesk*
 * About Cat1 and Cat2 - I changed Cat1 to a dirtier yellow (e0daa0), which should increase the contrast difference enough for the eye to tell they're different. Might consider flipping the current 1 and 2.  --AySz88 ^  -  ^  22:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, are people fatigued from all this? Should we try to finish this and go with what's there now? --AySz88 ^  -  ^  02:37, 17 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I think that it is past time to do so. Then we still need to experiment with reducing the extent of the extent of the colors and splitting the table (into storms and landfall/impact tables).  However, it is best to do one thing at a time, and I think that it would be best if the color change was done first. --EMS | Talk 05:08, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm going to go for it after I run through my watchlist. Thanks for the help and feedback! --AySz88 ^  -  ^  15:42, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry about the delay - done now. --AySz88 ^ -  ^  22:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

(discussion continued at )

Split the tables
This is just a suggestion, but why not split the big table into, say, a "Meteorological Statistics" table and an "Impact" table. There, the weather info is in one table, and the impact is in another. The impact table could be smaller because Franklin, Harvey, Irene, Lee, Nate, Philippe, and Epsilon could be removed. It could also have like a brief discussion of the impact etc of the season, for example an Economic effects section that complements the info in the table. This is somewhat similar to how I have formatted the stats for this season. Not to say that mine is necessarily better (the way it is here allows season totals better, for example), but it is just an idea. BTW, I think that this article could be a featured list when the season finally ends. Miss Michelle | Talk to Michelle 22:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I do not like that idea too much. It severs the landfall data from the rest of the storm data, and for this season it generates a second table that is almost a long.  If nothing else, I would like to give the current form more of a chance to mature before trying anthing drastic.  We still need to:
 * Get the new colors in place (including making the neutral color white once that is not longer being used for category 1 hurricanes), and
 * Try out altenate coloration scheme(s).
 * I will admit that your table has the advantage of giving altenate units for windspeed and pressure, but I don't think that doing that is very necessary. --EMS | Talk 16:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

On second thought
I am beginning to warm up to the idea of doing the split. I would handle some of the inate unwieldiness of the current combined table if nothing else. Also, the use of templates make the change much, much easier to do than would otherwise be the case. [Having just build that whole table twice (once for the initial version and once in the template-driven form), I am not interested in doing that much work on it again.] I still think that there are other experiments that should be done first. Also, we need to let Epsilon terminate so that we have a full table to work with. Finally, I would like to know what the other editors think of this idea.

BTW - As the creator of this article and the builder of the original list, I am complimented that you want to make this into a featured list. --EMS | Talk 04:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd just as soon keep the table in one place. It's more helpful to people with slow computers to not have to click and wait as much. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 21:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Number of Storms
Just a question, but I thought there were 28 total storms instead of 29. What am I missing? Rylan42 22:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Epsilon hasn't been added yet as it remains active. CrazyC83 23:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * 26 named storms (21 Arlene-Wilma, 5 Alpha-Epsilon) and 3 unnamed storms (TD10, TD19 and STD22) makes 29 total storms. - Cuivienen 02:11, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * He was talking about the article, which reads 28 as we haven't added Epsilon. NSLE  ( 讨论 + extra ) 02:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

July Cat 4s
Is two Cat 4 hurricanes a record/tied record for July? It probably is, but I don't want to edit it in without being certain. - Cuivienen


 * It was a first. In fact, the only other time there were two major hurricanes in July was in 1916. CrazyC83 05:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I should mention that I do not believe that I have identified all of the records that have been broken or tied. I only encoded that ones that I was sure of.  I would be surprised if this was the only thing that I missed. --EMS | Talk 19:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Just remembered most Cat 4&5s tied with 1999. It's added now as well. - Cuivienen 23:46, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Didn't Emily make landfall in Grenada as a Category 1, because it said she did her her Article. Why isn't that on the table? Lionheart Omega 22:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Unbelievable Statistic
I left this post in the main article:

There are 26 weeks in the hurricane season. This year, only two saw no tropical cyclone activity! TWO! The week of June 19 and the week of November 6. That means that we had 19 weeks of nearly unbroken activity. Plus four other weeks. Gaps during the time from June 28-Halloween lasted no longer than 4 days and 12 hours. 19 weeks of nearly solid activity. That is incredible!

That is an unbelievabl statistic. Should it be added to this article? -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 16:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)