Talk:Tropical cyclone/Archive 6

Add section on terminology?
I propose to add a short section on terminology rather than having this footnote which is important but rather hidden: "# Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by different names, including hurricane (/ˈhʌrɪkən, -keɪn/), typhoon (/taɪˈfuːn/), tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, or simply cyclone.[citation needed]" EMsmile (talk) 12:49, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The section you want to add is already in the article under classifications. It probably needs a bit of work though.Jason Rees (talk) 12:55, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for clarifying this to me, Jason Rees. As an interested reader (but uninvolved in editing this article so far), here are some suggestions for pondering:


 * Move the section 5 on Classification up towards the start of the article. (I've done this now on 21 June 22 EMsmile (talk) 10:47, 21 June 2022 (UTC))
 * Rename the section called "background" to what it really is about. What is it about? It starts off with a sentence that I would move to terminology. Then it talks about historical aspects - perhaps move them into a section called "history" towards the end? Why would an article like this even need a section called "background"?
 * That footnote that I mentioned above about terminology should be elevated to become part of the first paragraph of the lead. I think it's so important that it should be in the lead and in the main text and not hidden in a footnote that is easy to overlook, particular on mobile devices. (I've done this now on 21 June 22 EMsmile (talk) 10:47, 21 June 2022 (UTC))
 * The section heading "climatology and records" is unclear in the TOC: With all the other section headings, I kind of know what to expect (I like the standard section headings so far used in the article like Types, Impacts, Responses...). A section heading called "climatology and records", with a sub-heading called "climate change" is unclear. And should the section heading be called "effects of climate change on tropical cyclones" rather than "climate change"? I think Level-1 section headings that are fairly generic help novice readers to orientate themselves. EMsmile (talk)
 * I've listed below which section headings work well in my opinion and which are not ideal:

1 Background --> would change it as explained above

2Intensity --> good, quite generic but I would move this to later 2.1Factors that influence intensity 2.2Formation 2.3Intensification 2.4Dissipation 2.5Methods for assessing intensity 2.6Intensity metrics

3Structure --> good 3.1Eye and center 3.2Size

4Movement ---> good 4.1Environmental steering 4.2Beta drift 4.3Multiple storm interaction 4.4Interaction with the mid-latitude westerlies

5Classification ---> good but would move this to earlier, probably at the very start 5.1Nomenclature and intensity classifications 5.2Naming

6Major basins and related warning centers ---> unsure about this one, could it be subsumed under a more generic heading

7Preparations ---> good although perhaps could be made clearer who is preparing for what

8Impacts ---> good, perhaps move to earlier 8.1Natural phenomena caused or worsened by tropical cyclones 8.2Impact on property and human life 8.3Environmental impact

9Response ---> good, perhaps needs sub-headings to show who is responding and in which time frames?

10Climatology and records ---> doesn't work well I would say; unclear what is behind this 10.1Climate change ---> I would rename it as per above but perhaps a short section heading is aimed for

11Observation and forecasting ---> Good 11.1Observation 11.2Forecasting

12Related cyclone types ---> good or perhaps this could be included in the heading on classification? I won't be offended if any/most/all of my suggestions are not regarded as useful. Just coming to this article as an outsider and these are my first impressions. I can see from the revision history page that a lot of work has been done on it lately, which is awesome. On track to get it back to FA level? EMsmile (talk) 16:57, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that the "background" should be expanded to include various names, like "hurricane", "typhoon", etc. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 17:11, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue is I haven't gotten to fixing most of this. I still have to add quite a lot to the article which will result in subheadings for sections such as preparations and response. I haven't looked at the other sections in much detail yet either. As far as moving classification, I think we should discuss what a TC is and how it moves and strengthens before discussing classifications based upon its intensity. Major basins and related warning centers could be renamed eventually. Keep in mind that the updating and restructuring will take months to complete. Noah Talk 22:07, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I agree. The earliest research into tropical cyclones focused on hurricanes in the West Indies, and typhoons in eastern Asia, both regional names for cyclones with powerful winds. Maybe an "etymology" section? They have that for several country articles. Discuss "Huricán", early names for "Typhoon", the "tropics", and the term "cyclone". Since the lead section would summarize everything in the article, I think it makes sense for the first section to be about the name itself. That lends to the fact that powerful storms have been around for millennia. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 03:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * What else should be discussed under preparations? Noah Talk 00:54, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * IIRC, the first hurricane warning was in like 1873. Maybe something about Tropical cyclone observations in there, how it was the 1821 hurricane that helped researchers realize that storms were circular in nature? Maybe something about how storms used to make landfall without much warning, like the 1970 Bhola cyclone. Or the 1900 Galveston storm could be an example, how it was thought it would go toward Florida. Then maybe something about how the Hurricane Hunters, and later satellite imagery helped forecasters track storms in real time. The first tropical cyclone observed via satellite was in 1960. Then maybe go into how the improvements in technology helped forecasters get better, with a link to Tropical cyclone track forecasting. And maybe about how it's getting better, that the five day forecast in 2020 was as good as the three day forecast in 2001? This could tie into the economic cost of evacuations, which I've read is something like $1 million per mile of coastline evacuated - see here, here. In most parts of the world, people tend to evacuate ahead of a storm, if they can, and if there are shelters. I'm not sure if it's getting off topic, but this could then segue into some areas with worse infrastructure having more tropical cyclone deaths. Cuba, for example, rarely has hurricane deaths because they do mass evacuations before storms. Preparations vary depending on the part of the world, and the time period, but I think we can cover all of that in an organized section. But then that covers forecasts, observations, and preparations, which might be too much. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 20:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe discuss a brief history of watches/warnings that covers most of the points you bring up? I'm not entirely sure forecasts and observations should be included under preparations as that seems to be too much. I think the coverage should focus on watches/warnings, evacuations, home preparations, and government preparations with each of these as their own subsection. What about items under the current subheadings I have listed? The latter three need additional suggestions for subitems. Noah Talk 22:06, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me, but is this content perhaps already available in a sub-article somewhere? I would expect this kind of content be available on Wikipedia already somewhere but perhaps it's buried deep and not well interlinked. Keep in mind also potential overlap or linkages with the article on natural disaster (have done some work on it today, needs more) and also disaster risk reduction (needs lots more work). EMsmile (talk) 12:22, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The goal here is summarize everything covered in subarticles already and introduce material that needs to be covered in subarticles. Quite a bit of material is covered already in subarticles and quite a bit is not. The subarticles are in piss poor shape in most cases, which doesn't help us here, which means I have to write up a summary of what we should be covering in subarticles. Noah Talk 18:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Hurricane Noah: Which are the sub-articles that you currently have in mind here? EMsmile (talk) 21:08, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * we have Hurricane shutter, Tropical cyclone preparedness, Hurricane-proof building, Catastrophe modeling (not just about TCs), Tropical cyclone warnings and watches, and Tropical cyclone engineering for preparations. All of these articles are in poor shape and need expanded significantly. This is why I am trying to create a summary at the top level so we can branch off at the lower levels. There should be about two paragraphs of text for each of the four subsections I came up with. This would mean there should be a decent sized subarticle (at least 30k prose) discussing warnings and watches and its history (it's small right now), an article of similar size discussing tropical cyclone evacuations (doesn't exist), and a rather large article discussing tropical cyclone preparations in full (brief mentions of warnings + evacs and focusing largely on civilian and government preparations). Noah Talk 21:18, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * forgot the reply. Noah Talk 21:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I wonder if any of those sub-articles should perhaps be merged. For comparison: When I dived into the range of sub-articles on the effects of climate change a little while ago, we ended up merging quite a few of them. It was more efficient that way (see discussion here). So perhaps there is scope for merging also with some of these articles that deal with storms and preparing for them etc. EMsmile (talk) 09:52, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I would rather not merge subarticles into other subarticles at this point since we need to focus on the main article itself for the time being. Definitely something to consider once this project is done. I really am looking for anything that should be added under home preps, evacs, and especially government preps to make sure their coverage is adequate. Would you have any ideas of things that should be added under these three categories that aren't mentioned in the outline right now? Noah Talk 21:20, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2022
Add following text behind the sentence "Hurricane Walaka destroyed the small East Island in 2018,[178][181] which destroyed the habitat for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal, as well as, threatened sea turtles and seabirds.": During the high-intensity Atlantic hurricane season of 2017, a population of the criticall endangerend Lesser Antillean iguana was heavily affected, seeing a decline of 25%. VandenBurgMP (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2022 (UTC)


 * This example was related to a storm destroying land. We already have examples of species sustaining losses following storms. I'm declining this since we have to keep the word count down on an article of this magnitude. Noah Talk 21:45, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Hurricane
Hurricane redirects here, so there should be a disambiguation link for it 155.4.184.208 (talk) 17:58, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 August 2022
Please remove this sentence:

Hurricane Ivan produced more tornadoes than any other tropical cyclone, spawning 120 tornadoes in total.

and replace it with this:

Hurricane Ivan produced 120 tornadoes, more than any other tropical cyclone.

It's more concise and simpler. 49.198.51.54 (talk) 20:19, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Aaron Liu (talk) 22:22, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 August 2022 (2)
In this image caption:

Aftermath of the Hurricane Ike in Bolivar Peninsula, Texas

Please remove the unnecessary "the". 49.198.51.54 (talk) 20:19, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ TornadoLGS (talk) 20:23, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Useful publications (open access) for links between ocean heat content and tropical cyclones
I've been made aware of these three publications which could be useful for this article's section on climate change (or for the related sub-article) or for the section which talks about ocean heat content. They are open access which makes them particularly useful: * Cheng, L., G. Foster, Z. Hausfather, K. E. Trenberth, and J. Abraham, 2022: Improved quantification of the rate of ocean warming, J. Climate, https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-21-0895.1 EMsmile (talk) 07:24, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Trenberth, K. E., L. Cheng, P. Jacobs, Y. Zhang, and J. Fasullo, 2018: Hurricane Harvey links to ocean heat content. Earth’s Future, 6, 730-744, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EF000825.
 * Cheng, L., J. Abraham, K. E. Trenberth, J. Fasullo, T. Boyer, M. E. Mann, J. Zhu, F. Wang, R. Locarnini, Y. Li, B. Zhang, Z. Tan, F. Yu, L. Wan, X. Chen, X. Song, Y. Liu, F. Reseghetti, S. Simoncelli, V. Gouretski, G. Chen, A. Mishonov, J. Reagan, 2022: Another record: Ocean warming continues through 2021 Despite La Niña Conditions. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-022-1461-3


 * They don't look like review articles, User:EMsmile. Why do you think they would be good here? Femke (talk) 20:18, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The last article does not even mention tropical cyclones. Please be a bit more considerate of the community's time by pre-vetting the suggestions you get as part of your paid-for project. Femke (talk) 20:20, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry about the third article. I should have put that one at ocean heat content. The other two articles I still consider useful for the following reasons:


 * They are peer reviewed, in reputable journals and by reputable authors (in particular Kevin Trenberth of whom I've read quite a few publications lately).
 * The fact that they are open access makes them easy to utilise for Wikipedians and easy to verify for our readers.
 * As per Identifying_reliable_sources_(science), it is allowed to use primary sources, they don't all have to be review articles. Many of the publications currently used for this article are in fact not review articles either. So I am not sure what you are getting at with that comment?
 * Furthermore, the introduction section of such papers often does contain a bit of a literature review from where information can be taken. Here in this case, the relationship between increasing ocean heat content and more intense tropical cyclones is explained.
 * I still wonder how much content about climate change impacts should be in this article versus in the article on tropical cyclones and climate change, as per my comment above.
 * With regards to wasting time of volunteers, I am sorry if you felt that my talk page comment was wasting your time. This was not my intention. In future I can try and make it clearer why I think a particular publication would be useful for an article. Or I just attempt to build it in but I would be hesitant to do so for this article as there are other active editors for this article who know the topic far better than I do.
 * Maybe it's better if I move this entire section to the talk page of tropical cyclones and climate change where it might be more needed? EMsmile (talk) 20:23, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Merging another article into this one would be inappropriate given this one's current size and the need I have expressed to expand certain areas that are quite lacking in their coverage (example: preparations that is currently 5 lines). Noah Talk 21:25, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Relationship with sub-article Tropical cyclones and climate change?
I am picking up on something that I had raised on 8 March 2021 (see above): The lead of Tropical cyclones and climate change was pretty poor so I have now copied the content of this article on climate change across to replace the old lead at Tropical cyclones and climate change. So now we have identical content in two places. This is not ideal. If new research comes to light we would have to update the data in two locations. My suggestion would be to use the excerpt tool instead, i.e. add an excerpt here from the lead of Tropical cyclones and climate change. I can see pros in cons in this. What do others think and if not then what other options are there to ensure the two articles fit seamlessly together? It has low pageviews (about 100 per day) but interesting spikes (when there is a big event, I am assuming), see here. Or perhaps we don't even need such a sub-article and it should be merged into this one? Or redirected/merged into effects of climate change on the water cycle? EMsmile (talk) 21:13, 29 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I would caution you strongly against suggesting mergers into this article when it is already large as is and needs to be expanded in other areas that are weak. Noah Talk 21:30, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * OK, no merger then but what about my other suggestions? Using the excerpt tool? (my suggestion was: add an excerpt here from the lead of Tropical cyclones and climate change, so that we don't have to keep updating the same content in two places) And what could be other options to ensure the two articles fit seamlessly together? I am still not 100% if having a separate article called Tropical cyclones and climate change is really warranted, given that it overlaps a lot with this one. EMsmile (talk) 21:36, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I think a big issue surrounding that article is it needs updated and hasn't been fully fleshed out. Climate change and TCs is a widely covered topic and has a lot of research into it. This article here is the summary of TC as a whole. There are a lot of similarities in structure, but the content will be different. I think we should leave the section here separate from the climate change article since this article is planned to get back to FA again while the other article would still be at a lower rating. People wouldn't edit it as carefully as a FA and thus that may cause issues. It could be explored down the line if both articles are fully developed. Noah Talk 20:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 October 2022
In the introduction, the second sentence ends with a colon. Please replace it with a full stop. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ RudolfRed (talk) 19:50, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Droughts
In the introduction, please mark "though this claim is disputed" with (ironically) disputed-inline. The article has no evidence of such a dispute. 120.21.125.125 (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ — Sirdog (talk) 23:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Dispute
Why does the introduction claim that there's a dispute over tropical cyclones being able to end droughts? In the body of the article, the sole sentence referencing droughts cites nothing that disagrees with this premise in general. 170 and 171 talk about plenty of droughts being ended by tropical cyclones in South Korea and the eastern US, and storms such as Hurricane Vince are demonstrated to have relieved droughts elsewhere in the world. 169 is abused: it only says that droughts in the southeastern US don't get relieved by them, because of atmospheric conditions occurring specifically in that part of the world. The source provides no evidence that this author, or anyone else, disputes the idea that tropical cyclones can relieve droughts anywhere in the world. 120.21.125.125 (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 October 2022 (2)
Please remove this phrase

many of these systems went undetected unless it impacted land or a ship encountered it by chance.

and replace it with this one

there was no way to detect a tropical cyclone unless it impacted land or a ship encountered it by chance.

This is to avoid the change from plural "many of these systems" to singular "it". Thank you. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 19:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: I believe both forms of the relevant statement are valid and this boils down to preference. Seeing as no editor out of the roughly 40 who actively view recent edits here have decided to alter it, I think we can leave it as is. — Sirdog (talk) 23:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
 * No. Seriously?  It is always inappropriate to mix singular "it" and plural "systems".  It's one of the most basic aspects of English grammar.  175.39.61.121 (talk) 18:09, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ @Sirdog I believe that they're right, the sentence is very awkward to read. I am no expert, so I cannot tell you whether or not this is a hard rule in English grammar, but the sentence would be improved by the edit. I see no reason not to accept this edit, so I'll add it now. Actualcpscm (talk) 16:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the ping,, so that I could make this a learning experience. No issues on my end. When I reviewed this request almost 2 weeks ago I legitimately did not catch the fact that plural "systems" and singular "it" were mixing. Glad someone came along and picked up my slack . Cheers, and happy editing! — Sirdog (talk) 18:21, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

concern: inaccuracy of the saffir-simpson hurricane wind scale
okay, i hate how saffir-simpson tracks can be inaccurate, like the saffir-simpson tracks of hurricane lorenzo (2019), and hurricane michael (2018) (both were category 5 hurricanes and hurricane michael made landfall on the florida panhandle as a category 5 hurricane). i NEED answers on why the saffir-simpson hurricane wind scale can be inaccurate sometimes. 2600:6C5D:5000:47F:1D74:4AC5:6D31:5B69 (talk) 20:45, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The track maps we provide only show points at the 6-hourly synoptic times. Both Michael and Lorenzo peaked between synoptic positions so those points are not reflected in our maps. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 21:07, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Why has the Hurricane color scheme changed for the Saffir-Simpson scale?
There is no reason for it to be changed. It was perfect before and this means all cyclone history tracks must be updated to the new color, this does not make sense... 206.83.102.211 (talk) 22:30, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The previous colors, while nostalgic for many readers I'm sure, did not satisfy accessibility. That's an issue by itself for our colorblind readers, but it's also a problem for editors. Without the change, editors would no longer be able to nominate articles to WP:FAC. A bot will be utilized to change the vast majority of maps. We'll manually correct the ones that remain after. wxtrackercody (talk · contributions) 22:37, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 March 2023
Diff: 122.52.66.207 (talk) 07:31, 31 March 2023 (UTC)


 * NOTE: Tropical Storm Bopha (2006) is at AfD after IP122... removed a redirect from 2006 Pacific typhoon season. If the AfD succeeds - as it will - then the proposed edit request will have the result of changing a blue Wikilink to a red Wikilink. David notMD (talk) 11:35, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: Let's wait for the result of the AfD discussion, since the course of action depends on that. Actualcpscm (talk) 00:02, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

An info box of hurricane seasons thruout world is needed at top of the page. this faq information is currently buried in a table way down the page, where it is hard to find.Rich (talk) 00:24, 1 April 2023 (UTC)


 * It's already mentioned in the Part of a Series box. King O' Fools Talk 01:09, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

New tropical cyclone info box on certain pages?
What's with the info boxes style change? TheEasternEditer (talk) 15:13, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * After a lot of discussion it was determined that the infobox needed to be updated to make it consistent with other infoboxes on Wikipedia, as well as general Wikipedia policies such as accessibility and will be gradually rolled out as time allows. Unless someone can create a bot to roll it out sooner.Jason Rees (talk) 22:02, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Chlod is making one right now. Noah Talk 23:13, 14 April 2023 (UTC)