Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of tornadoes in the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by User:Hahc21 10:03, 15 September 2013 (UTC).

List of tornadoes in the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak

 * Nominator(s): Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

In early May 1999, the Central United States was affected by a widespread and violent tornado outbreak that produced the famed F5 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado. Over the course of a week, 152 tornadoes touched down across the country and Canada, resulting in 50 fatalities and over $1.2 billion in damage. This list documents those 152 tornadoes that touched down.

To cut to the chase, this is essentially a guinea pig nomination. As far as I'm aware, this is the first tornado list article to work its way to FLC so there is no precedent to base this article on. I'm all ears for any suggestions you all have for the article on top of comments regarding its quality. Thanks in advance for your comments! Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Note – Okay, after all that nonsense I've constructed a newer version of the table that should comply far better with WP:MOS than the others. I've just finished implementing it into the article. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it necessary that the date be included as a column? Makes it easier for editing purposes if there are separate tables. United States Man (talk) 03:27, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Condensing them into a single table was one of the major concerns brought up by TRM. I personally don't have any issues editing a table of this length, just need to use the search tool to quickly get to specific tornadoes, though it can be cumbersome since it's a lot of data. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 03:54, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That was what my problem was. But, I don't have any reason to edit this (you have the information in a great updated condition), so it really doesn't bother me that much. United States Man (talk) 03:57, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Support. Otherwise looks good! ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:46, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "much of the Central and parts of the Eastern United States" - should these direction things be capitalized?
 * They're regions of the United States, not just directional, so I would think so. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * " with 70 being confirmed" - I think the "being" here is redundant
 * Fixed Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "The event began as a strong area of low pressure moved out of the Rocky Mountains and into the High Plains on May 2" - the "as" here is inappropriate, as at first it's ambiguous whether it means "when", "because", or "in the form of". I first read it as "The event began as a strong area of low pressure." See Garden path sentence
 * Reworked the sentence in question Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The second lede paragraph has too many "with... [gerund clause]". It happens three times, and that phrase construction could use some variety.
 * Removed two uses of it. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why does max width use yard instead of feet?
 * Yard is the standard measurement unit for tornado with used by the NCDC. All reports have width listed in yards. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "36 deaths – 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado – An additional 583 people were injured" - this could use some more info. And, is the capital "An" appropriate?
 * Expanded the section to include some basic statistics. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "Most significant damage occurred south of Fort Cobb where a barn and house garage were destroyed and a stock trailer was thrown 100 yd (91 m)." - add a comma somewhere.
 * Split into two sentences Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "2 deaths – 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak#Cimarron City–Mulhall–Perry, Oklahoma" - should you pipe this? Ditto with "1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak#Stroud, Oklahoma"
 * Piped both. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You should reflect Canada's tornado by saying something like "unless otherwise stated", when you put in the note that says - "All monetary values are in 1999 United States dollars"
 * Noted Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * "All dates are based on the local time zone where the tornado touched down; however, all times are in Coordinated Universal Time for consistency." - I don't get this
 * I wasn't exactly sure how to word this in the first place so I'm not surprised. What I'm trying to get across here is that all the events are listed by their UTC time; however, the dates are based on the local time. Just look at the first 10 tornadoes. They all say May 2, but the last two are after midnight UTC (which would normally indicate May 3); however, since all tornado reports are listed by their local time, I felt it more appropriate to keep the local day over changing it to the UTC day. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Ehh, I think that's a little confusing. I think it'd work better having everything in UTC time, including dates. Unless there is precedence against that, I think it'd be less confusing that way. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:25, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Precedent would be every tornado table on Wikipedia, haha. That's how we have them styled. Only agency that lists tornadoes by UTC time is the Storm Prediction Center, and they just relay the reports from the local NWS offices which use local time. Additionally, the final reports on the tornadoes from the NCDC are all in local time. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then no biggie! :) ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:36, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review Hink!! Cyclonebiskit (talk) 15:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Glad to read it, happy to support it. ♫ Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:36, 28 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Otherwise looks quite good. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:28, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's been a question of mine too actually. I would be fine with moving this to meet the current method of naming tornado outbreak articles (naming it by the dates it occurred); however, this outbreak has become most known for the events in Oklahoma rather than anywhere else and that's what people look for.
 * Also, thanks USM for fixing the contradiction in the lead. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:00, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * If this is what the sources go with, it's good enough for me. Support. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:14, 20 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - well this has been hanging out here at the bottom for a while, hasn't it. My only comment is "Following the extensive outbreak, activity became increasingly scattered from May 5 to 8; 26 tornadoes touching down across the Eastern United States and Quebec." - the bit after the semicolon is off; it should either be "touched" down, or the semicolon should be a comma and the phrase should start "with 26 tornadoes touching down". -- Pres N  21:22, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Comments- This is a huge undertaking and you are to be commended for your effort and a job very well done.

I haven’t looked through the table references, but looking at the overall structure and the lead/intro information I wanted to make a few comments:

There is a lot of information packed into the lead/intro. Some of the most significant facts could use citations. This includes (but is not limited to):


 * no reference for “152 tornadoes” (but the storm events database for the May 2–7 reports “196 events” when the "all tornadoes" option is selected).
 * The 152 total is the count of all tornadoes once the duplicated reports from the 196 total (the database lists events by counties, so tornadoes that track through more than one county have multiple reports). There's no direct way to cite this total I believe. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * You can use the reference putting it in a note which explains the reduced number after duplication is removed. Otherwise you are not explaining where the number comes from.
 * “… outbreak on record, with 70 confirmed.” Probably needs a citation (you do cite the 10 tornadoes in Nebraska), also “confirmed” suggests there are unconfirmed tornadoes too.
 * The 70 confirmed comes from source #1 (which is used for other details in the first paragraph). Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Without a citation there is no way for anyone to know that.
 * Does “confirmed” (versus unconfirmed) explain the 152 versus 196 discrepancy above?
 * Explained above. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * “Over the following 48 hours,…” might want to specify May 3–5, and at least one citation is probably necessary between that sentence and the next.
 * Added the date and moved the overall citation to the end of the paragraph since all the information stems from the database. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Since the heading “Confirmed tornadoes” is used, some kind of definition of confirmed would be helpful.


 * You may want to add a note or comment with the definition of confirmed that the default sort order for the table is by date, followed by time… Actually, as I look at the table I’m not sure how it’s organized. Is there a default organization?-Godot13 (talk) 06:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The table is organized chronologically by default. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * See the comment below.


 * I’m noticing that the times used are local times of the location where the tornado touched ground. While the majority of the main affected states are all in the same time zone, parts of those states, and entire other states, are in different time zones. If the weather conditions causing the tornadoes were to cross a time zone (e.g., eastern to/from western South Dakota or Nebraska, or Alabama to/from Georgia, Indiana to/from Illinois) the sorting chronology of the time column (possibly the date column) does not accurately reflect the movement or relative timing of the storm cells… For example, if a storm cell crosses a time zone from East to West causing tornadoes as it moves, chronologically (for at least one hour) it would appear as if those touching down after the time zone crossing occurred prior to those before. It’s also late and my brain may not be working…-Godot13 (talk) 06:59, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That issue is sidestepped by using UTC (Universal Time). While the dates used are for the local time, to avoid any confusion from time zones, all times were adjusted to the meteorological standard of UTC. This is explained with Note #3. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 16:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The use of a local date with UTC time is problematic, at least visually. Following the order in the table, days and time seem at odds: the last two May 2 dates have times that suggest it's actually May 3, or else the records are out of order; long before May 3 becomes May 4 the UTC time seems to have already rolled over; when May 4 changes to May 5 the times suggest that there were no tornadoes for about 20 hours, a few records later there are some, then it's May 6. You're using two descriptors of the time of an event, but they are using different anchor points (local vs. UTC).-Godot13 (talk) 04:09, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments The National Weather Service of Norman OK. used the name "Great Plains Tornado Outbreak of May 3-4, 1999" for events that include most of the tornadoes mentioned in this list. I see that the page title follows rule number 4 of the WikiProject Severe weather/Tornado naming convention. I understand that we want to cover the whole life of that storm so a title limiting the dates to May 3-4 wouldn't work. However, I don't see how that same logic doesn't apply to calling it the ""Oklahoma tornado outbreak", when we want to cover more than just Oklahoma. Shouldn't naming rule number 2 apply here: "that used by NOAA or an official weather agency should take precedence except in extraordinary circumstances". Are there extraordinary circumstances for why we shouldn't use the NWS name? D kriegls  ( talk to me! ) 23:32, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.