Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Severe weather/Archive 1

I love the smell of a fresh project...
So clean and new... but down to business. The first task I will be working on is developing a list of our core articles (similar to CrazyC's listing at Meteorology) and working from there. This would obviously be the place to discuss stuff such as the lists of tornadoes by year, and the lists of tornadoes and tornado outbreaks. I hope to eventually start more coverage on major derecho/wind as well as hail events, however rare they may be. But I digress.

Since tornado became featured, I've been thinking that all severe weather phenomenon articles should be featured, such as hail, lightning, derecho, etc. It really shouldn't be that hard, especially if we can get a few people working together. Anyway, this has just become a series of ramblings, but I will post here as soon as I have a plan for getting these articles improved. - Running On  Brains  02:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've thought of a better first task for the project. I have written the code into severe that will hopefully begin Mathbot assessments. Since all importance values are going to be skewed towards the main project's values, we need to go about setting all those articles to our importance.  Right now my thinking is this:
 * Top importance: Severe weather (obviously), Tornado, Hail, Lightning, Derecho, Downburst, Thunderstorm, Supercell, other basic severe weather terms, as well as benchmark storms: Super Outbreak, Tri-State Tornado, Daultipur-Salturia Tornado, etc.
 * High importance: Historical storms known by everyone in the area affected, storms just short of benchmark, and unprecedented storms&mdash;1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, Bulahdelah tornado, Edmonton Tornado, Flint-Worcester tornado outbreak sequence, Salt Lake City Tornado, etc.; as well as slightly less-important severe weather terminology and phenomenon articles&mdash;Funnel cloud, Microburst (covered by downburst, but still important distinct phenomenon), Severe weather terminology (Canada) / (United States) (hopefully to become a world-spanning series)
 * Mid importance: Rare or less important phenomena, such as Pulse storm, Gustnado, Heat burst, as well as historical storms which caused major damage ($25 million+), killed 20+ people, or were very notable for some other reason, such as Lubbock Tornado, 1883 Rochester Tornado, Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1991, 1997 Miami Tornado, etc.
 * Low importance: Everything else!
 * This is what I'm going to be doing until it is done. Feel free to help me out. Cheers! - Running On  Brains  14:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Severe weather category - not a category of nuisance
How do you create a new category? I've been modifiying squall line and added severe weather as the cat, and it shows up in red, implying the category is not yet created. Thegreatdr 17:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I found it.  The wording was more complicated that I thought it was.  Thegreatdr 17:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding a "hide" option to tornado tables
What do you think about this? I personally like it and I'd be curious to hear others thoughts. The only bad thing I've noticed is that they automatically show as collapsed if you have more than 3 in an article, but I'm sure that can be fixed somehow. See my sandbox for an example. Gopher backer 03:49, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I like it. It's not even much more complicated than the current syntax, and it will cut down on article clutter. Do you mean that if you have more than three separate tables it is automatically collapsed? - Running  On  Brains  23:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

New articles relating to this project
Since this project looks like it's being done similary to the tropical cyclone project, I propose that new articles relating to the project only appear on the main severe weather project page. I have removed them from the meteorology project page for the time being. Thegreatdr 15:49, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree, the way it is now works fine. - Running On  Brains  06:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Assessment
As a few people have requested more specific guides to assessing articles, I started a brief tutorial at WikiProject Severe weather/Assessment. Hope it helps all you out there. Many thanks to those who are already out there assessing. - Running On  Brains  07:00, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Experiment
I created the article List of Connecticut tornadoes, thinking it might become a part of a useful series. Let me know what you think, it is currently under peer review. - Running On  Brains  06:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Any such list should be limited to tornadoes that are either at least F2 or EF2 intensity, or result in significant damage or any fatalities. For states with many tornadoes, that will create an extremely long list - for example, Oklahoma usually gets more such tornadoes in a single year than has ever been reported in most states west of the Rockies or the smaller Northeast states (and in some of the lowest-risk states, there could be fewer qualifying tornadoes than there are from a single Plains outbreak)... CrazyC83 18:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Straight-line winds
I stumbled upon Straight-line winds after I saw it get linked in another article. It didn't have a project tag so I put one in there. I'm curious as to if this can stand on its own, or if it should get merged into downburst? Gopher backer 18:28, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Good find. I think that article and the linked Plough Wind should both be merged (if there's any useful info) and redirected to downburst...they don't seem to add much to the subject, and neither has any references. - Running  On  Brains  18:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. Now it just needs a little work. :)  Gopher backer 22:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Adding winds and hail to tornado outbreak infoboxes
Since most (but not all) tornado outbreaks feature other severe weather as well, should two additional information - largest hail and most intense measured wind gust (straight-line) - be added to the infoboxes? After all (usually) all severe weather goes into the single outbreak article... CrazyC83 01:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea...just be sure to make them optional parameters...I can do it if you'd like. - Running On  Brains  00:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be a good idea. CrazyC83 18:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

It's that time again...

 * Posted at WT:METEO, WT:SEVERE

Nominations are now being accepted for Release Version 0.7. I was thinking that we should put forth all our Top-importance articles, along with some high-importance which are very good supplemental material. - Running On  Brains  19:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Portal:Weather Peer Review
Also posted this at WP:METEO. It seems I am the only major contributor to Portal:Weather right now. I really want to push collaboration on this, it seems kind of wrong for me to do everything myself (besides possibly introducing unintended bias, I really know nothing about Portals in general). Anyone who wants to help, post on my talk page, and leave comments for improvement at Portal peer review/Weather/archive1. Cheers all, and happy editing! - Running On  Brains  07:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Category
Should we be using this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Tornado_outbreaks_by_intensity Gopher backer 04:36, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes I think so. That way, we can quickly find the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks that had the high-intensity tornadoes (i.e. the F5 tornadoes) and those that were weaker but notable in other ways (usually for hitting a major city). There are several things that can make an outbreak article worthy: a high death toll event, any strong or violent tornado hitting a large city, a widespread event with a large number of tornadoes or a rare tornado with extensive information. That helps in figuring out which of those it falls into. F0 and F1 are together since very few events with only weak tornadoes warrant articles (generally speaking only when it hits a heavily populated area). CrazyC83 04:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems it couldnt hurt. It is a neat, logical way to break down tornado outbreak articles.- Running On  Brains  06:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I saw that the F4 & F5 ones were used a lot, but not so much for the smaller ones. I'll try to go through and add some.  Also, should we only use "official" F5 list when categorizing these?  Like if a torando was estimated as an F5 but it was before 1950, would we put that in the F5 category or No F rating?  Gopher backer 13:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If they were "likely" F5 but not officially rated anything, they should go in the F5 list. However, if they were possibly such but officially got a lower rating (i.e. a disputed rating), they should be rated with the official rating. It should be based on the strongest tornado, even if it is not the most notable tornado of the outbreak (since an (E)F2 or (E)F3 hitting a populated area will be a lot more destructive than an (E)F5 hitting a rural area with only a few houses.) CrazyC83 19:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Expert review: North Central Indiana-Michigan Tornado Outbreak
As part of the Notability wikiproject, I am trying to sort out whether North Central Indiana-Michigan Tornado Outbreak is notable enough for an own article. I would appreciate an expert opinion. For details, see the article's talk page. If you can spare some time, please add your comments there. Thanks! --B. Wolterding 16:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there an 'official' guideline on what kind of severe weather event constitutes an article? I think it would be a good idea (if it hasn't been done already) if we could reach an agreement on tornadoes, hail events, flood events, etc that can be recognized as legitimate to both this project and the Wikipedia delete articles project.  Gopher backer 17:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Tornado emergency submitted for deletion
Here is the discussion. Gopher backer 17:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've also left a message for all other members of the project. Thanks!.--JForget 01:11, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ckimpson
, also known as, has returned to editing as. I've given him a strong warning regarding his account hopping and disregard for sources. Please leave me a comment if other inappropriate edits occur. Circeus 20:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

IP to watch
Special:Contributions/24.224.191.178 Another possible "sneaky vandal". Gopher backer 17:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Tornadoes
See Talk:Tornadoes of 2007. Simply south 16:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Current Tornado Outbreak
I've started a user page on the current outbreak in the Midwest which already killed 2 people in Missouri. See User:JForget/October 2007 North America Tornado Outbreak‎ for info and if you want to make some updates and improvements. Eventually, when we are confident that it will meet the requirements for an article it can be moved to mainspace-- JForget 15:34, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Default categories
Can we come up with a standard set of categories for Tornado or tornado outbreak articles? If we can agree on some, then I'll go through and start cleaning up articles. (I actually already have a little, but thought I should bring it up before I went to far). Here is what I think they should be:


 * 1) F - scale category (i.e. F3 tornadoes)
 * 2) All applicable state tornadoes (i.e. Missouri Tornadoes)
 * 3) Tornadoes of year (i.e. Tornadoes of 2008)
 * 4) Year in nation (i.e. 2008 in the United States)
 * 5) Then, any other category that would apply to a unique situation

Categories that should not be added are:


 * Natural disasters by state. (i.e. Natural disasters in Missouri) This is the parent of #2
 * Year in meteorology. (i.e. 2007 meteorology)  This is a parent of # 3
 * Year in Natural Disasters. (Parent of # 3 - i.e. 2007 Natural disasters) This is also a parent of # 3.
 * All 3 of these are parent categories to the 3 listed above. As I understand it, you don't put articles in both a child and parent category.

Am I correct in assuming these? If so, I'll take the liberty of going through existing articles and cleaning them up. (Remember, this is only for tornado related articles. Derecho or other severe related articles are not as numerous and don't have such an elaborate structure of categories for them.)  Gopher backer (talk) 17:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Newsletter
Has anyone considered a newsletter for WP:SEVERE similar to that of WP:NTROP? If so, with the help of a few other members, I would be willing to be editor. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 22:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Convective Instability
Hello, I saw the Convective instability article needed some editing and was in need of an "expert" (I hate that term). So I cleaned it up and did some expansion work making it far less confusing (check out the old version). I was wondering if someone cloud briefly look over it, perhaps another "expert" to see if they agree. Thanks!!! Theonlysilentbob (talk) 02:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 03:23, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking! Theonlysilentbob (talk) 04:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Just a quick upaded, I have uploaded an animation showing convective instability and have also included the SVG files used to make it, they can be found in the commons. If you know of any pages that needed an animated skew-t showing instability please don't forget this graphic! Theonlysilentbob (talk) 04:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)



Hydrolapse & Dynamic Instability/Lifting
I am not sure if it is in the scope of the Severe Weather project or the General Met project but here it goes...

We definitely need a stub discussing a hydrolapse while keeping it separate from lapse rates. Can provide a See Also section or whatever linking to lapse rate. Hydrolapse and lapse rate go hand in hand since they are part of the same thermodynamic processes but I would argue for keeping them separate so as to allow specificity in articles which may link directly to hydrolapse or readers who are just interested in that particular term.

Secondly, we need an article dealing with dynamic instability specifically related to meteorology, right now an article exists but it deals with some biochemistry cellular stuff. At the same time we also need something which is related to dynamic lifting, either in a separate article or as part of the article dealing with dynamic instability.

These are two atmospheric conditions/processes which are critical to severe weather at both a storm/mesoscale level and synoptic level. Theonlysilentbob (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Hydroplapse should go in an article about lapse rates under its own section. A dynamic instability article should also be created with dynamic lifting under a header too. I would be willing to help you with these. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 01:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Ckimpson
For those who remember this user, see this article. "Cameron Kimpson" is probably active around somewhere, so keep an eye out. Circeus (talk) 21:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That's hilarious. I certainly pictured someone a bit older and a bit dumber; instead it seems we may have a future wikiholic like me. - Running  On  Brains  09:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge downburst with microburst
Microburst and Downburst are the same thing on a different scale. The microburst article is superior but there are some pretty pictures on the downburst page that should be moved if the articles are to be merged. Please discuss the issue of a possible merger. Theonlysilentbob (talk) 00:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * They should be merged, but in reverse. Downbursts include micro and macrobursts. Technically, there is no such thing as a downburst, as a downbusrt is a micro or macroburst. Once again, I would be willing to help. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 01:39, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Tornado events templates
I was wondering if maybe templates on tornado events per state can be created. I've created Template:Alabama tornado events and added it to outbreak pages which Alabama had received several tornadoes or significant ones. Should we do templates per states or do templates of outbreaks per a certain period? I'm waiting for feedback before continuing whether it is a thumbs up or thumbs down.-- JForget 23:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, this is not a good idea, especially for states. Perhaps templates for tornado events should be created in areas where they are rarer, such as the Northeast or the west. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 00:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Or perhaps template per overall (country wide never the per state then) events in 60s, 70s, 80s, etc, like the second thing I've asked above? One thing I may have probably noticed is that some of the outbreaks such the Super Outbreak or the May 2004 Memorial Day Outbreak (or possibly Outbreak Sequence if merging proposal has a unanimous or majority approval) there could be a stake of templates. Doing it per period like the 60's, 70's, etc it will mean only one template-- JForget  00:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The templates will become overpopulated with outbreaks. It would be best to just stick to categories for tornado outbreak articles. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 01:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok I will not create additionnal templates for now until there is more discussion, but I would have like to add some sort of template which don't have too much entries (maybe a template with the Top 15 or 20 deadliest tornado outbreaks or Top 15 or 20 outbreaks with the most tornadoes - not in a sequence though). But I will wait see what others will think. But I will keep the Alabama tornado template on for now unless it really causes a problem.-- JForget 23:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * That is a good idea. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 01:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Newsletter Notice
A newsletter has been started for WP:SEVERE at WikiProject Severe weather/Newsletter. Newsletter editors are currently in need of nominations for featured member to finish the newsletter before the begining of the month. Nominations are accepted at the above link. User: Southern Illinois SKYWARN and User:Juliancolton —Preceding comment was added at 23:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Tornadocane/Landcane/Landphoon
We recently had a similar article to tornadocane called landphoon removed from wikipedia because the term was not in the glossary of meteorology. What's interesting is that landphoon had about seven unique sources, while tornadocane has exactly one source using the term. I'm going to remove the link, and propose the article's removal, for consistency's sake. For reference, I was the creator of landphoon last August. This posting is also in BWER, tornadocane, and will also be in the meteorology and tropical cyclone projects to get the largest possible response. Thegreatdr (talk) 16:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Marion, Illinois tornado outbreak
I have been working on the above article since early January. The article appeared on the front page under DYK at one point. I would like to improve the aricle further. Any suggestions? Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 19:08, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

April 6-8, 2006 Tornado Outbreak GA Sweeps Review: On Hold
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria and I'm specifically going over all of the "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" articles. I have reviewed April 6-8, 2006 Tornado Outbreak and believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have left this message at this WikiProject's talk page so that any interested members can assist in helping the article keep its GA status. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, and I'll leave the article on hold for seven days for them to be fixed. I have left messages on the talk pages of the main contributor of the article along with another WikiProject. Please consider helping address the several points that I listed on the talk page of the article, which shouldn't take too long to fix if multiple editors assist in the workload. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Iffy meeting notability outbreak
I recently did some research on a tornado outbreak that occurred in January 1989. It resulted in 11 tornadoes, two of them F-4. It caused no deaths, but resulted in a total of 61 injuries, 50 of them in Allendale, Illinois, just to the north of where I live. The school building pictured (I took the picture by the way) was rebuilt after one of the F-4s tore through the town. I have original research (I know, I can't use it) that says the tornado embedded what appeared to be straw in trees and wrapped metal siding around trees. The original research also says that houses were totally destroyed to near F-5 damage. The town was closed for weeks thereafter and was declared a disaster area. I wasn't sure if it would meet notability, so I brought it up here. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 16:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Based on that info alone I would say no. But if tornadoes that large are very rare in that region for January, then possibly?  Gopher backer (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * They are decently rare, but just last month during the January 2008 tornado outbreak sequence there were tornado warnings, but no tornadoes. To say the least the 1989 event was rare, but I would have to say it probably should not have an article. Thanks, Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a meteorologically significant event given that was an outbreak with two violent tornadoes as far north as Illinois in January, but an article is really iffy either way. If enough material was gathered, I wouldn't object to an article.  Ideally, the "tornadoes of YYYY" series will extend back and eventually include the event.
 * For what it's worth, Tom Grazulis commented that there were hints of possible F5 damage but didn't specify why and never suggested the rating should be changed (which he does for some events). However, an expert surveyor that worked the event said there was no sign of F5 damage.  As memory serves, teams from both the NWS and the University of Chicago (Fujita) surveyed the Allendale tornado, from the ground and the air, respectively.  Evolauxia (talk) 12:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It is probably best to not go with an article. I have scoured quite a few sources, but I still can not find a great wealth of information that is needed for an article. I definately can not find any meterological information. However, this brings up a good point, as is shown above, new standards are being considered for the tornado outbreak format. I propose new notability standards, I will put them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Severe weather/Tornado. Please weigh on the proposal. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 23:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Hail and upgrade of article importance
Hail is a neglected subject in Wikipedia and its projects, and for myself, included. I have upgraded the importance status for the tornado outbreak article covering the supercell responsible for the largest hail swath and most damaging hailstorm in recorded history. I've added a section on the supercell, which also produced 10 tornadoes, to the April 10-11, 2001 tornado outbreak article. Evolauxia (talk) 13:06, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Second opinion on BWER
One of the contributors to the severe weather project reviewed the article in response to GAC, and made a comment about expanding the article, but isn't sure how it can be expanded. I'm looking for a second opinion, to see if there are any additional avenues for expansion of this article. Thank you for whatever help any of you can provide. Thegreatdr (talk) 23:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Tornado outbreak standards
I have proposed new standards for tornado outbreak articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Severe weather/Tornado. I put this on the project page, but I have had very little feedback. Comments and/or votes are appreciated! Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 19:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

2008 Vancouver tornado
It doesn't look to me like this event is article-worthy ($250k in damage, 0 injuries), unless tornadoes in this specific location are remarkably rare. thoughts? Gopher backer (talk) 20:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Atlanta
Have any other tornadoes hit Atlanta in the past? A duplicate article sprung up last night called Atlanta tornado, but I merged and redirected it into 2008 Atlanta tornado outbreak. Still though, if there have been other tornadoes to hit Atlanta, then Atlanta tornado should be setup as a disambiguation page. Gopher backer (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * CNN says it was the first tornado in the history of Atlanta. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 18:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not the first tornado in the city of Atlanta since 1950. It may be the first in the downtown core, however.  I used SvrPlot with data from 1950-2006 to eyeball central Fulton County for the ATL city limits (per the ATL Wikipedia article's shaded area of the county) to ascertain this.  Evolauxia (talk) 21:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Two articles for the same event
I noticed that there are two separate articles for the same tornado outbreak:


 * United States-Canadian Outbreak - primarily about the tornadoes in the U.S.
 * The "Barrie" Tornado Outbreak of 1985 - the same outbreak, but focuses on the tornadoes in Canada.

Should these be merged? If not, I think that United States-Canadian Outbreak should then be renamed since the article is not on the Canadian tornadoes. I know that storms from the same storm system are generally keep together, but I don't know that there's too many that happen in two countries like this. Gopher backer (talk) 01:46, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

10 costliest US tornadoes
Template:10 costliest US tornadoes -  Someone brought up a question on the talk page that this list looks inaccurate. If you look at the 1989 damage here, and calculate that to 1997 dollars here, then it would come out to $323 million and be 8th place on the list. I'm wondering if anyone wanted to say otherwise. If not I'll probably change it in a couple days. Gopher backer (talk) 19:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The 1989 Huntsville tornado was considered in the original study. Brooks and Doswell ranked it #30, with $100 million in raw damages and $129 million in inflation adjusted losses.  We should stick with the original study since the methodologies are the same.  I'm not sure why there is a difference and the $250 million figure is in Storm Data, but my experience tells me that the damage amounts in there are unreliable and that the Brooks and Doswell study is more trustworthy.  Evolauxia (talk) 17:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Back in the day (pre-1990?) Storm Data only stored "damage levels" of 0, $250, $2500, $25000, etc. So $100 million would have rounded to $250 million.  A really retarded system to be sure, I'm surprised it took them so long to get rid of it. - Running  On  Brains  08:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Dixie Alley
This could use some work if someone want to take a crack at it. Gopher backer (talk) 04:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Storm cell
Is this article needed? How is this any different than a thunderstorm? Gopher backer (talk) 04:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't have a specific source, but I suspect that a cell need not be a thunderstorm. It could just be a cell of showers. - Running  On  Brains  08:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Tornado outbreaks
As you may know, I had created several new articles, separate list articles and as well as adding tornado lists in many articles. However, there are a couple of articles, i'm not sure if the outbreak is larger. First case, is the outbreak that included the Jarrell tornado in 1997. There is already an article with the list of all Texas tornadoes, however, there have been many other tornadoes perhaps from the same system in a span of a couple of days that hit I believe Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. That may require a separate list article.

The second one is the May 1995 Outbreak Sequence where according to the infobox and the list of tornado outbreaks ended on May 27-29. However, in a separate list article, I've only included those until May 19 as there is a significant lull of tornado activity for about one week until it starts again at around May 26 until after the Pampa, Texas outbreak on June 6-7. Maybe a second outbreak sequence article may be needed there - if not the outbreak sequence would probably have to extended into June, considering there have been several outbreaks between May 26 and June 9. Perhaps renaming the first sequence Mid-May 2004 .... and the second Late-May-Early June ....

The third one is the South Dakota outbreak in 2003 which. I haven't touch the article yet because it is small but there have been many other tornadoes in neighboring states too. Probably, a separate list article will be needed there.

Finally, would it be good to add tornado lists in some of the hurricane/tropical articles (those that have produced over 10-15 tornadoes)-- JForget 17:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hum, maybe it's just me but I've only counted 103 tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Frances in 2004 which is 16 less then Hurricane Ivan (excluding what may have spawned in Texas when it made the loop across the Gulf). I would remind that the tornadoes in Wisconsin and the Midwest were not from Frances, thus a different system epecially since it was on February 5 and that the storm I beleive was making landfall or was about to make landfall in Florida. I may be wrong but I think then that Hurricane Ivan has produced the most tornadoes from a tropical system since 1950. However, it the Hurricane Frances tornado outbreak does merit a separate list article despite the fact no fatalities were directly related to tornadoes as it easily surpass the 50 tornadoes criteria. Also, thanks Gopher Backer for the clean-up on the 1920 Palm Sunday Outbreak, I could have done that but preferred to wait for additionnal commentary from users.-- JForget 20:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Opinions on image
I created this map of the locations of killer tornadoes of 2007 and added it to Tornadoes of 2007.... it's basically the same map that the SPC produces but using newer graphics. I'm wondering if this adds anything, and, and if it's worth creating these for these for previous "Tornado of year" articles. Gopher backer (talk) 01:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good (as long as there is a link to the page with the list of tornado tracks - which seems is there on the image description]. That can be added to the section below since I've noticed that User:Cyclonebiskit put a map of the all tornado tracks for the year. -- JForget 14:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

New SVG images
I am going through and manually drawing SVGs for any good weather images I find. So far these are the ones I have done, and I will be converting these soon: (Image:Meso-1.PNG, Image:Meso-2.PNG, Image:Meso-3.PNG). Does anyone have any comments or see anything they would like fixed/improved? How about suggestions for other images to convert?


 * Please reply over at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Meteorology. Thanks -Ravedave (talk) 17:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

FAC for 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak
This article needs a lot of work yet if it is going to pass FAC. I won't have time to do a thorough copyediting until tomorrow night or Sunday, so if anyone else has time here is a quick list of stuff I found.
 * There are a lot of ref's that are not places properly. If they're at the end of the sentence, they should be placed immediately after the period.  I see some that are placed before the period, and some that are places after a space after the period.
 * There are many dates that need to be fixed. I saw a "February 6th".  There are also a lot of dates that need to be wikified.
 * Change all "PM" times to "pm" (MOS)
 * Use consistent time formatting. Most of the article specifies time in the local time format, but there are some sentences that are using UTC.
 * I see some present tense statements in the Winter storm section that should be changed to past tense.
 * Remove all pixel sizes from thumbnail images. (MOS)
 * The [dubious – discuss] issue should be addressed.
 * The first sentence, Tornado Outbreak should not be capitalized.
 * In Milwaukee, white out conditions does not have any preceding spaces from the refs after the previous sentence.
 * A wave ahead of the main event should probably say A wave of precipitation, and I think the term main event may be a little too jargony or non-encyclopedic.
 * This paragraph has a lot that needs to be fixed. Three of the fatalities were a family who all died in a cinder block house. The tornado touched down near the Pinhook community near Bankhead National Forest at around 3:00 am CST. [72] An elderly lady was also killed by the storm.[73] The family of three all died in a cinder block house.[74] 20 to 25 others were injured.The tornado was rated an EF4. [72]  There is a sentence repeated, twice, 20 should be changed to Twenty, and this should probably be re-written so it flows better.
 * Same thing with this section, a lot of choppy sentences and very little flow. The most severe damage was at Union University, which was devastated. Twelve students at the university were trapped but all were rescued.[3] A total of 31 buildings received damage of varying degrees.[39] Hurt, Watters, and McAfee dorms were the hardest hit with approximately 80% of the dorms rendered uninhabitable.[40] Due to the damage, the university was closed until February 18.[3] 
 * 36 other people were injured in Shelby County by the tornadoes.[33] One other death took place southeast of Hebron from a separate EF3 tornado.[35] - 36 should be spelled out since it leads the sentence. Gopher backer (talk) 05:32, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Dates:I searched the article for February 6th, and it was only used in proper places. What do you mean by "There are also a lot of dates that need to be wikified", dates should only be linked the first time they appear in the article.
 * I will work on PM to pm.
 * Juliancolton suggested, on the fac subpage, please leave comments there, using UTC in the sypnosis only, which makes sense to me.
 * I thought I had removed all present tense, but I will look again.
 * I will remove pixel sizes.
 * I brought up the dubious thing, and it needs to be discussed on the talk page.
 * I will address the Milwaukee problem.
 * I will fix the capitilization problem.
 * "Wave ahead in front of the main event" in no way sounds jargony. I will see where this in context and see if it needs addressed.
 * That paragraph does need rewritten.
 * I will fix the sentences about the dorms in the Union University paragraph.
 * I will fix the number issue.

I personally do not believe that some of these things will keep it from being an FA, it does not need a lot of work. You make it sound like I just created this awful article and sent it off to FAC. This article has been edited by most of the project and has been through a grueling GAN. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 13:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC) I have to go somewhere until about 1700 UTC that has no internet, so I will restart work later on this afternoon. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 14:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry you jumped to that conclusion, I was not implying it was a bad article, I was just pointing out some stuff that will need to be fixed if is to pass FA. I think that it's very comprehensive and laid out nicely, but I do think it needs some fine turning yet.  Gopher backer (talk) 19:11, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I have fixed all the issues. Sorry that I kinda got aggravted because it seemed like you wanted me to fix a lot of little things that are hard to fix. Anyway, I believe I have addressed everything you brought up. Please leave any further comments at its FAC page. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 20:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, there are still a lot of references before the period, when they should be after. Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  21:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that all are before the period. There must be some loophole to get us out of this. If not, I guess I'll get to work. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 00:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and did a massive cleanup that took me about 30 minutes. I think I have addressed all new issues. Once again, please leave new comments at the FAC page. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 00:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Featured Portal Candidate for Portal:Weather

 * Also posted at WT:METEO

I'm going to nominate Portal:Weather for Featured Portal status, and I was looking for some feedback from other members of the WikiProject. Sooo.....take a look, let me know what you think, thanks! - Running On  Brains  07:19, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Brady, Nebraska Tornado
I found this article a couple weeks ago, it was created by our favorite 11 year old editor last summer. I put a deletion tag on the article on the grounds that it was non-notable (seeing that it is on one F3 tornado that killed or injured nobody and caused only 30k in damage), but someone from Project Nebraska removed the deletion tag and has kind of adopted it. I still think it's non notable but I guess I don't really know if we should bother with it or what. Gopher backer (talk) 15:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The "Barrie" Tornado Outbreak of 1985 & United States-Canadian Outbreak
I noticed that these two articles are for the same outbreak. Normally there should only be one article per outbreak, but the content of both articles seems to be well developed and merging might create an article that is too long, and to cut either of them might hurt the quality. The redundancy here is that the "United States-Canadian Outbreak” name suggests that the article is also about an outbreak in Canada, where as what’s really going on is the information about the Canadian outbreak is in a separate article. The original article is the US - Canadian one, which is about 3 years old, and the Barrie article was created by someone about 11 months ago.  Any suggestions on what to do here?


 * 1)  Merge them?
 * 2)  Keep them separate and change the name of United States-Canadian Outbreak to something that is specific to the U.S.?
 * 3)  Any other suggestions?   Gopher backer (talk) 15:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * How about renaming the current United States-Canadian Outbreak to something like, say, United States-Canadian Outbreak (United States portion), and then making a base article at United States-Canadian Outbreak that's basically a fairly superficial overview of the combined outbreak, and linking to the two separate articles? Basically, create a lean core article that then links to the more detailed two articles--sort of applying WP:SPINOUT in reverse.  Rdfox 76 (talk) 02:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Working on tornado year articles (1950-2000)
I've begun the long task of making articles for the tornado years between 1950 and 2000. I've already started the one for 2000 and if anyone would like to help out, start out with 1999 so there is no confusion during updates. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 08:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be good to start all of these, but were you planning on creating an extensive article for all of these or just a skeleton? It's taken me 6 months or so and I still haven't finished Tornadoes of 2001 (not that I've been working constantly).- Running On  Brains  16:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

My plan is to create an article for each one, give a brief overview of the major events of that year, and briefely describe the daily events. I understand that this will take many months to compelte, even over a year depending on how many (if any) people help out. User:Cyclonebiskit/Tornadoes of 2000, that is the location of the article for 2000, as you can tell it is just getting started. It shows the basic structure that I have planned out (save a summary of the major events of the year) to allow others to begin creating other years. Even though it is showing up to Feb. 22, I still have to go back and clarify some of the earlier ones first. The first outbreak with a separate page needs a major expansion as it only briefly covers the 4 tornadoes in Georgia. The Fort Worth tornado aslo needs expansion. Once my school year comes to a close on the 11th, I will be able to spend much more time in developing these articles as I will have almost the whole summer (roughly three months) of free time to devote to working here. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 17:11, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Fort Worth Tornado of 2000
The Fort Worth Tornado article should be part of an outbreak sequence that started on March 22 and ended on the 31st. 59 tornadoes were confirmed during this span. There were three outbreaks in the sequence. One on the 22-23, 25-27, and the final on the 28-31. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Enter the C-Class
For those of you who haven't been following the discussion, a new C-class will be created shortly (see incredibly long discussion here). I will soon be adding it to WikiProject Severe weather/Assessment. I feel that we need to clarify exactly what articles will be let into B-class, which seems exceedingly overpopulated with bad articles these days. Discussion here or at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Severe weather/Assessment would be appreciated.- Running On  Brains  05:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't have a lot to say really, I think the general guidelines on the assessment page sum it up good. I would expect a B class article to be fairly broad in coverage (relative to the topic) and well referenced, but yet not necessarily the "brilliant" prose looked for in GA and FA articles.  WxGopher (talk) 02:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

While we're at it...
Since I'm going back and reassessing a lot of articles, maybe finding GA's to put up for FAC, would anyone be interested in starting a formal project-wide A-Class assessment, as they do at WikiProject Awesome? There's been a bunch of arguing during the C-Class debate as to the usefulness of A-Class, I say we make use of the class as the Project's go-ahead to FA candidacy. This way the whole project can get behind an article before it goes to peer review and Featured Article Candidacy. I've wanted to do this for a while, and I think this project has a level of activity which would be able to sustain such a system. - Running On  Brains  07:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  20:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Peer review for 1998 Comfrey – St. Peter tornado outbreak
I opened a peer review for this a couple days ago. I didn't see RunningOnBrains note above about utilizing the A Class though. Maybe this article would be a good one to start with. I'm hoping to submit this for FA soon, so feel free to leave comments on the Peer review page. Thanks, WxGopher (talk) 16:57, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've put this up for FAC. Comments are welcome.  WxGopher (talk) 23:50, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 349 articles are assigned to this project, of which 83, or 23.8%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-07-14.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place the following template on your project page:



If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:43, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

bolding of F-scale and risk outlooks
In the last several tornado outbreak articles that we've nominated for FA or GA, the people doing the reviewing are consistently questioning why these are getting bolded. Do you think we should stop doing this? WxGopher (talk) 02:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Severe weather
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

List of United States tornadoes of 2008 size problem
I'm running into a really big problem with the ever-increasing size (no pun, if there is one..?, intended) of this article. I've just added the tornadoes from the June 2008 tornado outbreak sequence, and the article has reached 183 KB, and I don't even have the tornadoes from may in it yet. I think it's best that I split it into sub-articles for each month. That should help reduce the size significantly and make the articles a lot more manageable. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 20:56, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree. WxGopher (talk) 21:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've already started on it. I'm working on the article for May, List of United States tornadoes in May, though, the name might be too long. On the main page, I'll remove the tables and replace them with a main article link, and a brief summary (non-technical) of the month, The summary will also be included in the actual month. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 21:13, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

My computer froze and shut down in the middle of the May article, and I ended up forgetting about it. I've Finally started on it again
 * List of United States tornadoes in January in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in February in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in March in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in April in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in May in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in June in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in July in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in August in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in September in 2008

Those are the articles on the way (links will show once created of course) Cyclonebiskit (talk) 22:03, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Training (meteorology) proposed for deletion
Training (meteorology) WxGopher (talk) 16:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

List of 2008 tornadoes project
This project is a group of large articles listing each and every tornado that was confirmed to have touched down in the United States in 2008. The project is likely to take at least until Late April of 2009, by then, next years project will be underway, meaning that there will be severe backup. Hopefully, once I have the project completely set up, I will try to get others to help.

Basic Guidelines- Format for the main article is like the list of hurricanes in a state article, but on a daily basis for a single year. It will lay out the major events, like the Tornadoes of 2008 article but noting more of the minor tornadoes, times, and location, and less of the technical data since it is covered in the tornadoes of 2008 article.

Most data will be obtained through the NCDC and SPC pages, if needed, other data can be obtained elsewhere

The monthly pages will give a complete list of the tornadoes that touched down in each month and a basic overview (a summary of the overview in the main page) of the month. Main Article links will be placed under each day or groups of days that have one.

--Please note that this is still in development--

To save all the notices about being incomplete and lacking references, I'm going to pull all six of the current pages that are out in the open and put them in user pages by 5:00 pm (EST) today.

Main page - List of United States tornadoes of 2008

Monthly pages
 * List of United States tornadoes in January in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in February in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in March in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in April in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in May in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in June in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in July in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in August in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in September in 2008
 * List of United States tornadoes in October in 2008 (It's best to get started on this one now to keep up with all the tornadoes that are confirmed operationally)

I'm going to be using the March article as an outline for the others to follow, so I'll try to get that one done ASAP.

Anyone who would like to help me out with this project is welcome. If you are going to help, please leave me a message on my talk page so I know that you are going to be editing pages. Also, feedback on this idea is welcome. Thanks to those who want to help and/or give feedback. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:58, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

External links?
Hi. There seems to be a difference of opinion in the Storm chasing article about including external links. Part of the problem might be that I am not any kind of expert on the subject and may have not picked out the right ones to include. However, many WP articles do include a list of external links at the bottom of the page for people to check out to learn more about the topic. Redddogg (talk) 05:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)