Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Archive 9

Added Atlantic hurricane reanalysis page to wikipedia
This is the link for the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis. Seemed like a good page to add considering the interest in the project. Thegreatdr 14:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Nice article, thanks for making it! I've always wanted to know the progress in the re-analysis. bob rulz 01:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yea, nice job! Hurricanehink ( talk ) 02:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Radar toy
I just found a really useful java program on the NCDC site here. It seems to be exceptionally powerful. In a few minute of messing around I managed to produce images like Image:Hurricane Katrina Doppler.gif and animations like Image:Hurricane Katrina LA landfall radar.gif. Oooh shiny!!!!--Nilfanion (talk) 20:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Right I've finished messing around now, I understand its capabilities. The source images come from the NEXRAD radar network. This exists in all 50 states and also Guam, Puerto Rico and 2 sites in South Korea. The viewer has built in a number of background maps, for those familiar with World Wind all the background available there are usable. In addition it has a number of simpler schematic overlays. As for output it can produce .png static images and .gif animations. It seems to be particularly useful for hurricanes and tornadoes. Here are some example images: Image:Nora 1997 Radar.png, Image:Kansas 2003 tornado hook echo.png and Image:Hurricane Katrina LA landfall radar.gif.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone thing I might be a bit hyper currently? I decided to see just how much I can do, and have created the image to the right. Any thoughts? :P--Nilfanion (talk) 19:52, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it's hideous and you're wasting your time :P J/k, that's really cool. You might be going a bit overboard with your new toy, but as long as keep up the good work, have fun! Hurricanehink ( talk ) 21:46, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Meee a bit overboard with new toy? Come here and say that :P--Nilfanion (talk) 21:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't worry, I know the feeling. You wouldn't believe how much time I spent after finding the Satellite archive from 1983 to present. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 22:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)::
 * Heh, me too. →Cycl   one1 → 22:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC) (I realize its a month old conversation)

Google News Archive search
If anyone plans to expand older hurricane articles, Google News Archive search helps - there's already something found on Hurricane Ione. – Chacor 09:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Image deletions
Someone deleted images in the Hurricane Bonnie (1998), Hurricane Anita and Hurricane Lili (1996) articles for no reason. Storm05 15:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * They were all deleted for CSD I9, image available on Commons. Check the appropriate cat on commons to find the replacement image.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

An excellent source for early 20th Century Pacific hurricanes
A search for "Hurd" as the author in the Monthly Weather Review reveals that there are 270 papers by this person. Most, but not all of these papers mention possible tropical cyclones during that the month in question. The papers start in June 1922 and end in November 1941. The information provided in these should allow us to fill out older ePac and wPac seasons. For example, the August 1922 paper mentions a typhoon that killed 50000 people out of a city of 65000. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 23:18, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

SeaWiFS imagery
Hey, just a note to everyone. SeaWiFS images such as Image:STS Nicole 2004.jpg, which come from NASA sites, are NOT PD-NASA. As is stated on the SeaWiFS project site, "All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this website are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with ORBIMAGE." The satellites (Orbview-2 for example), which take these images are commercial not NASA. So unfortunately we cannot use such imagery. :(--Nilfanion (talk) 18:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Changes/Coming Attractions
Due to increasing demand over the past couple years, and after toying with different color schemes and methods, color-filled versions of the storm total graphics are finally available for the lower 48 from the 2003-2006 seasons, which will expand backward through the climatology over the next month or two and include the Puerto Rico/U.S. Virgin Island images. This change also includes a suggestion made to make the images clickable to their full-size representations. The website now includes both the original version and the color-filled version of the storm total graphics.

Feedback is appreciated and has been an important part of the evolution of this project over the past couple years. Introduction of the Kocin Northeast Hurricane Rainfall graphics has recently expanded the climatology farther back in time (unconquered cases from 1933 through 1976) than originally anticipated. All hurricane-related rainfall impacts from 1955 are now included.

In the second major expansion of the project, expect to see Mexico added into the climatology in coming months, which is anticipated to greatly expand the utility of the project. We have received rainfall data from their meteorological service due to the initiative one of my co-workers at Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, and plan on "emigrating" the project into our neighbors to the south shortly.

Hawaii has not been forgotten. Graphics for our island state remain a possibility at a later time. Thegreatdr 19:45, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The color-filled versions is a great change, thanks for that. While some storms it may not be very useful, it is great for storms that have patches of less than 1 inch, and allows for choice. Nice :) The Northeast graphics are great, but it makes me wonder, how far back do you think you can go for every storm for all of the US? The Mexico project is great news, good luck with it. You say that Hawaii is a possibility, but what about Alaska and other U.S. territories? I'm just curious, and you have enough on your plate doing a great job as it is, but storms like Ioke could have interesting results with Wake Island and Alaska rainfall. Thanks for the update, and keep up the good work! Hurricanehink ( talk ) 23:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Excellent news indeed! Just one question... for storms that impact both the US and Mexico, are you going to provide two precipitation images, or are you going to combine them into one? Tito xd (?!?) 20:12, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * At the very least, a combined image will be done. Due to metric units being used in countries outside the United States, I will likely need to prepare metric versions for graphics outside the lower 48.  Thegreatdr 23:14, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

2003-2004 Southern hemisphere tropical cyclone season
Some guy deleted the article with the reason of not many edits. Cyclone Gafilo, Cyclone Catarina etc. will have no seasonal article. He probably didn't know abot tropical cyclones. --IrfanFaiz 10:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Uh, what are you talking about? – Chacor 10:52, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * No article. Read the deletion log. Fixed --IrfanFaiz 10:56, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Did you look at the timestamp? November 15, 2005. – Chacor 11:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Categories
From User_talk:TexasAndroid: "Might I ask why you're removing these categories from some articles? Have you looked at the categories? Most if not all of the storms forming in their respective basins are put into that category by default - I don't see any parent categories that some articles are in, except for the typhoon seasons as well. Unless you're willing to decategorise every single one of the 400 or so articles in these categories, I think you should restore them and perhaps discuss it - the fact that there are over 400 articles in them means that it's an established process within the wikiproject that we put storm articles into these categories. – Chacor 02:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)"

Reply (from User talk:Chacor): The rules I am operating under come from here, guideline #3. This states that, in general, an article should not be in both a category and a parent/grandparent/etc of that category. For the hurricanes, in general the articles are in the " hurricane season" category, which is in the " meteorology" category and the " hurricane seasons" category. Finally the " hurricane seasons" cateogry is in the " hurricanes" category. So, by being in the " hurricane season" category, the articles themselves have " meteorology" and " hurricanes" already as parent and grand parent categories to a category that they are in. And IMHO they really do not fit the exceptions mentioned in the guideline. So, if they are going to be categorized by " hurricane season", the others are thus already implied, and the are redundant clutter. So the articles should be in the most specific category possible, and removed from the less-specific, more general categories. This allows for neat, systematic categorization of articles, and reduces/eliminates clutter of the more general categories.

As for getting the entire set of hurricanes cleaned up, I have no problem in doing it. It will not happen overnight though. I'm no bot. But I'm willing to clean them up bit-by-bit, and they will get done. I'll hold off for the moment. I did 2003 - 2005 yesterday, working out of the meterorology by year categories. If it needs to be undone, I can easily hit the rollback button on myself on most of them (around 2 dozen so far). But I truely feel that these extra categories are unneeded, duplicative clutter, and should be removed. - TexasAndroid 13:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts on possibly changing the way we categorise things? This might possibly require a change to the template for automatic categorisation that we have. – Chacor 13:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Principle 7 of Categorization: Bend the rules above when it makes sense, but only if no other solution can be found. Having all the articles in the subcategories makes our organization much easier and more intuitive, so I really don't see the point in changing everything. Tito xd (?!?) 00:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * "Indeed. Bend 'when it makes sense'. In this case, it doesn't make sense to me. You end up with at least one category with over 400 articles in it, when all those articles are already neatly sub-categorized. That's unneeded clutter, IMHO. Another point I've not made yet is that the current scheme is placing many storms that topped out at tropical storm strength into a 'Hurricane' category. Huh? If they did not ever become hurricanes, what sense does it make to categorize them as hurricanes. OTOH, they do still fall quite nicely into the 'Hurricane Seasons' categories, as the seasons encompass all storms of all sizes for that year. Still holding off. But I've yet to see any logical reason that these articles need to be left in the 'Hurricane' category when they are already in the 'season' subcats. - TexasAndroid 14:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)" Personally, I would favour restoring the categories. I don't think this change is needed. – Chacor 14:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Eye (cyclone), Eyewall, and other stories.
A while back, I took the article which was located at Eyewall and moved it to Eye (cyclone). Since then, it has been greatly expanded, and is now a fairly long Good Article. I believe it has reached a wall, however, due to it being the only article about a specific part of the tropical cyclone structure. There are areas in the article which I feel could be greatly embellished on, however, it would require an awkward amount of information about other aspects of tropical cyclones to get the point across clearly. Would anyone be opposed to me re-creating the Eyewall article, along with rainbands (which also would be very good for clarity)? I am confident I could get them beyond stub class eventually; there is tons of information out there. -Runningonbrains 17:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks pretty good. I don't think it needs to be re-created. One to get around that wall is add sources to everything. You could find some new info. BTW, do you have info on the largest eye ever recorded? I think you hit the nail on the head, though. There is tons of info out there, but you just gotta find it and use it. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:57, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, these articles would be to supplement the existing article, not replace it. What I'm aiming for is to be able to link to seperate articles when I mention rainbands and the eyewall (maybe even CDO, we'll see), instead of having to completely describe the phenomenon within the main article.  And the info for largest eye is in there (Typhoon Carmen at 200 miles!) -Runningonbrains 20:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, ok. In that case, awesome! Good luck with those articles. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 04:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Track maps
Just to let you guys know, if you didn't, the track maps we made for the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season are on this NCDC page. I think that is a great accomplishment that such a website used something that Nilfanion, Reub200, and whoever else I missed, made. íslenskur fellibylur #12 (samtal) 19:04, 24 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Wow! They also listed us under useful links. You're right, that is a great accomplishment. Congrats everyone. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Alerted the Signpost. Tito xd (?!?) 02:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Katrina on Today's Featured Article
Just a heads-up, Hurricane Katrina will be on the main page as Today's Featured Article on September 29th. Add it to your watchlists, if it's not already there, because it's sure to be vandalized heavily. --Core des at talk! 03:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok.1998&#39;s Mitchazenia (joking) 18:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hurricane Francelia
(moved from the 69 season talk) It wasnt retired, why doesnt it have the year in it. The name would be Hurricane Francelia (1969).Mitchazenia 14:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You could be bold and do it yourself. As for why it doesn't have the year, when the articles were first created, they gave Hurricane XXXX the main article if it was only used once. That has since changed. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * From what I can tell, the name was only ever used once, which means it was automatically the most notable storm with that name. I say leave it unless the name gets brought back in the future. --Core des at talk! 14:34, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry Cordesat-already did the move.1998&#39;s Mitchazenia (joking) 14:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Then revert it - although this is still a contentious issue (Tammy, Beta, Gamma, Epsilon and Zeta all have year identifiers [Vince has been used as "Vincent" in Australia; Alpha and Delta have been used otherwise] although Ioke doesn't have one). And please get a better sig and avoid that very very unnecessary reference to Hurricane Mitch. – Chacor 14:41, 26 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Fine done both of them.Em. Hi, i am Mitchazenia (uh) 14:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion
I have a suggestion, since most users somehwere in the 2006 AHS talk page suggested (i dont know if they suggested it or aggreed to it) that every storm that impact land should have an article. Does that also applies to EPAC, WPAC, S. Hemisphere and NIndian storms too?. Storm05 14:55, 28 September 2006 (UTC)


 * EPac - Depends. Most likely - as with John and Lane this year. But not all (Aletta and Two-E).
 * WPac - No. There are far too many storms that affect land and most do little - ten deaths unfortunately isn't much in the WPac. It needs to do significant damage, imo.
 * NIO - Depends. There needs to be info.
 * SHem - No. Similar to WPac, most affect land. It will vary from storm to storm.
 * – Chacor 15:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we should do what we've been doing; if there's enough info, make it. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:14, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thats what i tried with the Typhoon Nida (2004) article (now merged) and others, put whatever infomation that I can find on the internet or whereever in order to make it. Storm05 15:16, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Info here emphasising on preparations and impact. A long drawn out storm history doesn't cut it, unfortunately. – Chacor 15:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict)I checked the impact section of the article and counted three paragraphs, storm history i dont know per Irene05 and others. Storm05 15:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Just playing Devil's Advocate, but what about Hurricane Irene (2005)? That has a long storm history, and a little impact, records, and naming. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It depends, doesn't it? In the case of Nida it was really unnecessary information (stuff like when the system formed it wass moving WNW at 7 mph). With Irene there was the "we've got it wrong-it's still alive" thing (as with Epsilon et al). With Nida... it was just some unneeded info. – Chacor 15:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The priority order, IMO, should be Atlantic, EPac, WPac, Australia, NInd, SWPac, SInd. CrazyC83 05:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I completely disagree with the idea of order of priority. All storm basins have equal priority - Atlantic is no way any more important than, let's say, Australia. RaNdOm26 09:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It just depends on the amount of info and interest in the storm. The Atlantic rules apply everywhere, IMO. Tito xd (?!?) 23:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Chosing any one basin as a priority over another is POV, and anti-Wikipedia, from what I understand. Thegreatdr 02:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * There has been a recent increase in work on other basins (especially the Western Pac), but if we kept repeating stuff like "the storm did not affect land" for Eastern Pacific storms it'd get boring ;). But you're probably right there. No one basin is more important than any other. – Chacor 02:03, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

UTC times
Look, in WP:MOSDATE, it says clearly in that little table that 24 hour times must have a colon in between. You cannot have the time with just four numbers without a colon. I don't see a statement anywhere, saying that 24 hour times are allowed without colons. Please, tell me what your opinion is, and why WP:MOSDATE does not allow it. RaNdOm26 09:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It does not say it MUST - it does not say that you CANNOT not have colons. Just do a search on Wiki, or on any search engine with "0300 UTC", fully in quotation marks. Even the NHC, BOM etc. use it. There's no problem with it. – Chacor 15:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Tropical Cyclogenesis article needs opinions/ideas
Much more can be added to the tropical cyclogenesis article, depending upon what direction we all wish it to go. Considering its potentially high importance to this project, I'd like some opinions concerning what direction to go next. It may be start class already. Should there be differentiation between baroclinically-initiated tropical cyclones, which initially spin up quite fast, and those that gradually form under an upper high? Should subtropical cyclogenesis be covered here, or in a separate article? I think it is best for now that cyclogenesis be saved for cyclones in the Westerlies, but it does not have to be this way. Any opinions from the group would be appreciated. Thegreatdr 02:15, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, first, the article should match and expand on what is already mentioned on Tropical cyclone. Cyclogenesis indicates four requirements, while tropical cyclone indicates six. That is what in my opinion should be covered first. We could also cover the different types of possible cyclogenesis: the two you mention, and quickly mention how a subtropical storm becomes a tropical cyclone. Also, perhaps we should mention how an extratropical cyclone becomes tropical, like Hurricane Karen did. Then, major meteorological events, such as ENSO, like the article covers now. I personally think it is more than Stub-Class at this point, though. Ideally, we should cover details of cyclogenesis in all regions of the world, but an overview will suffice for now. Tito xd (?!?) 02:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I see your point. Somehow I combined the 6 categories into 4...it seemed awkward to separate the SST requirement from the instability requirement since the two are related.  A surface focus is definitely required.  I'll see what I can do to make the articles more similar.  I'll up it to start class as well.  If someone wants to give it a higher category, I'll leave it to them.  Thegreatdr 02:31, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * We can separate the categories there, or combine them in tropical cyclone—which one is used the most in meteorological circles? It doesn't matter exactly the order, we just need to be internally consistent. I'll give it some copyediting... make sure I don't mess up anything, though. Tito xd (?!?) 02:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The article is top-importance now, now that it isn't a stub. --Core des at talk! 05:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * A few more images have been added, and there has been some reorganization. Thegreatdr 17:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Gold Mine of Info
Found by Nilfanion, we now have access to newspaper archives back to the 1700s, located here. I've been doing some searching, and found a lot info, probably enough to make articles on most landfalling storms back to 1950 and even earlier. Just a few random storms, they have good info for Diana (90), Beryl (88), Bob (85), Dennis (81), Katrina (81), Jeanne (80), Bob (79), Elena (79), Fern (72), Gerda (69), Alice (54- the first one), Alice (54- the second one) just to name a few. I recently found loads of info for the storms in the 1933 AHS, some intermittent info on Japan typhoon (which I wasn't even looking for), the 1939 California tropical storm, and the 1903 New Jersey hurricane. I just wanted to bring this to everyone's attention, especially to article creators. Enjoy. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Bad news, you have to join that website to see most of the archived articles listed above. Storm05 13:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not true. Just click "enter archive" (once it's working, it goes on and off a lot), then type in, for example, "Diana AND date:1990:08:08", and you'll get all newspapers containing the word Diana and was printd on August 8, 1990. Be sure to use undefined, and list any info pertaining to the article, as linking to the article might not work. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 14:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounding rocket image
This image has major historical significance as it is the first picture that shows the large-scale structure of a storm and the first image successfully taken from high altitude of the Earth in natural color. I'm sure there are a number of places where this image could be beneficial, asides Sounding rocket and 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. It would add value to Sounding rocket, if that article wasn't a stub and not able to take it; and as a TD its image doesn't add much to the season. Any ideas of other places?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Isn't there like a close-up of some other storm (possibly a depression) from that season? It from the same rocket? Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 21:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The image description page has a link to the Monthly Weather Review article describing it. This rocket only captured this one (set of) images. Might be a radar image?--Nilfanion (talk) 16:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a picture from the rocket...I have a copy of the image in a desk at work. Close to a satellite image, if only the rocket ever entered orbit.  Can't be a satellite if you're not in orbit.  As for whether there is radar image for the early October 1954 tropical depression, it is possible, but it would have to be from the military as it was a few years before the WSR-57 radar deployment.  Thegreatdr 17:23, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * My fault. I remembered wrong and was thinking of this picture by mistake. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:47, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
 * There is no color version of this image, as it was 1954. I'm not sure when the first colorized cameras were thrown into space, but I don't think it was until at least the 1960's or 1970's.
 * That's from an early weather satellite. I'm wondering where you can find the supposedly 23,000 images from TIROS. Good kitty 15:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Hurricane duration inconsistencies
I noticed, regarding the articles at List of notable Atlantic hurricanes, Hurricane Kyle (2002), and Hurricane Inga, that there is inconsistency regarding the longest-lasting storms. Kyle's article says it is the third, while the notable hurricanes article says he is fourth; Inga's article says she is fourth, yet the notable hurricanes article says she is third. --tomf688 (talk - email) 11:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem, I believe, is that the 1899 San Ciraco hurricane was recently re-evaluated to be the longest storm, while previously it wasn't even in the top ten. Thus, some articles were updated with the correct info, while others were not. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 13:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

New FAC: 2004 Atlantic hurricane season
I just put it up for renomination. It was failed 17 months ago, but a lot has changed since. CrazyC83 15:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Another new FAC: Hurricane David
After a long period of consideration, I finally put it up. CrazyC83 17:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Argh... I'm not liking this. What happened to the "have three people agree" rule of thumb we were using before? Just grabbing one and sending it to FAC causes more trouble in the long run. Tito xd (?!?) 02:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Sharp increase in GA's, Improvement Drive?
I was looking at the tables, and as of September 30, there were 28 storm/season GA's (and 22 higher). At this point there are 47 (plus 24 higher), an increase of near 68% in terms of GA's in just the first half of October, with several more currently awaiting. Have we just had a lot of articles very close that moved up, or are we really turning the corner? CrazyC83 02:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, we actually have 52 GAs... let me upload those graphs soon. But I think we had a ton of articles that were very close, and now moved up. Also, almost all of the recent season/storm articles are at least B-Class; most of the 2005 fishies are now GAs. We're turning the corner in recent seasons in that regard, but there's a ton of work left to do, primarily in the meteorological aspects of tropical cyclones. Tito xd (?!?) 02:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Several important storms of recent years, most notably Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Wilma, remain at Start-class. I am thinking we should do an Article Improvement Drive on some. It is harder to move the high-impact storms up due to the high amount of information, but more rewarding (as when we got our flagship article Hurricane Katrina to FA, which certainly required a ton of work). CrazyC83 02:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The one that is perhaps most critical, and easier to finish off at the moment, is Tropical cyclone. By the way, I uploaded some stats about the WikiProject's assessments, since May 15:

Something that should be noted is that most new articles go straight to B-Class, so the numbers for both Starts and Stubs are somewhat stable. (Although that can also happen if the rate of article improvement is the same as the rate of new article creation.) Also, we don't promote A-Class articles as much as we should. Perhaps we need to double-check our GAs, and see which ones pass A-Class article criteria? Tito xd (?!?) 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Nice summaries! Yea, the upswing in GA is due to our ever-rising standards (as Tito said, most go straight to B, and if they're complete it'd pass GAN). The problem with deciding which GA's could be A's is that it should be the other way around. Which GA articles should not be A class articles? Right now, it seems like a lot of the GA's a pretty much done, but all the GA's for retired hurricane articles are not quite comprehensive enough to be considered complete. Minor impact storms can get to A class much more easily, though the retired storm articles take more time. I think that 2003 AHS, Percy, Andrew, Camille, Charley, Felix 95, Lenny, Tropical cyclone, and Storm of 1804 all need more work for A class. Maybe we should go for GA nom for the big impact articles once they're pretty good all around (but not 100% comprehensive), and wait for A class once it has everything. Charley, for example, would require a longer section for Florida and Aftermath. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 03:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

My take on this is this. These stats show are writers of new articles are getting consistently better. B-Class is the highest "entry" level class as any other requires discussion. That's good. What is bad is that article improvement seems to be sorely neglected, hence the stability in stubs and starts. Also our internal assessment has become somewhat more inactive: hence the stagnant nature of A-Class. I suggest we properly archive that page (so we can see the relevant discussions) and ensure that all GAs are mentioned there, as they are all going to be fairly close to A-class if not there already. Our FACs should come from our A-class articles but we are running out of those.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:08, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I personally don't like moving GA's to A-class without a peer review or general consensus though, so I think we should do an in-house assessment on all the current GA's. CrazyC83 19:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what the Assessment page is for.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Areas affected
I figured I'll bring this here. For fishie storms that don't affect land, should the "Areas affected" parameter say "open XXX Ocean"? Because IMO that's redundant. IMO, if it didn't affect land AND did not have any sea effects (i.e., deaths at sea), "Areas affected" should probably read "None". Thoughts? – Chacor 06:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I like this idea, mainly because it's fairly obvious that a fish storm that doesn't affect land will affect the open ocean. We also don't say, for instance, that a storm that crosses Florida then goes straight out to sea affected Florida and the open Atlantic Ocean. --Core des at 06:24, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Areas affected - NONE. Hmmm, did the tropical storm affect a place called "None"? I don't think so. RaNdOm26 16:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed for different reasons. Mainly, I think the clarification couldn't hurt. Storms that affected ships, like Hurricane Carrie (1957) when it had an article, did not affect no areas, as it did sunk a ship and killed quite a few people. If it affects land, then open ocean shouldn't be mentioned. However, not that many storms are complete fish storms throughout their entire lifetimes, so the clarification couldn't hurt. Note: it says areas affected, not countries or land masses affected. I see no harm for it. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 20:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Regardless of whatever the result of this discussion is, I've full-protected the page until there's consensus here. Tito xd (?!?) 20:38, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Areas affected" does not specifically say land areas. Hence, I think it should remain as such, to clearly point out where the storm was. There were only 1 or 2 articles for non-landfallers at the time that the infobox was created so it was seen as an afterthought, but now there are many such articles since we have figured out enough to get GA's (and even FA's) out of them. CrazyC83 22:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Please re-read the original post. If the storm did not affect land AND had no sea effects. Sinking a ship is a sea effect. It is COMMON SENSE that an ATLANTIC storm will affect the OPEN ATLANTIC. Be consistent, if you want to keep it then if the storm affects land as well, add "open Atlantic" or "Caribbean Sea" or "Gulf of Mexico". Sheesh. – Chacor 00:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * By saying Open Atlantic, that means that it only affected the Atlantic Ocean. If it by chance only affected the Gulf or Caribbean (or, better, open Pacific Ocean) without affected land, then that should be mentioned as the areas affected. However, if it affected land, the open Atlantic should not be included. I think we should include the Open Atlantic to reiterate that it only affected the open waters, including if it affected ships. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 01:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It may be common sense that an Atlantic storm will affect the open Atlantic but common sense != reality. It is possible to get a fishie in the Caribbean, that would not be considered open Atlantic by most people - yet that would be an Atlantic storm. Likewise, if we add a few regional phrases denoting regions of the ocean have it. Working out what an acceptable list of terms is, thats another issue. Personally, I see no harm in a placeholder "Open Atlantic" on TS Lee as opposed to "none", it gives more precise info. Chacor, CHILL you are getting very worked up over a fairly simple issue, its not that big a deal its ONLY wikipedia.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:56, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Your usage of WP:CHILL here only served to aggravate my mood, but I chose not to respond to this. Please realise that there are times to cite it, and there are times where it would make sense to cite it but it won't work because it'd make things worse. I'm surprised you failed to observe that this was a latter case. – Chacor 08:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, if someone in good faith asks you to take a step back and calm down; and this results in aggravating you more, that you should take a wikibreak.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * And the further you fail to exercise good judgement by pushing this the more you are losing my respect. – Chacor 09:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Is there a final consensus now? RaNdOm26 08:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Three to two is hardly consensus, so no, not yet. – Chacor 08:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I am opposed to removing Atlantic/Caribbean Sea in the Areas affected section, by the way. There's no such thing as a storm affecting nowhere. RaNdOm26 08:23, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I considered your opinion in the three to two (I missed Crazy's) - so that's four to two. Hard to judge consensus so a few more opinions would be appreciated. – Chacor 08:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This isn't a straw poll but a discussion, so a simple count of heads is surely inappropriate. If you want that open up a RfC on this issue, you aren't going to get consensus (either way) from the active project members alone if you look at support/oppose: Who hasn't already expressed their thoughts? A productive discussion here could produce consensus, but counting !votes at this stage precludes that.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I honestly thought that Wikipedia isn't a democracy. RaNdOm26 09:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You are right it isn't.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I've changed my mind since Hurricanehink made a good point in IRC the other day. The infobox is often the first thing readers look at when they read the article, and seeing "none" may confuse some (at least until they read the lead). However, if it were changed to say "no land areas" and not "none", that would be more acceptable. --Core des at 18:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Good idea, I'll agree to that. Question though. What would we do for the rare storm that sinks a ship, like Carrie? Should we do Atlantic Ocean, name the ship that was sunk, or say "no land areas".? Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:10, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Naming the ship might be a good idea in that case. --Core des at 19:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, cool. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "No land areas" works. Of course, commons sense would dictate that if it says "No land areas" then "XXX Ocean" would not be needed, yes? – Chacor 02:04, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Correct. So we're all in agreement? If a storm does not affect land at all, it will say "No land areas". Tito, if you're reading, can you unprotect Otto? Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:55, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Unprotected. Tito xd (?!?) 22:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

WMO 2005 RA IV report
I've managed to track this beast down at long last. Unfortunately its still not entirely available, but I've found the most useful bits (the other nation reports). Its only currently available as 15 word docs. The important one is the contents file. It shows what bits are still absent for a start and gives hyperlinks to the other files, so I only need to give this one link. (Though you might need to use IE to get to them easier).--Nilfanion (talk) 21:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

U.S. National Hurricane Operations Plan 2006
PDF file link (WARNING: LARGE FILE - 5 MB). An interesting read which details everything you possibly wanted to know about what goes on behind-the-scenes, including stuff about how recon flights go about doing their stuff. Also lists operational requirements of the respective centres (NHC, CPHC, NWS WFO Guam). – Chacor 14:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Hurricane Rita at Article Improvement Drive
I decided to put it up, knowing the 2nd or 3rd (arguable) most important storm of the worst year on record deserves a much better article and will hopefully follow big sister Katrina to becoming an FA. (Wilma may need one later too, but one at a time) CrazyC83 19:53, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree, though in its current state it deserves much better than Start Class. Pobbie Rarr 21:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

1962 Pacific typhoon season
I guess that if anyone has noticed, I have been working ragged on this article and its storms. If anyone also notices-i have been making subpages for the article. I am in need of people to help me get these done? Thanks.Mitchazenia V3.0 19:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * 1) User:Mitchazenia/List of storms in the 1962 Pacific typhoon season
 * 2) User:Mitchazenia/Timeline of the 1962 Pacific typhoon season
 * 3) User:Mitchazenia/1962 Pacific typhoon season statistics
 * 4) User:Mitchazenia/1962 Pacific typhoon season remodeling


 * Achem, is anyone gonna reply? I am desperate here. Please, I really need it.Mitchazenia V5.0 00:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You want a reply, okay. None of those subpages are needed, imo. – Chacor 00:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, you never asked for help. You only said you needed help. If you want people to help you, you should have asked, and not just assume people will. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 01:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Image review
With the large numbers of TC images we have available now I thought it would be a good idea to examine them critically to see which are the best ones (=FP candidates). I've created a table over in my User space on Commons for reviewing the MODIS images (which are clearly the best). Once we have collated this we will have an idea of the technical quality of the images. From that we can decide the best ones to send to FPC. Assistance would be appreciated (simple instructions on the page, be hypercritical and examine the full res image for any and all flaws).--Nilfanion (talk) 19:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * What about damage pics? I think there's a couple of good ones out there. íslenskur fel lib ylur #12 (samtal) 21:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Damage pics are necessarily much more judgemental as there is a lot more to those pics, so they should be handled through the primary image assessment routes here and on commons. This is just a limited review to find the prettiest sat pics, these can be done easily by checking against a few criteria.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Boxes/Tags on top of the talk pages and categorization
I understand (now) that subcategories like hurricane and flood supercede meteorology. My question is...why don't the hurricane articles show up automatically within the broader meteorology category? I would understand this if there were thousands of GA (heck, even B grade) articles within meteorology, but this is not currently the case. Some people who use wikipedia may not realize this if they search by article grade as the two are listed independently. Why are they listed independently? Can multiple tags such as flood and hurricane coexist in peaceful harmony? Can't we all just get along?! =) Thegreatdr 18:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Hehehe... mostly, because the categorization system here preceded the categorization at WikiProject Meteorology, and no one has asked before about combining the ratings. It isn't hard to actually do it, but the question is whether it is what other people would want. Perhaps we need to start a discussion about that. Tito xd (?!?) 20:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, the categories associated with banner pages are more for editorial maintenance than for readers; which is why this isn't that big a deal (the categories in the articles are for the reader). I favour the merge approach here: make all the tags for all subprojects of meteorology (including Tropical cyclones) redirects to a greatly improved meteorology which contains all the capability of the current hurricane (the most functional banner at this time) plus an extra parameter for the subproject. As an example using flood in an article would produce meteorology. This will essentially end independent WP1.0 tagging within the TC project, which isn't that big a deal for WPTC. However, WP1.0 assessment is still in its early stages within Meteorology, so many of those articles are currently unassessed. With this in mind I would want to preserve Category:Unassessed hurricane articles to ensure that new TC articles are promptly rated.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I am not sure that is the best approach to take; the reason there's a date parameter in the assessment tables is to check when an article was added or had its assessment modified, for use in WP:1.0 purposes. By all effects, combining the listings would reset the dates on the tables, rendering the entire table useless for us at WP:1.0. I don't mind the hurricane articles added to a meteorology category, but I do mind, and mind a lot, if they are removed from a hurricane category. So, please, don't mess with Category:Tropical cyclone articles by quality at all. As for modifying the template: That's quite a lot of template voodoo, which can be done, if members of both projects agree. WP:COUNCIL has seen how WikiProject "takeovers" can get unexpectedly nasty. Tito xd (?!?) 21:09, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Heh, I didn't understand the full significance of all the 1.0 stuff. Thanks for the insight, I know better now ;) I'd certainly implement the meteorology voodoo for the non-TC templates - it will enable them to best use them (but thats beyond the scope of this page). We could go for a soft merge option, make hurricane put its uses into both the TC and met ones or just add the TC categories as subcats in the met ones. Either option would work, and would not affect this project one bit - question is what do meteorology want?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The WPTC has already established itself very well, so merging it to be under something else would give little gain, mainly per what Tito said. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 01:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. They need to remain separate in terms of administration (and listed separately), but sisters in terms of sharing information and other stuff. CrazyC83 01:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Also agreed. Seems to me that in terms of categorisation, Each article can have a link to the relevand category on both sides of the fence (or am I thinking too simplistically here?). However, in terms of administration, there's nothing wrong with the status quo. --Crimsone 01:42, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, some users asked about having more features on meteorology, and I made a rough cookup on User:Titoxd/Sandbox M. Currently, you can add a project=Hurricane parameter (case-sensitive) for functionality equivalent to hurricane (or that's what it's supposed to do, when I code it). You can also try adding project=Storm</tt>, <tt>project=Tornado</tt>, or <tt>project=Weather-data</tt>, among others, and <tt>project=</tt> for the current Meteorology banner. At the same time, I don't know whether WPM has an assessment department that can sustain something similar to WPTC... Tito xd (?!?) 02:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Just jumping in here...I am very against merging the projects/taking away TC's assessment list...the TC project has done wonders, and did supercede the meteorology one. However, I am split about having hurricane feed into the meteorology assessment. I hope (some time in the near future) to actually split off more functional subprojects, such as a WikiProject Tornadoes or a WikiProject Floods, while leaving WikiProject Meteorology intact. This would allow people who have interest in general meteorology a whole list of everything they can work on, while people who have an interest in specific topics like tropical cyclones and tornadoes can have their own, shorter list to browse through. It could also help with standardization of articles, being able to browse through all articles having to do with any type of weather event, whether tornado, hurricane, flood, blizzard, etc. So, would having all these sub-projects continuing to feed into a tremendously huge, partially redundant Meteorology Assessment category be beneficial or not? -Runningonbrains 02:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, we can have a centralized weather listing, as well as the individual listings, but I would wait until there's at least three or four separate Meteorology sub-projects, counting WP:WPTC. Tito xd (?!?) 02:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I think the way to do this is for all subproject banners (including hurricane) to place the article into the relevant WP1.0 Meteorology cats. In addition, for those active subprojects enable the 1.0 sublisting. This would mean hurricane would place an article into both Cat:A-class hurricane articles and Cat:A-class meteorology articles. This is probably the simplest solution for all concerned (WP1.0, Meteorology, WPTC and any latent WPs). The integrity of the WPTC cats is preserved, the comprehensive Met cats exist and when any subproject branches off all it needs to do is activate its 1.0 tags. One end result I would really like to see at the end of this is only one wikiproject banner on Tropical cyclone. This article really should be in the meteorology assessment system and as WPTC's parent article should be in the WPTC cats too. Expanding the WPTC banner to place it in both categories would make the meteorology tag redundant - and a similar thing could occur on the activation of other subprojects. Titoxd: Would it be worth seeing if Oleg could rejig mathbot to so Category:Tropical cyclone articles by quality could be picked up if it was placed in Category:Meteorology articles by quality instead of the root cat? As more projects sign up to it, the root cat is getting overburdened, allowing subcategorisation like that would make it better for humans :) Indeed with expansion Mathbot could handle parent/daughter WP relationships maybe?--Nilfanion (talk) 20:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, adding the Meteorology assessment category to the hurricane articles would be an easy thing; I only need to edit to do it. However, is that acceptable to the Meteorology project? Do they want it? I'd like to know that before bugging Oleg... Tito xd (?!?) 01:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I personally see no issue with that. It's a simple solution (which is usually best). The major issue I feel is the ability to have articles which span both categories in the outside world (pretty much most of them) actually in both categories (and/or sub-cats where appropriate) Crimsone 02:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I also agree: It would be very helpful to have it feed to both.  Now, would these articles also show up in the meteorology assessment list? -Runningonbrains 06:51, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what I'm asking: if people want to, it certainly can be. ;) Tito xd (?!?) 06:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Right....ok. Brain fart.  I say do it. -Runningonbrains 07:24, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Quoting from somewhere above: "being able to browse through all articles having to do with any type of weather event, whether tornado, hurricane, flood, blizzard, etc" - isn't that what Category:Weather_events is for? And also Category:Weather_event_stubs? See also Category:Natural_disasters for some nice stuff. Carcharoth 06:13, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe they're talking about browsing at assessments, not the actual encyclopedic categories. Tito xd (?!?) 06:35, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, I've added the cyclones to the meteorology quality categories. I haven't done so for importance yet, as I don't know if WikiProject Meteorology wants to adopt their own importance assessments, or copy ours. Perhaps they do not consider List of South America tropical cyclones to be ; perhaps they think it's low. Or perhaps they do think it is Mid... but I'd rather wait until there's consensus either way. Tito xd (?!?) 07:48, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * What I would do instead would have been to put them as subcategories in the Meteorology folder (plus other related projects, like Climate Change) instead of showing up in the Meteorology list. The reason is that it dwarfs the list and gives us a difficult analysis on what is in the higher classes and not hurricane-related. CrazyC83 15:05, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by meteorology folder; do you mean the Mathbot meteorology assessment list? If so, I'm not sure mathbot can do that...but if it could that would be awesome -Runningonbrains 16:19, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Currently, Mathbot can't do that; that's why I asked whether it was a good idea to put them in the Meteorology assessment list, and everyone was saying go ahead... Tito xd (?!?) 17:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Track maps (again!)
Hmmm, I've been scanning through the NASA blue marble collection and been salivating a bit... Currently the track map program uses a derivation of the 2002 BM map. However we could produce a number of modifications to them. We could utilise the BMNG maps. These give a better quality image, which is month specific (snow cover changes in the NH for instance). We could also start using images with [bathymetry http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=7100]. This is less photorealistic but more informative (the Atlantic isn't uniform dark blue then). And then I'm wondering about the encyclopedic value of using THIS bg ;) The by-month BMNG maps could be quite useful for monthly cumulative tracks, and I think the NG maps look better than the 2002 version (though they are generally darker). Any thoughts?--Nilfanion (talk) 20:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Close your mouth. Your saliva is all over the screen now :P I must say, doing the maps by months would be really cool. However, would it be that substantially different so the effort would be worthwhile? Could you provide an example of a track map to show the differences? Those city lights would be interesting as well, as they'd give better indicators for the population of a storm's landfall. Would it be too much work to provide an example track map? Hurricanehink ( talk ) 20:37, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It is until the weekend, its going to take me a while to get it organized (I've got HD space but not that much time...). What would people like me to try?--Nilfanion (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
 * OK. What about a track map of Hurricane Charley with the city lights one, and Hurricane Michelle for the month of November? Would that be ok? Hurricanehink ( talk ) 20:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I've uploaded two sets of sample tracks to allow further discussion here (discuss in appropriate section please). According to NASA, the BMNG data shows "greater detail in areas that usually appear very dark to the satellite (because a large amount of sunlight is being absorbed), for example in dense tropical forests." It also "improves image clarity, and gives highly reflective land surfaces, such as salt flats, a more realistic appearance." In the full resolution image I think these benefits are apparent, but in the thumb the generally reduced brightness becomes an issue.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hurricane Charley
The top-left is the current track map, the bottom left is the August BMNG map, the top right just city lights data and the bottom right a composite of BMNG and city light data. The city lights data is interesting.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I personally like the classic, current map. The August BMNG map is a little dark, but for the thumb purposes the high quality image wouldn't be seen well. The plain night one is really dark as well. The lights one combined with the BMNG is interesting, but for a small track map the cool features would be minimalized and blurred. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, I liked the lights and the BMNG one combined the most. Just my opinion. íslenskur fel lib ylur #12 (samtal) 19:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you combine the current track map and the night-time BMNG map? That would help to see where population centers are, which would be really helpful. Tito xd (?!?) 19:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Also, if you try making the night-time map semi-transparent, there wouldn't be so issues with Cat-1 colors clashing. Tito xd (?!?) 19:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Hink, on the size issues, the program does not zoom in THAT close, so it won't get any more confusing than Charley's map (compare the size of the dots in this map to a short- lived TD). I can combine the light map with the current maps Tito but first I'm going to see if I can get the brightness of the BMNG maps fixed. The semi-transparency thing is easy enough, good point :) I think the data in them is superior, if I can get a good version we can discuss whether to swap over (or not). I really don't want to have to do another mass upload just yet.--Nilfanion (talk) 20:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Looking at it again (with better lighting), the bottom left track map does look much better. However, personally I am still not a fan of the night lights things. I'm not sure why, but it just seems to complicated for a track map. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 22:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

November hurricanes
The left is the old track map, the right is the BMNG data. The BMNG map is superior but has the contrast issue again.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I really like this sort of map, and I think we should use the BMNG map for November. It doesn't have the problems like the small track maps have because it is zoomed out. You can also notice the quality of the images much better. Yea, I vote for that. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 00:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

New HPC maps
Much improved full-color maps are now available for selected (mainly recent) storms on the HPC site. Example: Hurricane Katrina CrazyC83 01:27, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

High Importance cyclones to this project
Recent discussions have led me to believe that certain authors in this project want to rate importance purely from a wind strength or central pressure standpoint. I have rated a couple of the storms as high due to their extreme rainfall for their respective states and flood impact. Should we be so one-dimensional in our ratings? Thegreatdr 02:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed, there is most certainly more than the intensity of the storm to look at. – Chacor 02:02, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * In my viewpoint (correct me if I'm wrong here), any storm that is an extreme for any TC-related category, whether it is the strongest, driest, wettest, smallest, or biggest on record would be of high importance, if for no other reason than curiosity sake. Catarina in the south Atlantic is such an example.  It is of high importance not because it hit a large city as a category 5, merely due to its rarity.  Thegreatdr 02:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * However, the overall damage and fatality counts need to be the primary factors taken into account, as well as general knowledge by the hurricane-illiterate. As a general rule, I think they should be rated by the following criteria:


 * Top-importance: The greatest of the storms, that are forever remembered among the general public - even far from the landfall area - with catastrophic damage. They should also have a really comprehensive article with subarticles. Only Hurricane Katrina meets that, and few other storms likely will in the future. CrazyC83 02:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * High-importance: The major storms that take a long time to fade from memory and everyone knows about far from the area affected, or other destructive record-breakers (that still stand today). Examples: Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Camille, Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Typhoon Tip.
 * Mid-importance: All other retired hurricanes, plus others that are well-remembered in the areas affected but not so much among the general public. Lower impact record-breaking storms probably belong here. Examples: Hurricane Isabel, Hurricane Carol, Hurricane Linda (1997), Cyclone Monica.
 * Low-importance: Storms that are generally only well-known among the hurricane enthusiasts, that got little media coverage except when the information was fresh. Examples: Hurricane Florence (2006), Hurricane Karen (2001), Typhoon Ewiniar (2006), Hurricane Adrian (2005). CrazyC83 02:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * How you think they should be rated isn't necessarily what we should follow. And indeed we shouldn't unless there's consensus to do so. – Chacor 02:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, the criteria that CrazyC83 indicates are pretty close to the current consensus. This has been discussed at length before; as far as I know, the importance criteria we use is impact, not intensity. Currently, we use both inflation-adjusted property damage and loss of life as the main determinants for a priority assessment; as a result, Tropical Storm Allison is High-Importance, but Hurricane Nora (1997) is Low-Importance, in spite of it being stronger. As a result, retired hurricanes are by default at least Mid-Importance, as they were retired due to the impact they had on a region. That said, being a record-breaker adds a few "bonus points" to a storm, and that's why Hurricane Linda (1997) is rated as Mid, in spite of it not being retired. However, that added bonus is not enough to switch a low-priority storm in terms of damage to High-Importance. Tito xd (?!?) 04:25, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Vamei was a retired storm not due to impact, yet it's at mid. If what is said about record breakers is right, wouldn't this be a High then? – Chacor 04:47, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If it was retired for reasons other than impact, then the assumption above (retired = damaging) doesn't hold, so it has to be assessed independently. Tito xd (?!?) 04:52, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Vamei should be a mid importance storm imo. On the basis of damage alone is low importance, however the unusual circumstances are significant to justify a raise to mid (the fact it was retired indicates that). Any records from the storm should be borne in mind, but if you look hard enough you can find a record set by just about any storm so the significance of that record is important. Remember we may only have top, high, mid and low, but just because it has a significant record that does not mean a class-raise is necessary (it becomes a "high mid" as opposed to a "low mid" say). The one thing in Crazy's criteria I strongly disagree with is the article quality stuff. 1970 Bhola cyclone is justifiably a Top-class storm (any thoughts on that?), yet is a poor article. Article quality has nothing to do with importance.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:03, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Careful! :-) It's Top-importance class, not Top-class. The quality classes are FA, GA, A, B, etc. The importance classes are Top, High, Mid, Low. I agree with your assessment of the importance of the 1970 Bhola cyclone, but would like to point out that importance assessment in terms of impact as disasters could theoretically be done under the aegis of something like WikiProject Disaster Management, though that project is not that active. Carcharoth 11:54, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Very true. The importance criteria should be strongly based on impact. RaNdOm26 04:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Changes to
As some of you may have seen, I added a "<tt>comments</tt>" parameter to the WikiProject's banner, and if you type <tt>{&#123;hurricane|comments=yes}}</tt>, you can type an assessment comment directly into the banner.

Why do we want that? See our assessment table. That way, the assessment comments are centralized, and can also be shared between WikiProjects... :) It seems to be gaining steam with some of the projects participating in 1.0, so I thought that it may be something useful for us. I hope to see all of you using it soon. ;) Tito xd (?!?) 22:53, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

FA Queue
Let's keep the FA flood going and get a list here for which ones are next. I think we should have at least two at a time. Right now, we have Fabian. I have my own personal list of article's I'll be FAC'ing. I'll take care of the objections and improving for those. If you have some articles you think are FA status and you'll willing to take care of the FAC process, list 'em. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:20, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

One thing is for sure...
The relatively quiet 2006 season has given us a lot more time to look back and work on creating and improving articles for older storms, seasons and other terminology. Without having to look at, track and update the 2006 season page or storm article pages much (like in 2005 when that page and individual storm articles had to be updated all the time, leaving little time for other stuff), we can gather information from the past to add new articles to Low-importance storm articles, to improve existing Mid and High-importance storm articles, and become a true educational resource. (Helene and Isaac - both currently redirects - will be done after the TCR if someone else hadn't done them already) It has also given us enough practice so almost all of us can produce GA-quality articles on the first try!

It will be interesting to see what the winter ahead will produce (of course, I have the Meteorology project, and other related projects, to work from as well). We are certainly on a roll! CrazyC83 03:35, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Very good point. The project is coming along nicely as a tropical cyclone encyclopedia in some areas, but not others. The existing articles, sadly, are taking too long to be improved, but we're definetly getting there. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 20:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Its given me time to finish my big project-1962 Pacific typhoon season.MitchazeniaBob Barker's Retiring... 21:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought the season pages would be more important than they are. They should be done from most recent year backwards, IMO. Good kitty 04:59, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Storm designations
There is a minor dispute going on on the Indian season as to the correct designation for the depression. This isn't a comment on that dispute so much as a stylistic problem I feel the project has. As things stand we are overburdening ourselves with designations and are confusing issues. I want to see a simplification of how the data is presented, to make it more readable. Here are some principles I think we should follow: This provides a simplification of the sections and infoboxes and gives consistency. An infobox stating "Typhoon Cimaron (Paeng)" is clearer than "Typhoon Cimaron (Paeng)/Super Typhoon 22W". Also we do not get ambiguity like "Tropical Cyclone 01S" being followed by "Tropical Disturbance 07R"; we would in this case use the Reunion designation "Tropical Depression 02R" and not include the JTWC designation at all (though we will carry JTWC based info in the prose). This should cover the majority of circumstances. I think storm articles should follow the practices of the relevant seasonal article(s), crossovers being the only storms to receive dual infobox titles. How does this sound?--Nilfanion (talk) 16:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) For each season, one agency's data should be given primacy. For current seasons this should be the RSMC, but use the JTWC if we have no usable archive for the RSMC.
 * 2) For the storm section headers and the infobox title:
 * 3) If the storm is named, use the only full name of the storm as given by the lead agency at its peak, without any numerical identifiers. The exception is PAGASA names should be bracketed. As examples: "Hurricane Katrina", "Typhoon Chanchu (Caloy)" and "Tropical Cyclone Xavier". Do not include any numerical designations.
 * 4) If the storm is not named (or has received only a PAGASA name) but has received a unique numerical designation from the lead agency, use only this. For example: "Tropical Depression 03F".
 * 5) If the lead agency does not assign a unique identifier to a storm, but another agency does, use the name of this agency and its designation for the storm. List these in an "other storms" section. Examples: "JTWC Tropical Depression 13W" and "PAGASA Tropical Depression Ompong".
 * 6) The prose of the section and the data in the infobox should reflect the data of the lead agency (or the alternative agency if a section title of the third type above is used). If other agencies provide information of significance this should be included, always stating the source agency.

Wikilinking dates
Hate to bring this up, as Hurricanehink said that this might involve a change in 400+ articles. However, while looking over Hurricane Edith (1971), I couldn't help but notice how distracting the blue dates were. Is there a reason why these dates are linked? In my view, linking all those dates is unnecessary. Gzkn 07:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's actually more like 800 pages... but the reason we do it is mostly per the dates section on the Manual of Style. In these cases, the date is relevant to the article's context. Also, I personally dislike seeing "bare" links, so it is one of those things where no change will ever get full consensus... Tito xd (?!?) 07:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Ohhh. Now I see why...it's for the date preferences to work. Thanks for pointing that out. Although I still fail to see how they are relevant to the article's context in this case (for example, September 8 doesn't exactly go to a page related to tropical cyclones...). Gzkn 08:47, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's relevant to the fact that the storm became a hurricane on that date. – Chacor 08:53, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Dissipated
I have a question regarding the dissipated field in the infobox, and I just wanted to double check this is OK. I said in the article formatting template I made that the dissipated section in the infobox is for when it loses its tropical characteristics or dissipates as a tropical cyclone. Is that OK? I know some people in the past wanted dissipated to be dissipated in general, as in dissipating as an extratropical storm. We never addressed remnant lows, though. Remnant lows do not meet the criteria for tropical cyclones, as they don't have the necessary convection. However, we never really addressed the issue. I think, for the most part, the dissipated field indicates when it becomes a remnant low. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Even though it's a fine point of detail, the way you address it is the way TPC seems to handle it. It never made sense to me to have a dissipated tropical cyclone with a 1004 hPa central pressure and a defined wind field, but that's a discussion for another day.  =)  Thegreatdr 18:25, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That does not take into account broken paths though. For instance, Hurricane Ivan is (correctly) listed as September 2 to 24, 2004, even though it was nothing more than a partial remnant low from about Sept. 18 to 22. Also (this is disputed) but I don't like listing a storm as dissipated when the system is still clearly pouring destructive winds or rain somewhere, but the NHC doesn't go by that... CrazyC83 03:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

GA collaboration nom
Hurricane Andrew has been nominated.feel free to go to WP:GACo to vote. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.116.113.241 (talk • contribs)

Hurricanes by US Division
Inspired by, I have been considering making a navigation template to allow users to easily navigate between lists for each US State. The following is a possible table. (I have not created the template yet)

Alternative arrangements: Lump Midway with Hawaii, Guam with NMI, Delaware with Maryland and DC, or Puerto Rico with USVI.

By analogy, we could do something similar for Mexican States etc.

Another alternative would be to make a seperate series of tables for each basin rather than for each country. Thus, the table for say, the Eastern North Pacific would have one for the US areas given, but also one for appropriate Mexican states, each country in Central America etc. The one for the Atlantic would have the ones for each US State given above, appropriate states of Mexico, South America, West Africa, each country in the Caribbean, Bermuda, Canada and so on.

Should we be doing one of these? Or should we simply not do any of this idea at all. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 18:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * It's not a bad idea, though first we would need to do a lot of work to finish and create the articles. Currently, only New Jersey, Delaware, California, and I think Arizona are finished completely, while Hawaii is mostly finished. The rest still need a lot of work. I wonder if Alaska should be included. No, I'm not crazy, but WPAC storms have affected the Alleutian Islands several times, and I know some EPAC storms affected the state. I know of at least 5; Ioke 06, Fico 78, a typhoon in 2004 whose name I don't know, Typhoon 7 of 1996, and typhoon 6 of 1998. There's probably more. I'm not a personal fan of lumping if it can be avoided, so maybe List of New England hurricanes should be split up. Agreed with Johnston Atoll and Midway Island being lumped, though. An entire inland section might be bad for Atlantic hurricanes, though. New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Ohio could all possibly have their own pages. I like the idea of a US template, provided it gets finished eventually, though a worldwide one would be good, as well. Going by basin could get a little confusing, as some places could get both (Texas and Central America, for example). Each country in Central America and each Mexican state might be hard, so some lumping might be needed (though not entirely). Perhaps have six Mexico ones; List of Baja California hurricanes (with Baja California and Baja California Sur, List of Northwest Mexico hurricanes (with Sinaloa, Sonora, Jalisco, Nayarit, and Chihuahua), [[List of South Mexico hurricanes (with Guerrero, Michoacán, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and some of the inland ones), List of Northeast Mexico hurricanes (with Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Nuevo León, Veracruz, and some inland ones), and List of Yucatán Peninsula hurricanes (with Yucatan, Quintana Roo, and Campeche). Not sure about Central America though (splitting in 2?). If you were to make a global one, perhaps it would be better by continent, provided we get that far. This project is a good idea, but probably better as a long-range organizational plan rather than an immediate course of action. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 19:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see this as well, but I would keep it in the back burner until we have at least half of the links in that navigation template blue. Personally, I disagree with Hink only in one aspect of his comment: I think that the articles should be merged until they are ready to be separated, and we can then modify the template accordingly. Tito xd (?!?) 20:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I suppose that works, but it all depends when it all will get done. If someone wants to describe Connecticut hurricanes, they could make that article while the NE list is still incomplete. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 20:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Also i think the background color is hideous.Mitchazenia 20:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I prefer a top down style with this kind of thing (we have New England - that could be split by state). Also I think it would probably be a mistake to include the Pacific territories in this, we can make it about hurricanes then (and have a similar one for TYs). Actually thinking about this more, a US template is a mistake. The best method would be to have a template for hurricanes, which lists all US states and countries affected; it saves having to create another non-US template (and possible bias problems from that).And as for the choice of colours no comment :P--Nilfanion (talk) 20:27, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem with splitting New England by state is that they are so small and shaped so that most hurricanes that affect the region affect at least 4 or 5 of the states (since brushes of the region are quite uncommon, unlike Mid-Atlantic or South Atlantic states where many just graze parts of them). Other regions, I agree with breaking Mexico down too, and Cuba can as well (West, Central and East, divided by 1/3's along longitude lines), although Canada is more difficult since most will affect at least all 3 of the Maritime Provinces, and/or Newfoundland (and few make it inland, of which nearly all that make it into inland Canada also affect the inland US - esp. the Midwest or Appalachian region). CrazyC83 03:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * As per New England, so is the Mid-Atlantic, but the List of New Jersey hurricanes and the List of Delaware hurricanes are very different despite having most of the same storms. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

David Longshore Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, etc.
We should really think twice before adding this reference into any of our tropical cyclone articles. It is chock full of errors. Click here for a review I gave of the book on Amazon almost seven years ago. It doesn't look like the material was ever edited before it went to press. Thegreatdr 19:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I wonder if we have enough content to make our own... :) Tito xd (?!?) 21:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * In time we will, actually. Once a few more of our key articles are better (Wilma, Andrew, Camille, some structure/non-storm articles), we probably could. :D Per the original question, I don't think we should use it. We can probably find sources online that are better (both gramatically and factually correct). Hurricanehink ( talk ) 21:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations
Hi cyclone geeks. I'm just dropping in here to congratulate you on all the Featured Articles you've managed to write. It seems that every week The Signpost reports yet another hurricane becoming an FA, and I'm sure this particularly wikiproject is the biggest generator of Featured Articles. I'd give all of you a big weather-related barnstar, but out of principle I don't do barnstars. Keep up the god work, meteorologists. --Dangherous 11:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

User list
I think we should reformat the user list to not use the sigs but the usernames. In particular, I disagree with this edit by RattleMan. I understand why he made it (and agree with his intent), but there is no reason he shouldn't be allowed to use his full sig just because it is too long, no more than any other project member. A better usage is just to use out usernames on the list IMO.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:12, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * As a comment, Astrohurricanes sig wasn't what he used here, he deliberately used his more complex code for some reason...--Nilfanion (talk) 23:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's what it looks like plain, with no column adjustments (fixed):

Please state your newsletter preference


 * jdorje
 * Baylink
 * Miss Madeline
 * Titoxd
 * Hurricanehink
 * NSLE/Chacor
 * Cuivienen
 * Jaranda
 * CrazyC83
 * Goobergunch
 * Hurricane Devon
 * Counters
 * DanielES15
 * E. Brown
 * Sarah sofia
 * juan andrés
 * Fishhead
 * Lionheart Omega
 * WotGoPlunk


 * Evolauxia
 * Icelandic Hurricane
 * Golbez
 * Ajm81
 * Lkegley9
 * RattleMan
 * Yarrah
 * Erebus555
 * Tcwd
 * Weatherman90
 * Rcnj
 * Jamie_C
 * DavidH
 * Coredesat
 * Robomaeyhem
 * AKMask
 * TydeNet
 * Runningonbrains
 * BazookaJoe


 * Changic
 * Nilfanion
 * Storm Boy
 * Storm05
 * WindRunner
 * Cyclone1
 * Pobbie Rarr
 * Dr Denim
 * Timl2k4
 * bob rulz
 * Derek.cashman
 * Thegreatdr
 * RaccoonFox
 * Alastor Moody
 * WmE
 * DaNASCAT
 * Douglasr007
 * WeatherVane
 * VortexGuy


 * Merovingian
 * RaNdOm26
 * Typhoonchaser
 * Jake52
 * AySz88
 * Hello32020
 * Fableheroesguild
 * User:Pikachu9000
 * CFIF
 * Ryūlóng
 * Hurricane-Inu
 * Wikizach
 * SpLoT
 * IrfanFaiz
 * The great kawa
 * Insanephantom
 * Ugaap
 * Patrickrox11
 * Jcam
 * AstroHurricane001

-- RattleMan 23:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Umm whats going on with the formatting of this? I see one col on the left, a big gap then the second then another big gap; with the other 3 columns bunched together on the right...--Nilfanion (talk) 23:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Fixed. --Ajm81 23:46, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, we shouldn't have signatures. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 00:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Oops, sorry about that. The reason why I used the really long signature was becuase I saw a lot of other users using long signatures, and ones including talk pages, other pages, and colour codes. I guess I must have put too many pages or too many words in my signature. If Usernames should be used instead of signatures on Wikiprojects, someone should reformat the list and remove the extra links. AstroHurricane001 02:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Storm Tides in 12 TCs (inc. 4 intense New England hurricanes) - Brian R. Jarvinen (NHC/TPC, ret.)
This was posted today on storm2k... a paper by Brian R. Jarvinen formerly of the NHC-TPC. It contains info on Hurricane Audrey, Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635, Great September Gale of 1815, 1938 New England hurricane, 1893 Sea Islands Hurricane, 1935 Labor Day hurricane, Hurricane Alicia, Hurricane Carol, Tropical Storm Isidore (2002), Hurricane Lili (2002), 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the 1915 Galveston Hurricane. – Chacor 13:49, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Regional impact subpages in major storm articles
Noticing that Hurricanehink has made a (very good, IMO) article on Effects of Hurricane Isabel in New Jersey, and there are plans for more similar articles, I decided to make a geographical reference template. It is located at Template:Hurricane path.

This is an experimental template I made up. The centerpoint is New Jersey on Hurricane Isabel in this example (for the long article created), but it can be shifted. The storm is also completely flexible and the category is based on the peak in that region listed. If it borders an area not impacted, then "No impact" or "Out of path" or something like that can be listed on that direction. <pre style="overflow:auto">

CrazyC83 06:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Why can't we use something like Katrina, which is IMO more consistent for someone who is looking for info about a particular region? Tito xd (?!?) 06:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to make it easier for people that know little about Wikipedia to understand, so if I sorted it by geographical location, it would make it easier. The precedence is Template:Area Code Box 0, which I modelled it against. Also, especially in the open ocean, it also gives an idea of the direction the storm went. CrazyC83 06:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Tito. Few storms, if any, will have enough of an impact in different areas to warrant many subarticles. Most storms don't have far-reaching impacts that are confined to two or three states which can be handled as they are right now, within each individual storm article. Something like Katrina should be sufficient for any storm that does need so many subarticles. – Chacor 06:43, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * In either case, we need at least some information about the effects of Isabel on each state on the main Isabel article (similar to what Katrina does for New Orleans and Mississippi), so main would be enough in this case, IMO. Tito xd (?!?) 06:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The following articles could use regionalized effects to ensure they're comprehensive; Hurricane Wilma (FL and maybe MX), Hurricane Rita (TX), Hurricane Ivan (Carib, FL, AL, maybe others), Hurricane Charley (FL), and, as mentioned, Isabel (NC, VA, MD, PA, DE, NJ, and maybe DC or New England). All of the big ones prior were either too old or not that impacting to warrant sub-articles. Given that that's only five articles, using main or even Katrina would work. For Isabel and Ivan, Katrina is probably what would work best, though to a smaller size (unless someone wants to add all of the extra ones). Hurricanehink ( talk ) 15:37, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * They do not necessarily have to be land areas. Although there are no recent examples (unless the oil platforms and ships from Katrina and Rita can be compiled), if there is a major shipwreck(s) or other offshore impacts, that can be treated as a region. CrazyC83 16:29, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * True, but it would be pretty hard getting enough info for an entire article for offshore effects. I can't imagine having more than three paragraphs, which should be able to fit in an article. Hurricanehink ( talk ) 16:56, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Interesting Idea
WikiProject New York State routes has a monthly featured article on their home page. This may be a good idea, but i was thinking of dropping it to 2 weeks. Leave your opinion.Mitchazenia (7600+edits) 02:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * What's different from Portal:Tropical cyclones? Tito xd (?!?) 02:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)