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Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hurricanehink (talk | contribs) at 02:40, 22 July 2007 (→CPac naming dilemma: Update: Paka and Ioke were retired). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Latest comment: 18 years ago by Hurricanehink in topic CPac naming dilemma
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I just created this wikiproject, after several months of contemplating doing so. I hope everyone working on hurricane articles will get involved. I went ahead and wrote a bunch of guidelines, basically based on current practices...naturally since this is something I just wrote it doesn't necessarily represent community consensus and needs to be discussed. That discussion should probably go here for now...although eventually we may make these pages a little more structured. For a general TODO list, see the "tasks" item on the project page. Jdorje 23:17, 5 October 2005 (UTC)Reply

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Tropical cyclone rainfall climatology/List of wettest tropical cyclones by country

Latest comment: 18 years ago9 comments2 people in discussion

I've been trying to keep this page as updated as possible with all the new additions concerning Mexico's tropical cyclones, which are fairly complete through 1997 on the related HPC TC rainfall website. Images from wikipedia pages that have been created since this article's creation have been added to help "pretty up" the page. In we're ever to get this article to GA, a coordinated effort it going to be needed to bulk up the sections outside the United States and Mexico. A knowledge of spanish will come in handy for the Caribbean countries, Central America, and potentially the Philippines. Hopefully, I'll get access to Cuban rainfall information sometime in the near future. I do wish to thank all the people who caught the typos and misplaced city locations in the original draft. Thegreatdr 17:42, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've submitted it for GA. Wish me luck.Thegreatdr 20:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm looking for someone to check if this article is worthy of GA. It's been on review for about four weeks, and I've only received one comment during that time, soon after its submission. Thegreatdr 17:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've also submitted tropical cyclone observation and tropical cyclone rainfall forecasting for GA. It would be nice if someone from this group looked them over. The one comment made by this group in tropical cyclone rainfall climatology was helpful. Thegreatdr 13:04, 17 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
It was resubmitted for GA a few weeks ago per a suggestion made by the original reviewer. Feel free to critique it. Thegreatdr 18:05, 26 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Just as an FYI, about 80% of the rainfall images have now been converted to color-filled images at the main HPC website. Thegreatdr 19:00, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

All color filled graphics have now been added for mainland North America. I still have 4 or 5 images for Puerto Rico to convert, which will have to wait for Monday or Tuesday. Thegreatdr 17:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

China has recently published a 50 year tropical cyclone climatology for their country. I'm trying to acquire a copy for work. It will come in handy for additions to China tropical cyclone rainfall climatology as well as List of wettest tropical cyclones by country. Thegreatdr 20:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Very nice, though one quick question; would it only be mainland China? Would it include Tibet, Taiwan, or Hong Kong, by chance? I'm just curious. Keep up the excellent work. I also notice that rainfall images began for Hawaii - very nice. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Basin track maps

Latest comment: 18 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion

Hmm, I might as well have a go at this sometime. That doesn't mean they aren't worth a shot. Here's the basic conceptual ideas I've had, feel free to add if you can think of any.

  1. By-month maps
  2. By-peak strength maps (the Cat 5 will be directly useful for the pertinent article of course).

Also, I think it could be worth seperating CPac from EPac and splitting the SHem for these purposes. Whilst a by-month cumulative track is less helpful than the analogous NOAA maps in Atlantic hurricane (probabilities are the more appropriate info to show), for the other basins this could be quite informative. I'd be interested to see what the EPac does month by month for example. Any other suggestions for this brainstorm?--Nilfanion (talk) 19:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Great ideas, on all accounts. I'm very interested, as well, to see the storms by month. Now would you do strictly storms from October 1 to October 31, or any storms that formed in October, for example? Hurricanehink (talk) 20:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Both can be done (though due to obvious redundancies I will only upload the one I think is best).--Nilfanion (talk) 20:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
That works. Hurricanehink (talk) 20:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
Why not seasonal track maps? At first I thought you were talking about those. Good kitty 06:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)Reply
I think the delay on those is figuring out the best way to do a key, and then adding that to the generator. --Ajm81 00:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Decision?

I added a seasonal track to 1999 Pacific typhoon season a while back. That is about as good as it is possibly to make with low effort. The question is, is that good enough? I'm leery about the additional effort required to make it significantly better. I'm prepared to roll that out in the near future (over my Easter break) if there is agreement. The questions I have are:

  • Should we use maps like in 1999PTS for all seasonal articles without a map already.
  • Should we use maps like in 1999PTS for the NOAA basins with a NOAA map?
    • If so, should we do it for all of the seasonal articles, or just the older ones where the NOAA maps are not of high quality?

Obviously, noone is going to object to the first one (something is better than nothing), but how about the rest of them?--Nilfanion (talk) 23:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

  • It wouldn't be a good idea to replace NOAA maps, for the simple reason that they indicate which track belongs to each storm, and it is a lot of effort to duplicate that on the in-house track maps. Of course, this shouldn't be a hard-and-fast rule, but still, it seems like a lot of unneeded effort. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 03:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
    • Well on some of them the key is too small to read, 1950 AHS for example. Maybe we should replace those. --Ajm81 03:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
      • Yeah, thats what I'm thinking of. The NOAA maps get better and better as they get more recent. Obviously this is going to be tricky to judge without seeing our own ones. Keep thinking about it guys: What I will do is upload the lot and articles without track then get one. As the effort to add a key is non-trivial exercise, it doesn't have to be by the map creator - as long as whatever method we use is internally consistent. As a more serious point however, consider the 2006 Pacific hurricane season. The NHC map doesn't have Ioke; we can make such a track.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:46, 28 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Stats updated

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The WikiProject graphs that I uploaded on December have been updated with the latest data from the last quarter. Here's the stats:

Quality № (2006-12-10) № (2007-03-10) Δ
  FA 33 48 +15
  A 6 6 0
  GA 67 94 + 27
B 116 130 + 14
Start 415 412 -3
Stub 159 158 -1
Unassessed 0 2 +2
Total 796 850 +54

Some notes:

  1. We're churning out an FA about once a week.
  2. We're not using Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Assessment as much as we need to.
  3. We're flooding GA; about one hurricane article every three days is passed.
  4. Most of our new articles begin at B-Class or better.
  5. Some articles (mostly, old hurricane seasons) have not been improved, and might not ever be improved, due to lack of interest.
  6. Finally, "fresh blood" is needed here; we're slowly beginning to have editor attrition, and with the recent accomplishments, we're in a perfect position to gain steam.
  7. More organization is perhaps needed to tackle the "big ones" (such as Hurricane Wilma and Rita)

Comments? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

There has been a good deal of recent work on the Pacific typhoon season articles. The problem is, there are so many storms per season, it takes a while to get the stubs up to start class. I still dabble in the older hurricane season articles, if I find relevant information while researching something else (like the tropical cyclone rainfall climatology article). I think once the main articles finally all get to FA, you'll find there may be nothing else to do but work on the old season articles. Thegreatdr 08:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

WP:WEEKLY, episode 13:

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
> Witty Lama: The best one is 2003 Atlantic hurricane season, primarily edited by one user, Hurricanehink, who is 
just a machine! Which has 18 articles in it, pretty much all of which he brought to GA or FA status.  
> Fuzheado: When you mean he is a machine, you don't mean he is a bot, but more like an article machine!
> Witty Lama: So yeah, our hat goes off to Hurricanehink and to the Tropical Cyclone Project, who are just 
phenomenal at creating good articles, featured articles, but now, featured topics!

:D Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hehe, I love it! :D Hurricanehink (talk) 15:49, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

New for 2007?

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Any new features we should add to articles or sections for 2007, knowing the Atlantic and Pacific seasons are just around the corner (or just starting in the WPac)? I can't think of too many since we've come so far already... CrazyC83 00:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

One thing I would like to see is splitting of the next year's SHEM articles, and, if possible, splitting back to 2000. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I agree, starting at least with 2007-08. CrazyC83 01:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
so do i & i will help do some off the work required - also The banner on all Seasonal Pages i would like ot see replaced with just two banners one for Northen Hemipshere and one for Southern and then after that i would like to see the Regions Esspecially if we are splitting some of the articles in the SHEM Jason Rees 22:25, 22 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Names for 2007-08 SHEM articles?

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

This came up when brainstorming approaches to naming the split 2007-08 Southern Hemisphere season articles. What should they be called? Currently, the split 1999-00 articles are:

My thoughts:

  1. I would personally like to see "ocean" get dropped from SWIO, but given that the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal are considered different basins by the JTWC, that could create confusion (since Chacor mentioned to me on IRC that South-West Indian could refer to India). Therefore, I really have no problem keeping it the way it is.
  2. "Region" needs to be re-added to the Australian cyclone season title - there are non-Australian TCWCs located in the areas covered by the Australian ones (Port Moresby and soon Jakarta). I have no opinion about anything else in the title.
  3. "Tropical" may need to be put back into the titles of all three of these, but I'm not sure.

Any other thoughts on this? I'd like some quick feedback so I can have these articles ready by mid-month. --Coredesat 06:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Several options are open, and maybe we ought to do some sort of a poll:
  • SWIO: South-West? South-west? Southwest? Indian? Indian Ocean?
  • AUS: Australia? Australian region? Australian Region?
  • SPac: Pacific Ocean? Pacific?
This in turn brings in questions about our current season article naming:
  • NIO: North Indian? North Indian Ocean?
Furthermore, should we use 'tropical cyclone' or just 'cyclone'? Or 'cyclonic storm' for NIO? What about Ocean? - SpLoT // 06:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I'd like to be able to drop, but the ambiguity of keeping it is just asking for trouble. The word "tropical" is redundant: the term season only makes sense when talking about TCs, the conjunction of cyclone and season means the tropical is implicit. Furthermore, the BoM refer to the TCs in their region as the "Australian cyclone season": so the common name matches the without-cyclone variant. As a result, I suggest putting the actual articles at the ___location without "tropical" in the name and redirects from the variant. For the spelling of SW, use the WMO version (South-West) as none of the nations that get primary affects from cyclones in that basin are English-speaking we do not need to worry about using the local name. Therefore I think the ideal forms are:
  • SWIO: X South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season
  • Aus: X Australian region cyclone season
  • SP: X South Pacific cyclone season
We should also have redirects from the sensible variants: X Australian cyclone season is probably the only necessary one as it is actually used as a term by the BoM, but others should exist.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
The word tropical is not redundant; we don't want to introduce POV in the article naming, do we? There are tornado and winter storm/nor'easter seasons for various locations...last I checked they were both classes of cyclones too. Also, just because JTWC prefers something does not make it so. Remember, they are neither an RSMC nor a TCWC even if they act in a similar manner for U.S. interests. Thegreatdr 12:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I didn't mention the JTWC (and Coredesat was referring to the North Indian Ocean and not the southern hemisphere). As an aside is there any concept of "season" with non-tropical cyclones in the south? (I ask as an open question here). The Australians refer to the "Australian cyclone season" when clearly meaning the "tropical cyclone season". That indicates a redundancy here imo. The question is: If we were to include "tropical" in the article names would we have redirects or disambiguations at the locations without them. If there is a real non-tropical cyclone season in these areas a dab would be needed. If there isn't then a redirect is all that is ever needed; so use the shorter name in preference.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I concur with Nilfanion on all the naming, save the question about 'tropical', which I think needs more discussion. However, the above can bring in other season article naming issues, especially the inclusion of 'Ocean'. At present, all basins do not include 'Ocean', but for the sake of disambiguation, I suggest that the SWIO and NIO at least include 'Ocean', since in these two cases the ocean itself has its name taken from the subcontinent. - SpLoT // 12:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
So for now, it would be South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Australian region cyclone season, and South Pacific cyclone season? Nilfanion makes a good point that we have no idea whether non-tropical cyclones are considered to have "seasons" by any agencies, so we don't necessarily need to use "tropical" (it's not redundant, though). --Coredesat 00:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Pre-tropical systems

Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

How are pre-tropical systems (i.e. an extratropical low or a wave that later becomes a tropical cyclone) treated if they cause serious damage or fatalities in the pre-tropical stage? There isn't much precedent for such, but it is definitely possible... CrazyC83 16:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is precedent - Hurricane Karen (2001) as ET on Bermuda, and Tropical Storm Leslie (2000) as trough in Florida. What exactly are you referring to? Hurricanehink (talk) 16:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
"There isn't much" is not the same as "There is none", I forgot about Karen and I knew about Leslie but wasn't sure if it had become tropical while over Florida (the track map shows a depression dot over Florida). CrazyC83 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I think one thing to discuss is what should get the article in the event there is some iffy-ness. Hurricanehink (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Donna (1960) and Isabel (1985) also fit into this category. There are likely others. Thegreatdr 21:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please, help

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Please, guys, Typhoon Durian still needs a lot of work. There are many stubby sections. Please, if you can, help improve and expand the article. Some links are found on the talk page. – Chacor (RIP 32@VT) 15:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Making use of Wikia?

Latest comment: 18 years ago14 comments6 people in discussion

This stems from discussion on the project IRC channel. Currently there is an inactive Hurricanes project on Wikia. This is a redundancy to what we ourselves provide here on Wikipedia. However, a Wikia project could have several advantages. To quote one possibility as to a new objective:

  • hurricanes.wikia - "a user guide to TC information"

In this context we could provide articles on the various websites providing tropical cyclone information (including WP ;)). We could also target these at a non-meteorologist user. For example the "article" on the NRL could explain what all those buttons give, and what they represent. As example of other things the wikia could do:

  1. A how-to use guide for CLASS; which has obvious advantages for us.
  2. A moderated form of the discussion that plagued 2006AHS last year. We could talk about AoIs, we could have betting pools.
  3. It could also be used as a testbed for articles here on WP. This would allow us to work on highly technical stuff that may or may not meet WP guidelines. To ease transwikiing to wikipedia, if you intend to use the Wikia in that light - please state on Wikia that you release your contribs there to the PD.

Thoughts people?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:51, 18 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

This is a good idea, and it takes care of various problems and allows us to do things we can't do here (such as post about certain weather communities), not to mention provides a solution to the discussion problem. It might be a good idea to crosspost this to Talk:2007 Atlantic hurricane season since a lot of the people reading that may not see this, but not yet (let's see how many people contribute to this one first). --Coredesat 21:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I like the idea. If used in tandem with each other, it could really work, provided the title was changed to something a bit more appropriate (it is cyclopedia right now). Hurricanehink (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Nilfanion actually pointed out to me that the Hurricane Wikia has a "Forum" namespace. That makes dealing with the discussion much easier, since it won't be in mainspace. However, its project space is called "Hurricane Wiki", so we might have to change that. --Coredesat 21:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
On another note, I have already gotten preliminary permission from Angela to have people made into sysops so what's there can be cleaned up or removed. --Coredesat 17:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I really like this idea. Really, really like it. →Cyclone1→ 22:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Can I just ask if it's ok for me to make (admitedly stubs) articles for things in that wikia (Countries and stuff). If not, just delete it =). Cryomaniac 00:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Well, it would have to be hurricane related. For example, if there was an article on the United States, I think it'd be neat to cover the country in the point of view of a hurricane fanatic. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I made a stub for [1], It mentions Hurricane Vince, and thats about it. Is that ok? Cryomaniac 01:21, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Something like that could work, maybe. I'm not sure, though, as the Wikia is still inactive. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Well, If we're doing this, I guess I'll go ahead and make a 2007 AHS page on Wikia. How should I make it?. What should we include other than what we could put on this page? Maybe, including INVESTS on the main Wikia page like we add Tropical Depressions here? Maybe possible tropical cyclones that formed, but didn't have enough info to be included on the Wikipedia page (within reason)? The talk page is obvious, just including stuff we had last June basically (AoI's, INVEST discussion, Betting Pools). I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas. Tell me what you think we should do. →Cyclone1→ 13:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oh, I see there is a forum already. But should we still make an article including INVESTS and stuff? →Cyclone1→ 14:03, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
You know what? Nevermind. Ignore this please. →Cyclone1→ 14:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Sounds great to me. Sorry I didn't notice this sooner, the past couple of months have been hecktic for me in real life, but I'm the administrator (and founder) of the hurricane wiki and it sounds liek your ideas would really provide good information and be an alternative to the "redundiveness" of the first idea. Other comments? --Galaxy001 03:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Forecast accuracy and verification

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

I've been thinking about this for a few weeks now. Should our seasonal articles include information on forecast accuracy and verification (both pre-seasonal, as well as operational storm forecasts)? It would certainly be encyclopedic w.r.t. seasons, and people might expect to find that information in a seasonal article. Thoughts? – Chacor (RIP 32@VT) 01:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Seeing as we include ACE where reasonable (in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific), I guess it couldn't hurt if the information is available. We might as well use the JTWC data in other basins wherever RSMC data is unavailable, and even if it does become available it would probably be better to use it for as long as our track maps use JTWC data. --Coredesat 01:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Hmm it seems reasonable in the seasonal articles to me. In the context of individual storms its too narrow and technical, but "in 2006 the NHC official forecast was X% better on average than in 2005" is a reasonably interesting fact.--Nilfanion (talk) 20:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I like it too. Thegreatdr 20:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Stalled FAC for Eye (cyclone)

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

It seems the FAC on Eye (cyclone) has stalled...there has been no substantial input in almost three weeks, and I am still waiting on a copyedit by someone unfamiliar with the article. Could I get a pair of fresh eyes to give it a once-over, please? Thanks. -RunningOnBrains 17:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

DO bother to contribute to this project, if you would like to

Latest comment: 18 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
This discussion started from what seems to be human error by the initiator of this discussion. The context the original message refers to no longer applies. Further comments should not read into the context, but into the idea. – Chacor (RIP 32@VT) 04:15, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I wrote a modified version of this on one of the user page's today, and think it is relevent for this talk page. Let the hate mail begin. Thegreatdr 17:52, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Don't let people on this project discourage you from contibuting or adding articles you think are needed. Every little bit helps. I know there's a bit of NPOV favoring landfalling tropical cyclones over all others, but it honestly shouldn't matter. This project is not called WP: Landfalling tropical cyclones. I don't see articles perceived as badly written being worse than the numerous stubs which still occupy the hurricane/typhoon season articles, which were created months and years ago. If people start getting personal with you, instead of being productive to the articles you create, have them read WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND. Even better, if they think your articles need improvement, tell them to be bold and correct it themselves. Wikipedia is not a police state. Then again, it's not a democracy either. It's a civil version of a free for all. =) Thegreatdr 17:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
In general I agree, there's nothing inherently wrong with a half-decent new article on a non-landfalling storm. However it would be far more useful for all concerned if the editorial effort put into that task was spent on more significant articles, like the stubby seasons. Something like this takes more work than writing articles on a dozen non-landfalling storms and is orders of magnitude more important to Wikipedia's coverage. It would be better if people would put editorial effort into the poor articles on significant topics instead of making new ones on relatively minor ones. However, that is no reason to stop people creating new stuff.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I agree. Besides, there's generally more information available on landfalling cyclones. If someone wishes to focus the effort it takes to produce a similarly useful article for a non-landfalling system, they shouldn't be prevented from doing so. Thegreatdr 21:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

This discussion started from what seems to be human error by the initiator of this discussion. The context the original message refers to no longer applies. Further comments should not read into the context, but into the idea. – Chacor (RIP 32@VT) 04:15, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I don't think it actually changes anything. I'll repeat my message, as I've seen it happen more frequently than I'd like to: Telling others how to stop wasting their time is a good way to waste yours. I'll make it my third law of Wikipedia if I have to... Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:23, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Point taken. - SpLoT // 07:23, 21 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Of talk pages and banners

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I am wondering what is the best way to do talk pages and banners. Recently, some pages have put in the template "This article is within the scope of multiple WikiProjects". As the respective articles are most closely related to this project, I personally think the hurricane template should be left out of such groupings and be placed at the top of the list. Any thoughts? Hurricanehink (talk) 04:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

That's more of a Wikipedia-wide discussion (see Wikipedia:WikiProject reform), which came as a result of overtagging by WikiProjects. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:21, 22 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Distinguishing things that don't need it

Latest comment: 18 years ago9 comments7 people in discussion

Why is Hurricane Edith (1971) not at Hurricane Edith? "The general rule is that if the name is retired, it should have the main article, otherwise it should be distinguished by year." -- I believe this general rule should be "if the name is ambiguous, it should be distinguished by year, otherwise is should have the main article" (like the rest of Wiki namespace). It was moved back in September with the comment "moved Hurricane Edith to Hurricane Edith (1971): Standardizing", but parentheticals aren't for title standardization, they're for disambiguation, IMO. -- JHunterJ 12:43, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

It's not at Hurricane Edith because Edith 1971 was not the only Hurricane Edith - there were storms named Edith in 1955, 1959, 1963, and 1967; the years do indeed serve to disambiguate the storms. Edith 1963 and Edith 1971 both had comparable impacts on the respective areas in which they made landfall, so if Edith 1963 had an article, you could make a similar argument for it (although fewer people died, there was more damage). I do see the need for a disambiguation page, however, and I will probably make one later. --Coredesat 15:14, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
I think we should have a rule that SOME article should always have the main namespace (in this case Hurricane Edith). In this case it sounds like the disambiguation page should be there. But how can we be missing a disambiguation page? I thought all dabs for Atlantic storms were added in years ago? Very strange. — jdorje (talk) 15:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
The important thing is that it has been addressed now. Thanks to JHunterJ for bringing this to the project's attention. Thegreatdr 15:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
And, of course, it only came to my attention because the article was featured. Thanks, all! -- JHunterJ 15:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Actually, only a fraction of the needed disambiguation pages are in place. See the list of named tropical cyclones, any with multiple storms should get a disambig page (the ___location of that disambiguation depends of course).--Nilfanion (talk) 16:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Alright, I created a dab for all cyclones named Edith. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Uh, I thought we had a rule. Retired storms or storm names used only once get the main namespace page; all others get year-disambiguated pages. For those storm names that do not have any retired storms, disambiguation pages are created. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
We never exactly agreed to that rule, though I think it's not a bad idea. However, very few storms are used only once worldwide, particularly with English-language names. For that, if only one Atlantic storm was named X, but X was also used as a tropical storm and a cyclone in the SWIO, should/can the Atlantic storm get the main page, or should Hurricane X redirect to Tropical Storm X as a dab? For the Atlantic, the only ones excluding retired storms and names on future lists that were used only once worldwide are Hurricane Candice in 1976 (which would probably not get an article anyway), Tropical Storm Candy in 1968 (maybe it would get an article), Tropical Storm Dottie in 1976 (maybe it would get an article), Hurricane Emmy in 1976 (has an article), the 2005 Greek-named storms excluding Alpha and Delta, Tropical Storm Felice in 1970 (no article yet), Hurricane Laurie in 1969 (no article yet), and Hurricanes King and Love in 1950 (King has article and is at main article, no article for Love). Should all of the aforementioned be at the mainspace or not? I could go either way, though I prefer the year identifier due to the possibility they could be used in the future. Hurricanehink (talk) 15:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

TC Rainfall debates I cannot get involved in

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

This is the gist of what I wrote on the Tropical Storm Hermine (1998) page. It is bound to come up again. I am more than happy to work on needed rainfall images that have not been created yet, but I cannot be called on to weigh in to a decision that involves a piece of my own work. My opinion would be slanted towards what I created, naturally. It has a section on bias you should all be aware of. Thegreatdr 17:57, 26 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've been in a sticky situation with being both a contributor to this project and a NOAA employee, which puts me in a rare position to make online edits to websites within NOAA and within Wikipedia, using one to justify the other. Is it original research if it is from a NOAA website dedicated to the task of constructing TC-related rainfall? Even though the results of the project have been presented at conferences across the country for five years now, and will someday be a series of papers/book in its own right, and it was mentioned as one of the top best practices in the Hurricane Katrina assessment, it does not mean it is perfect or the product of a clean consensus among tropical cyclone researchers. Hink is right to a point...as is Storm05. Trying to determine tropical cyclone rainfall maxima is difficult and sometimes subjective, since there is usually a complicating issue such as a nearby upper cyclone or frontal zones. Historically, TPC sometimes includes these effects, and sometimes does not, depending on the author of the TCR. Some people don't think you should include rainfall from spiral bands within these graphics including only core rainfall, others that you should include frontal effects a thousand miles from the cyclone when the tropical connection appears to be from a distant tropical cyclone (see Lili of 1996 and the rainfall in New England). If the rain areas between the two are merged, I include it all. Authors should be keenly aware of biases in sources, NOAA or not. I can tell you mine. You all can figure out the biases between authors of the TCRs on your own. Wikipedia does not make it easy, as it makes an effort to avoid weasel words, and TC rainfall is a weasly business. Perhaps that's why it has taken 50 years to update the storm totals from the previous attempt by my center's predecessor. Thegreatdr 17:36, 26 April 2007 (UTC)Reply
Well, we should go by the source... be it Thegreatdr or not. :) But on a more serious note, it shouldn't have to be a sticky situation... because if we need something to be cited here, it probably means that someone else would find it useful too, and NOAA would be advised to write it on their site. If NOAA needs to cite us, then we alert Slashdot. :P But going back to the topic, as long as we (Wikipedians) are not making numbers out of thin air, we're OK. If there is a genuine disagreement between sources (e.g. TPC saying 10 inches, HPC saying 12), then the best thing we should do is to document both figures, per NPOV and all that. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:30, 30 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Template:AtlanticHurricaneSeasons

Latest comment: 18 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

Is there a reason this was recently added to all Atlantic hurricane seasons? Does it really serve much purpose? First, it doesn't show every season, and even if it did show every season, what would be the point? The articles already link to the List of Atlantic hurricane seasons in the infobox, which is much more organized than the template. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

It also promotes systemic bias unless more unnecessary templates are created. I wouldn't be opposed to a TFD on this one. --Coredesat 03:23, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Categories and the aforementioned list should be sufficient for this one. Also, don't we already link to the past two and future two seasons in our infobox? - SpLoT // 04:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
It's unnecessary, simple as that. Redundant, as pointed out. – Chacor 04:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
I TFDed it. --Coredesat 15:15, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

List of Atlantic hurricane seasons shouldn't be shoehorned into doing this navigational task; that list could be featured and if it was would be unsuitable for navigation in this manner. Nor is categorization an adequate replacement. I don't like this template; I think its poorly designed and badly implemented. However, there is a use for a template like this. Personally I would rather have a template like this one instead of the "fiveseasons" in the infobox, after all that 2005AHS was between 2004AHS and 2006AHS is not really a significant property of the season... A properly designed navigational template would be beneficial, I suggest we work out a way to replace it with a something that works. Nav templates for elections, sports seasons and TV episodes should give ideas on how to tackle this.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

What about having a template for each decade (in recent times)? To solve the navigation problem, we could also list the last year of the previous decade as well as the first year in the next. For example, the 1990s template could be have the title of 1990-1999 Atlantic hurricane seasons, and would list 1989 as the previous one, 1990 through 1999 separately, and 2000 as the next one. Hurricanehink (talk) 17:03, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
This is what I had in mind. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:52, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Seeing as no one objected, I added the template to the 1990s, and will do a few others. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

TfD nomination of Template:AtlanticHurricaneSeasons

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Template:AtlanticHurricaneSeasons has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — Hurricanehink (talk) 18:01, 20 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Landfalls and geocoding

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I've been thinking of a possible addition to {{Infobox Hurricane}}. Landfalls are significant events in storm histories and have a well-defined ___location. Given that, effective geocoding of them and looking into adding a "landfalls" section to the infobox might be a worthwhile venture. Thoughts?--Nilfanion (talk) 21:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

There is a potential systematic bias issue here, as landfall data is only really available from NOAA. However as the data is not inherently restricted to the Atlantic, so I don't think its a reason to exclude useful information. It might be possible to use best track to establish landfall locations in a manner which is not original research, the JTWC does provide a degree of information - these are ways this shortcoming could ultimately be tackled.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
That would be interesting, although one quick problem - should every landfall be listed? Hurricane Frances, for example, had 6 landfalls, 4 of which in the Bahamas (and I don't think all 4 are truly significant events in the storm history). It also becomes redundant with the areas affected, IMO. Hurricanehink (talk) 23:29, 6 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

MfD on discussion archives

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi, just drawing attention to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Tropical cyclone discussion archives. Up for deletion are all the archives of discussion about tropical cyclones on the seasonal pages, as opposed to the archives of Wikipedia-related discussion. See the nomination for the rationale for deletion. The thoughts of project members would be appreciated there.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

This... just doesn't seem right... Cyclone1(02:06-20-05-2007)
Looks like they didn't pass for deletion. This makes my day. Cyclone1(23:19-20-05-2007)

WMO website updates

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The WMO has redesigned their website. At least temporarily, this means that it is impossible to find anything. For example, the Tropical Cyclone Programme home page is entirely populated with dead links. Likewise, almost all of our links to the WMO are 404s... (xposted to WP:METEO)--Nilfanion (talk) 10:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Removed 3 members of the project who no longer have wikipedia pages

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I'm guessing this is ok...but wanted to post here in case there was a problem with what I have done. I moved their names into the former members section. Thegreatdr 21:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

No problem... I just made one correction (a member is active, but spends more time helping us out in #wiki-hurricanes than on the wiki), so she isn't really inactive. Otherwise, it's OK. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Suggestion: Forecast maps

Latest comment: 18 years ago14 comments4 people in discussion

Hello,

Quite a while ago, I started making forecast track maps, as forecasts came out, on Atlantic cyclones. A sampling of them is available here. I started doing this solely for my own amusement, but think it would be pretty nice to include them on Wikipedia. I have checked the product license for the product I use (DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2006) and it states the following:

Web Site Map Display Rights. You may display on your personal, business, or institutional Web site static map images derived from the System, provided that you include the Legend indicated below and that you provide a link to the DeLorme Web site at www.delorme.com from any page that shows a DeLorme map image. If you subcontract a web developer to display map images, said Web developer must purchase a license.

Legend. Any System output that is provided to a third party must include the following credit and copyright notice: “© 2005 DeLorme (www.delorme.com) Street Atlas USA®”. You may not remove, alter, or conceal any copyright or trademark notices appearing on any System output, except that when creating a mural map, you need only retain a single legend with scale, for use in the field.

I think these terms would be pretty easy to meet. The only other restriction is no commercial use, which can be taken care of based on the licensing tag used on the image pages.

Of course, if you folks were to embrace this idea, I would gladly create them for Pacific cyclones as well, to make it uniform, in addition to creating maps for past cyclones.

I would try to use the software currently used for final tracks, but have had difficulty with installation, so haven't even been able to play with it to see if it would meet my needs for this.

Cheers,

Search4Lancer 02:44, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

S4L, we already upload the NHC forecast maps (public ___domain) for active storms, so unfortunately I cannot see a real use. As for past cyclones, I'm not quite sure what you mean. – Chacor 03:05, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Right, but what I do is combine them, to show the forecasting accuracy (or lack thereof) throughout the lifetime of the storm. Inaccuracies of which can actually have large ramifications, such as the increase in oil prices while Ernesto was forecast to enter the Gulf (which it never did). As for past cyclones, I mean exactly that - those of yesteryear. Search4Lancer 05:33, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Now that is interesting. The forecasts themselves are from the archive at TPC/NHC, so it's not like it is original research. If he releases the maps for use within wikipedia, we might be able to use them within storm articles. I can imagine interest in this type of a map. Lancer, can you show us an example of this type of map? Mentally, I know what you're talking about...I think it would be helpful to others in the project to see an example. Your link was blank in my browser. Thegreatdr 14:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Given the recent crackdown on non-free images, I suspect no commercial use might be a slight problem. – Chacor 14:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
As shown. It's a CSD criteria. – Chacor 00:45, 23 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Thegreatdr, I've uploaded an example here. In the meantime, I will try once more to get the other program to install correctly. Search4Lancer 17:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
That's about what I had imagined. We could get around the background map problem if the program used to plot tracks for tropical cyclones within wikipedia could be adapted to plot past forecast tracks. Thegreatdr 17:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
If we have a database of the forecasting data it shouldn't be hard to adapt the current program to plot the forecasts. Using the same map background is pretty essential for this I'd think (though the current map background may not be the best one to begin with, I just used it because it was available from wikipedia). The only problem is there may be too much data here for easy visualization. — jdorje (talk) 17:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
I finally got the track program to work. However, I'm failing to figure out how it could be adapted for this use. Then again, I'm also failing to modify existing storms in the program from 2005 (I would think modifying the storm text files would be all there is to it, however, I'm doing some crazy things with them with still no effect). Using this program would certainly produce a cleaner image than what I've been coming up with with SA2006. Search4Lancer 18:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
The C code would have to be changed to (1) read in the forecast data (in whatever form it's in) and (2) draw both track and forecast information. — jdorje (talk) 23:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Theoretically, using multiple input files (each a different forecast for the same storm) should accomplish the task. However, when I try this using random storm tracks I pulled out of the natlantic file, it instead gave me a map with every single storm track on it. Command used was ./track --input1 /home/redphoenix/trapro/tracks/db/db1.txt --input2 /home/redphoenix/trapro/tracks/db/db2.txt Search4Lancer 02:14, 23 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
If the data is in one of the already-supported formats, all you have to do is make a single file for the storm with each forecast as a separate storm entry. Then using that file as input will map all the storms in the file (to map just one storm you need to use --name or a different filter to get the one you want). However there are problems with this approach: the most obvious one is that you might want to change the color scheme or datapoint sizes to make the whole thing more legible. Next, this approach isn't really scalable since you're not likely to have time to make a track file for all 1,000 or so hurricanes that you might want to map forecasts of - the way to solve this is to change the parsing code to accept whatever format the data is already in. — jdorje (talk) 02:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Reply
Some are in this format, and some are in this format. Are either of those supported? If not, once I figure out what all that gibberish of a format is in the current files that come with the program, I'd have no problem converting them myself (or trying to remember how to work C as it's been a few years now). Is there a doc anywhere explaining the formats? Search4Lancer 02:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

CPac naming dilemma

Latest comment: 18 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Dilemma with the CPac names: starting 2007, the CPHC is using a revised set of names. Ioke, for example, has been removed/retired. This causes havoc with our articles which mention "Ioke" as the last CPac name used. For example, the main list (lists of tropical cyclone names) still lists Ioke and the old lists, and says "The last name used from this list was Ioke, in the 2006 season." However, that is technically no longer correct as Ioke is not on the list (any more).

Thoughts?

The full new list is here: [2]. – Chacor 13:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hows This Chacor? ::The last name used from this list was Ioke, in the 2006 season Which Was Retired due to its effects in the 2006 Season and replaced with Iopa. The next tropical storm that forms in the Central Pacific will be named Kika?? Jason Rees 23:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

At Second glance they have removed some of the other names aswell Jason Rees 19:59, 3 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Question: should Ioke be considered retired, and thus be included in the List of retired Pacific hurricane names? What about Paka, which was also removed? Hurricanehink (talk) 16:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
i think Ioke and PAKA should be consdidered retired but can someone Email the CPHC to check please?Jason Rees 20:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I emailed them a few nights ago, and got a very useful response. 

Dear Mr. Hink,

Before the start of the 2007 tropical cyclone season, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center worked with members of the University of
Hawaii Hawaiian Studies Department to ensure all of the Hawaiian names on our lists were proper words and didn't have any negative 
connotations.

As a result of this review and collaboration, CPHC changed 15 names from the 4 lists published for the 2006 season. If you go to
http://www.ofcm.gov/nhop/07/nhop07.htm Chapter 3, page 3-11, the name in italics are the ones we changed.

1.  Ioke was retired because it was such a significant system, but also because it was an incorrect Hawaiian word.  So you can 
considered it retired, but it would have been removed if it hadn't been retired because it had no Hawaiian meaning.
2.  Paka was retired because of the destruction it caused in Guam in 1997.
3.  We requested several names from the eastern Pacific including Daniel, Emilia, Estelle, Fabio, Gilma, Guillermo, Jimena, John, 
Jova, and Kenneth to be retired, but the World Meteorological Organization Region IV Tropical Cyclone Committee (WMO RA IV TCC) 
decided not to retire any of these, so they were not changed.
4. For Hurricanes Fico and Fefa, in 1978 and 1991 respectively, I am not sure whether they were retired or removed.  Please contact
Lixion.A.Avila@noaa.gov at the National Hurricane Center who works with the WMO RA IV TCC on the retirement or removal of names from
the lists for the eastern Pacific.

Best Regards and Aloha,
Jim Weyman
Director Central Pacific Hurricane Center

So, based on that, I am adding Ioke and Paka to the retired Pacific hurricane names (yes, Paka should be included because it is a retired Pacific hurricane name, not just retired Pacific hurricane). Also, per the suggestion, I emailed Avila to find out, once and for all, about Fico and Fefa. Hurricanehink (talk) 02:40, 22 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

New version of TC FAQ updated today

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The NHC TC FAQ was updated today online. It may be a good idea to check over work on previous articles to see if it matches the FAQ. The FAQ is not fool proof, as E12 did not originally match the list within The Deadliest, Costliest, and Most Intense United States Tropical Cyclones From 1851 to 2006 document (it does now). If you notice any errors within the TC FAQ, either leave a message in this section of the talk page and I'll relay it, or look up Erica Rule's e-mail within the NOAA Staff Directory. Thegreatdr 13:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Warnings template

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'm putting this here so we can easily copy/paste when we need to put warnings up: 

===Warnings and watches===
{{HurricaneWarnings}}
{{seealso|Tropical cyclone warnings and watches}}
As of X p.m. EDT [[June 1]] (2100 UTC), the following warnings and watches were in effect:
*Coastal watches and warnings:
** A '''hurricane warning''' is in effect for:
*** x
** A '''hurricane watch''' is in effect for:
*** x
** A '''tropical storm warning''' is in effect for:
*** x
** A '''tropical storm watch''' is in effect for:
*** x
*Inland watches and warnings:
** x
* See the NHC's [dummylink latest public advisory on Hurricane X]
<div style="clear: both"></div>

Remove the coast/inland part if no inland ones exist. --Golbez 21:05, 1 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Increased visibility within the TC community

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Lately there has been a bit of talk amongst the TC community concerning Gonu, in the Arabian Sea. The global TC tracks image (from Wikipedia) was sent around the list, and the article on the country of Oman was also referenced. There is a wonderful Aqua image of this cyclone from yesterday, in case you'd like to use it for either its article, or its basin article. =) Thegreatdr 13:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Are you talking about this Aqua image? I agree, it's wonderful. -- RattleMan 18:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
They say no publicity is bad publicity, so I guess that's a good thing... right? ;) Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:04, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oceanography Project Proposal

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I propose a new project, related to tropical cyclones, WikiProject Oceanography; is there any interest in working on this project? It's much needed but would also be an undertaking and require at least a handful of committed editors to make it last and work. Evolauxia 21:42, 5 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

The project is proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Oceanography. Evolauxia 22:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Why not. It is also related to topics such as thermohaline circulation and climate cycles such as ENSO and the MJO. Thegreatdr 18:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

A new template?

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I'm not sure if WPTC has something like this, but after the first few storms of the year in the EPac and Atlantic I was thinking of a way to make updating the article with the new advisory easier. If you take a look at Template:Height, you can enter a measurement, imperial or metric and it will convert it to another unit. There is also one for Template:Weight. Now, I think it would be helpful if there was a template for converting between knots, mph and k/hr. I don't know if it would work very well, but maybe someone with more Wikitext experience could try it. ---CWY2190TC 05:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree somewhat, you might like to look at the half-done current storm information sandbox I've come up with. Or maybe the better solution is to simply use conversion templates. - SpLoT // 04:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Inactive users

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

There are many users on the project who had made no edits since 2006 or even January-March 2007. This had been discussed before. However, Its unclear based on the discussion on my talk page whetever or not it justifies moving them to the former members section of the project page (or if the lack of recent edits determine if the user has left wikipedia). Thoughts?. Storm05 15:01, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Firstly, I would like to thank you for self-reverting, once again, and bringing it here. Personally, I don't believe that a lack of Wikipedia edits is a good indicator. As I have expressed, at least one user who you moved to "former" is a regular fixture in the project's IRC room and contributes in her own way by doing so. I'm a little hesitant, but I can understand why you think a lack of Wikipedia activity might indicate they are no longer interested in this (which isn't always the case). Alternatively, looking at the archives, I would not be opposed to creating an "inactive" section, rather than moving them to "former members". – Chacor 15:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
An inactive section would be nice especally if a user stops contibuting regulary on the project but is active on the IRC or the HurricaneWiki. Storm05 15:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
I like that idea too. Thegreatdr 18:43, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Indian Ocean tropical cyclones - 1-minute sustained winds

Latest comment: 18 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

I received an e-mail from Gary Padgett today concerning Gonu's intensity in Indian warnings. Since it is relevant to any Indian-sourced warning, I thought it was worth making the project page. Apparently, India uses 1-minute sustained winds similar to the U.S., which is different than JMA. This became apparent during Gonu regarding their use of Dvorak wind estmates, which are 1-minute winds. FYI. Thegreatdr 18:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Oh, so they never use 10-min sustained winds? I'll adjust the article. Hurricanehink (talk) 23:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
I was in correspondence with Gary throughout Gonu. I forwarded the email on to a met (granted, he doesn't specialise in TCs, but takes an interest) in the UK, who's waiting on a reply from the IMD. However, he believes that the IMD, when reporting winds based on Dvorak, still uses a 10-minute scale Dvorak. Further, the Tropical Cyclone Op Plan for the area makes no mention whatsoever of 1-minute winds (and it does mention ten-minute winds). To say they "never use 10-min winds" is wrong, because all manual observations are taken at 10 minutes in this basin. In addition, they indicated in one of their advisories that maximum winds were 90 kts when they said Dvorak to be T4.5 (77kts), so obviously there's something up there. This should be properly cleared up with full clarification from the IMD before we change anything. – Chacor 02:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
Oddly enough, the time duration of manual observations may not be as relevent to the debate as one might think. When the United States switched to METAR in 1996, our sustained wind average went from 1 to 2 minutes. Our buoys remain a 10 minute average. Just something to think about. Did he not send you a copy of the IMD e-mail? I can post it here if you would like. Thegreatdr 17:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
He did. That's the email I forwarded on to the met in the UK. I'd imagine the TC Op Plan would mention it if any values were 1-minute. I emailed him (Gary) again yesterday to ask if he knows the contact info of any TC specialists at the IMD, they seem to be the only ones who can clear this up. Until then we should follow the TCOP and assume 10-minute winds. – Chacor 01:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
Regardless, I just thought of something - the ICAO TC (aviation) advisories are meant to be issued in 10-minute format (except Honolulu and Miami). IMD issued an aviation advisory at 130kts, and I see nothing to suggest that IMD chose to deviate from the requirements of the ICAO in aviation advisories. – Chacor 14:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

I sent the IMD an email and managed to get a rather quick response (about 33 hours). We'll have to re-work our infoboxes, the IMD's ICAO advisory winds are in given three-minute mean. – Chacor 15:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Tornadoes within storms, article treatment

Latest comment: 18 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

While this may only be a long-term initiative for past storms, for future storms should a separate section be created for the tornadoes spawn by the tropical storm or hurricane if there are a considerable number or notable tornadoes? While that falls in the jurisdiction of WP Severe Weather, there would be an overlap there. (The exception is if there is a significant number of tornadoes - i.e. a full outbreak - or too much information on the main page that it needs to be spun off into its own separate sub-article) CrazyC83 02:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

It depends on the preference of the editor. I suppose if there's enough information on the actual outbreak, having a separate section within the impact section might work, though I personally prefer to keep the tornadic activity with the rest of the impact. For example, I think the tornado outbreak works well in the article on Tropical Storm Bill (2003), with the tornadoes split by state. This would allow for uniformity between storms that caused only a few tornadoes or those that caused a considerable number. Hurricanehink (talk) 02:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
The big issue there is that it involves a project overlap. Storms that cause a barrage of tornadoes (especially if any are significant or deadly) would have an article-worthy section on its own (per WP:SVR, taking away the fact it was related to a much larger event). Katrina already has been split off, Rita is in the works now, some others that might eventually be worth splitting off are Frances and Ivan, before that information is too scarce. CrazyC83 01:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

One million homeless due to cyclone

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

I wanted to request that this project try producing a piece on Cyclone Yemyin, which (according to one of the lead stories in today's Guardian has left one million people homeless in Pakistan. Surely this deserves an article? Currently the article name is a redirect to 2007 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, which lists the storm name as "usused". Thanks, Walkerma 17:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

One problem is that the storm had no official name, as the warning center for the basin, the IMD, did not name it, and thus Yemyin will still be used for a future storm. Hurricanehink (talk) 17:53, 29 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
In which case, Tropical Cyclone 03B (2007) or Cyclone 03B (2007) should be the article name. (Numbered storms should always have the year in the article name) CrazyC83 18:06, 29 June 2007 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I agree. IMD didn't name the latest tropical storm to strike their country either. Its pressure was at least 982 hPa. Oy. Thegreatdr 20:23, 1 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

New template

Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I created a new template, {{Template:Deadliest typhoons}}, which has the five deadliest typhoons that I know of. Currently it is in one article (Nina, as well as a sandbox article which I am trying to fix a problem in, but I don't see any particular reason why the other ones can't be created eventually. Also, I personally would like to have it the top ten (just like {{Template:Deadliest hurricanes}},, but I am not sure which other ones there are. (There may be deadly ones I missed). Finally, I don't know if there has to be a seasonal article for each year that far back. Thanks. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 02:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

Very cool. One quick question is are there any sources for the list? If not, it's not too big of a deal (did the same for EPAC). Have you tried the newspaper archive for the Swatow typhoon? I also would like to see a top ten deadliest tropical cyclones, though two questions arise; first, are there adequate sources to provide a worldwide top ten list, and second (and perhaps more importantly) would it be too skewed to one basin (NIO) to be worth having a worldwide list? Would it be like the list of most intense tropical cyclones, which is strongly skewed to the WPAC? Perhaps we should take a page from the most intense tropical cyclones, and have a template for deadliest tropical cyclones by basin. This is roughly what it would like.
The deadliest tropical cyclones by area of development or impact

Arabian Sea

Australia

Bay of Bengal

Central Pacific

East Pacific

North Atlantic

South Pacific

Southwest Indian Ocean

West Pacific

Cyclone 03A
1,126
(1998)

Cyclone Mahina
400
(1899)

Bhola cyclone
300,000
(1970)

Typhoon Oliwa
7
(1997)

Mexico
1,000
(1959)

Caribbean
22,000
(1780)

?

?

Haiphong
300,000
(1881)

Again, the problem is sources. I have no idea what is, or how to find, the deadliest cyclones in the South Pacific or SWIO. Come to think of it, it might end up being easier listing the overall deadliest. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

You want sources? You got sources:
Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
I wasn't terribly worried about sources for the Pacific typhoons, but since you posted, that's cool. I was more worried about sources for deadliest tropical cyclone for each region. Hurricanehink (talk) 23:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Also, on a somewhat related topic, the listing of hurricane templates is somewhat located here, though its name should certainly be changed. Would anyone be opposed if I moved that to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Templates?

I suppose it wouldn't hurt, though there is some discussion relevant to only that template on the page. It would be more of a page split than a move. --Coredesat 02:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

GIBBS archive expansion

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

GOES imagery is now available back into the 1970s...I stumbled over this factoid on July 4. The individual tropical cyclone movies are now back to 1981. Since it appears only one or two of you just noticed this, I thought I'd let the project know as a whole. Thegreatdr 00:58, 9 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I know, it's awesome! Cyclone1(01:50-9-07-2007)

Ibiseye.com

Latest comment: 18 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion

A few of us have recently reverted a mass addition of links to Ibiseye.com. The person left this note, I wanted others to comment on this. --Golbez 14:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Official stuff still > NY Times, imo. The commercial bit is what really gets me. We could just as easily link to govt sites that provide similar info. – Chacor 15:20, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Agreed, let's keep it official. Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

That's fine ... if I there were *just* official links. But there is plenty of analysis and unique displays of the all H1-plus storms after 1851 that is not available anywhere, so far as I know. I'll let it alone. Cheers. Motamman 19:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

How about this - we wait until a storm pops up (since it's difficult to gauge its realtime usefulness until then) and if it seems that your site offers a lot of useful information - especially if it's prominently linked to from the New York Times - then we will reconsider. I rather like the POI dots.
And I just looked at some old storms, guys, I think we might have something on the same level as Unisys here, this actually really looks like a good site; it was just a turnoff that it appeared on so many pages at once. Though, Motamman, I notice that it's missing a few storms; there's no Alpha, Delta, or Gamma from 2005. And I'm guessing it focuses only on the Atlantic basin and not on the Pacific or any other basins.
I suggest we pop this on to Tropical cyclone just below Unisys? Unisys is a commercial site too but offers a tremendous wealth of information, and you may notice the only ad on Ibiseye is for their sponsor, and it's a pretty small ad. (Motamman, it's not that I didn't look at your site last night, but it was so slow that I wasn't able to get a good feel for it) --Golbez 23:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for taking the time to look deeper. Let me clarify a few things. 1. We are a New York Times newspaper, based in Sarasota, Fl., not the Old Gray Lady. 2. We cover just the Atlantic basin. The site is Florida-centric but almost all of the features (alert subscription and damage reporting) function anywhere in the Southeast. 3. Our list of historic storms is limited to storms that reach H1 status or better. The current season displays everything from TDs up and we're investigating how we can also track invests.
Let's see what happens when a storms bubbles up, though it looks like that might be awhile given what's going in the gulf and between us and the West African coast.
Question: If you want to wait until a storm peculates, do u want me to add it to the Tropical Cyclone page at that time or do the collective yous what to check it it out and then add it?Motamman 13:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
FYI we just added all HURDAT storms at ibiseye.com, not just hurricanes. We were filtering for just hurricanes but there was no reason to limit the overlays. In addition, we've substantially upgraded of storm synopsis, which now creates charts for wind speed, pressure and windfields for all storms back to 1851 (storms before 1988 have estimated windfields.) The synopsis still includes a count of cities hit by hurricane force winds and Florida properties exposed to hurricane-force winds. Finally, we added a map overlay that shows the hurricane strike rate of southeastern counties. (Turned on in the storms menu/dashboard.) Cheers, Mo Motamman 03:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply


Note left on my user talk/Extended Best Track by Mark DeMaria

That was not intended to be spam at all.

We've spent two years developing a web site that shows historic storms (back to 1851) in a completely unique way - including the observed or estimated windfield by quadrant. In addition, we we've generated statistics on the relative severity of storms based on the number or towns exposed to hurricane force winds along with pop and households (using the 2000 census); in addition, for storms that hit Florida, we calculated the number, type and ___location and value of properties theoretically exposed to hurricane force winds winds (using the 2006 statewide property rolls as a benchmark.) All this data is updated on the fly when there is an active storms forecast to hit the US.

And there is much more to the web site, including a live news feed, near real-time weather data and NWS alerts and a damage reporting system that is utterly unique.

Of course, we are a commercial site, but we're part of the NY Times newspaper chain and we developed this application on the news side. Our intention all along was to create a hurricane resource that is live, dynamic and well informed.

There are are other links on hurricane pages that are repeated and clearly don't offer the depth and context of IBISEYE.

Please reconsider removing our link.

Cheers, Mo user: motamman

I guess my question is more technical than anything else: where did you get the historical hurricane data? Rather, how did you tabulate it? From HURDAT, or a different source?
If links are added, then you will see a significant spike of traffic to your site. While visiting it from a T1 connection, it seemed rather slow. Are you sure your site can handle it? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:08, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
I think most of the slowness is computer-based, as I was having display-lag more than network-lag dragging the map around and such. But you do have a point. --Golbez 04:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
The slowness is not a server issue. When we were in beta last year there where times when we were handling tens of thousands of visitors an hour without a hiccup. And we're about to cluster a second web server for the application. The slowness tends to improve after subsequent visits because the google tiles are cached locally. And since this is a javascript-heavy site, alot depends on the browser. IE. 6 is slow; IE 7 is better; FF 2 is relatively fast; Safari 3 is pretty good but we have embedded flash apps that are very fussy in Safari. Actually, flash is fussy period; we're working on that issue.
We are aware that this application pushes the limits of some browsers, but we've spend a lot of time experimenting with different methods of displaying information with an eye to increasing performance. For example, we could have opted to have the client's browser render the storm windfields. Instead, we opted to use the google servers to render the windfields as a custom tileset, simply because it's faster. (We did lose some functionality.)
Regarding our sourcing of storm data, this is from our storms dashboard: Current Tropical storm season related data provided by Weather Underground.
Historic hurricane data provided by Mark DeMaria and John Knaff, NOAA/NESDIS (Source note: between 1988 and 2006, windfield sizes were based on observations; between 1851 and 1987, windfield sizes were estimated based on the strength of the storm, latitude and several other variables.)
I hope that helps. Cheers, Mo Motamman 13:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
It does. So the others in the project know, he was supplied with what is known as the extended best track, which includes storm size and wind radii from 1988-2006. I wish NHC or HRD would place this in their archive section...was looking for it myself last week. Thegreatdr 04:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Hmm... if it is not available anywhere else [easily], then I don't mind linking to them. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
This is the weblink for segments of the extended best track, created and updated by Mark DeMaria. I'm planning on using the ROCI (radius of outermost closed isobar) to create an in-house script to help in determining analogs for TC rainfall events within the climatology. Thegreatdr 00:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Importance in hurricane template

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

This topic needs to be discussed sometime, so why not now? I believe we should have stronger standards for importance levels. Earlier today, I believed that a cyclone that killed about 1,000 was high importance, but another user lowered it to mid. The problem is, we never really decided if importance should have the same levels for each basin. Does the fact that it's in the North Indian Ocean, where such deadly cyclones are common, make it not as important, or should it be just as important as a cyclone that causes 1,000 deaths in the WPAC or Atlantic? Are Atlantic hurricanes, which have more interest on Wiki and, to an extent, more interest in the meteorological community, more important than other basins by default? We never resolved top importance, either. Perhaps we should be thinking ourselves more as a generic hurricane encylopedia, and in doing so assess importance as how important it is to the encyclopedia. For example, I believe all retired tropical cyclones are very important to be in a hurricane encyclopedia, and thus I believe all retired storms should be at least high importance. Currently, it seems like most storms are squeezed into low or mid, with only a few of high and only a select few being top. Is everyone OK with how it is now, or does anyone think it could be changed? Hurricanehink (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree that the system (or lack of it) is quite deplorable, but such standards would require a fair amount of preliminary debate. I would much prefer a better and fairer distribution, especially with regard to the rarity of high importance articles. I would like to put forth two initial criterion for importance: effects and "notability". The former includes, but it not restricted to, damage and deaths. The latter would be of the meteorological significance that Hink speaks of - especially in the case of storms with unusual formation, extreme rainfall, extreme wind speeds or retirement. These ideas are rudimentary at present; any more thoughts? - SpLoT // 11:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, we've had this debate before, but it just degenerated into agreeing to disagree. I think both effects and notability are important to the articles. Killing 1000 would certainly seem like a high importance tropical system to me. Thegreatdr 04:11, 18 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Comparisons are difficult to make between historic and recent storms due to the advancements in technology and warning systems. Also where the storm hit should have a role to play - a storm that kills 1,000 in the US or in Japan or another developed country should be at least High (if not Top like Katrina due to the extreme amount of information) while a storm that kills 1,000 in Haiti or Bangladesh should be Mid as it is not exactly a rare event (tragically) and a lot easier to do. CrazyC83 19:27, 21 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

Some good work in the season articles as of late

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I gave a recent contributor a working man's barnstar for their work lately in updating the season articles (including the Eastern Pacific) which tends to be a noble, yet time consuming project. Personally, I'm increasingly using the Wikipedia articles over the NHC articles when determining which storms to include inside the TC rainfall climatology for Mexico because of their greater organization, more user friendly interface, and more updated information. =) I encourage others to thank contributors for the otherwise thankless task of updating the season articles, in their own ways. Who knows...maybe it will encourage others to contribute to the annual articles. Thegreatdr 00:24, 21 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm hoping to get back to doing 1994 Pacific typhoon season soon after exams next month, and hopefully that'll be done by September-October... – Chacor 01:58, 21 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
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