Welcome to WikiProject Tropical cyclones, a WikiProject to systematically organize all the information in Wikipedia related to Tropical cyclones (also known as hurricanes or typhoons). This project's focus is to centralize the efforts of many Wikipedians to make Wikipedia the best free resource when it comes to information about the subject.
Templates will provide a useful set of features to show information on tropical cyclones and seasons in a consistent format. Guidelines for naming, links, and categorization help keep the vast number of articles properly interconnected.
Basins
Tropical cyclones are separated by basin. Generally each basin has its own categories; all articles for a particular basin are inter-woven using links and categories. It's important that the basin is listed identically (including capitalization) for all articles. The basin is generally passed in to templates to automatically create categorizations and links within an article.
A number of templates exist to make life easier for tropical cyclone article writers. For a complete list, see Category:Hurricane templates.
{{hurricane}} may be included at the top of talk pages of hurricane-related articles to let potential editors know about these resources. It also can be used to identify the assessment given to the article, as well as its quality on the assessment scale.
{{Infobox hurricane}} provides a template for creating an informative table for any hurricane article. {{Infobox hurricane needed}} provides a placeholder template to mark hurricanes that need one of the above templates.
{{Infobox hurricane small}} is used to give a brief version of the hurricane infobox, and it can contain both a picture and a track map. This template is good for long season articles.
{{HurricaneWarning}} provides a top-of-page warning (disclaimer) useful for active hurricanes.
{{HurricaneActive}} provides a table to show the current status of an active hurricane (still under development).
Hurricanes should only receive a separate article if they are long enough not to be considered a stub. If there isn't enough to write about, the text can go inside the article for the hurricane season.
When creating a new article for an active storm when it may or may not be appropriate (i.e. a major hurricane currently threatening land), it is generally best to put a request up in the discussion forum for that hurricane season (e.g. Talk:2006 Atlantic hurricane season) and discuss it with others.
Named hurricanes generally do not have unique names. The name for the most infamous hurricane may take its name for the main article (e.g., Hurricane Charley, Tropical Storm Allison, Typhoon Haitang, Cyclone Tracy); use the prefix appropriate for the tropical cyclone's basin.
Less infamous hurricanes may have a separate page distinguished by year (e.g., Hurricane Bertha (1996)), especially if it must be differentiated (e.g. Tropical Storm Bret (1993) and Hurricane Bret (1999)). The general rule is that if the name is retired or is likely to be retired (for a current storm - e.g. Hurricane Katrina), it should have the main article.
All tropical cyclones of the same name should be visible through a disambiguation page (e.g., Hurricane Diana (disambiguation)). If none of the disambiguated storms are particularly infamous the main name may be used for the disambiguation (e.g., Hurricane Danielle). The disambiguation should be basin-independent and should cover all storms in all basins with the same name. If in doubt use "Tropical Storm" or "Tropical Cyclone" as the prefix for the disambiguation when multiple basins are involved.
If a name has been used only once (or is being used for the first time) and is not warranting an article, it should be created as a redirect to that season (e.g. Hurricane Tanya redirects to 1995 Atlantic hurricane season).
Never hesitate to add a redirect when there is no article for a particular hurricane. Redirects help users to find information if it's "hidden" in a season article, and prevent spurious creation of new articles. This is particularly useful for active hurricanes, as users will otherwise often jump at the chance to write a "new" article about the event. Articles should be redirected to disambiguation pages or (only when there is no ambiguity) to the season article that includes the hurricane. Do not redirect to the season article when a disambiguation page exists, as there is then no way for readers to find the disambiguation.
This is also helpful for people who wish to provide links to WP for current storms: they can do it once, and the redirect will catch the in-links unless and until a separate page is created. Question: should the redirect go to the season page, or the section thereon for that specific storm?
Unnamed (including numbered) hurricanes (used for older tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific basins, and for all tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean basin) should be distinguished by ___location, type, and year. Three naming conventions are possible: Galveston Hurricane of 1900, 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane, or Hurricane 12 (1975). All unnamed hurricanes should always have a year in the name. Again, create redirects wherever necessary to avoid confusion or duplicate articles.
Tropical cyclone article guidelines
Use one of the infobox templates above. Other templates may also be useful for active hurricanes.
Add {{hurricane}} at the top of the talk page of tropical cyclone articles.
Tropical cyclone articles should be categorized by basin ("Category:Atlantic hurricanes"), strength ("Category:Category 5 hurricanes"), and season ("Category:2005 Atlantic hurricane season"). Parent categories ("Category:Tropical Cyclones") should be reserved as meta-categories.
Add {{hurricane}} at the top of the talk page of season articles.
Link to other appropriate season articles. For instance 2005 Atlantic hurricane season links to the articles for the 2005 NW and NE Pacific seasons and to the 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008 N Atlantic season articles.
Season articles should include an overall summary plus a short summary for each storm, with a link to the storm page where appropriate. See 2004 Atlantic hurricane season for an example. If a storm's summary becomes too long it may be moved into a separate article.
These guidelines show how existing storms, disambiguations, and seasons are categorized. Categorizing all articles consistently makes it easier for readers to navigate through related articles.
Each storm article (but not season articles) should be categorized by basin; see Category:Tropical cyclones by basin for a complete list of basins. Disambiguation pages are also categorized by basin (sometimes into multiple basins); see Typhoon Nina for an example. An example basin category is Category:Atlantic hurricanes.
Season categories like Category:2003 Atlantic hurricane season are used to categorize both storms and seasons. Each season article should be categorized into its own season (see the provided templates for this). Each storm is also categorized according to the season it is in. Disambiguation pages are categorized by season as well (see Tropical Storm Hazel for an example). See the child categories of Category:Tropical cyclones by season for a complete list of season categories.
Storms should be categorized by region where appropriate; see Category:Tropical cyclones by region. Hurricanes impacting the United States should generally go into a category "<state> hurricanes" (like Category:North Carolina hurricanes). Nations follow a different standard; the category is called "Hurricanes in <nation>" (like Category:Hurricanes in Mexico. Obviously a storm should only be categorized into a particular region if it had a strong impact on that region (as opposed to all regions affected as the infobox will show).
When there are multiple articles about a particular storm, that storm should have a category identical to its article name; in this case the storm category should be categorized the same way the article is. See Category:Hurricane Katrina for an example.
Only top-level categories should be categorized within Category:Tropical cyclones. Articles don't go into this category but fall into sub-categories.
To make uploading and categorization easier, season and storm articles should have consistent types of images and those images should have consistent names.
Season track images. Each season should have a track image if possible. The image should probably have the name <season>_map.png, where <season> is the name of the season article.
Storm peak-intensity visible-light pictures. Most storms have a satellite picture of the storm at peak intensity. Higher resolution is always better.
Storm landfall visible-light pictures. Other storms have a satellite picture of the storm at landfall. Again higher resolution is always better.
Non-visible-light storm images. Many storms may have IR, doppler, or other types of meteorological pictures.
Hierarchy definition
Tropical cyclones are categorized by basin, strength, season, and region. Seasons are categorized by basin and year.
To flag an article for attention, add a cleanup template to the article or talk page. See Wikipedia:Template index/Cleanup for a listing. All previously listed articles have either been fixed or tagged.
See also the page history of Wikipedia:Votes for rewrite which ran from May 2002-June 2003 then was redirected to here.
Adopt an article
Similar to the Collaboration of the week, but on a smaller scale, you might want to "adopt" an article. This would involve doing the research, writing, and picture-taking (if possible) for either a non-existent article or a stub. Of course, everyone else can still edit an adopted article, and you can work on other things too, but the idea is to find a focus for a while, to try and build up the number of quality articles the Project has produced.
New Wikipedia articles related to Tropical Cyclones
Please feel free to list your new Tropical Cyclones-related articles here (newer articles at the top, please). Any new articles that have an interesting or unusual fact in them should be suggested for the Did you know? box on the Main Wikipedia page. DYK has a 120 hr. time limit from the creation of the article.
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