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Archive 1 December 23, 2008 - September 22, 2010

Images

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I take it I'm doing something wrong by putting those new images up, considering you changed them back? Do they have to be that certain type of image???

TropicalAnalystwx13 00:15, 3 October 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk • contribs)

Katrina picture

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Upload it as a new file, as there is no need to replace the existing one. I don't see why it was changed because it was fine the way it was for the last five years. The new one looks awful, imo. Potapych (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

JMA vs. JTWC

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Remember JTWC is completely and utterly unofficial for the WPAC even though they named typhoons back in the day as such the JMA pressure should always be used.Jason Rees (talk) 23:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The WikiProject Tropical Cyclones Newsletter#32B

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Number 32B, October 20, 2010

The Hurricane Herald

This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary, both of the activities of the WikiProject and global tropical cyclone activity. If you wish to change how you receive this newsletter, or no longer wish to receive it, please add your username to the appropriate section on the mailing list. This newsletter covers all project related events of September 2010 and some events of October 2010

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles.

Storm of the month
'Typhoon Fanapi' is Storm of the Month

Typhoon Fanapi approaching Taiwan

Early on September 14, the JMA reported that a tropical depression had formed east of Taiwan. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center soon designated the depression as 12W with PAGASA naming it Inday shortly thereafter. Later on the same day, the tropical depression was upgraded to a tropical storm and was officially given the name Fanapi by the JMA. On September 16, the storm further intensified into a severe tropical storm. That same day, the JMA further upgraded it into a typhoon. Fanapi turned west and intensified into a category 1 typhoon that night. On the following day, the storm further intensified into a category 2 typhoon. On September 18, the storm further intensified to a Category 3 typhoon and moved straight into Taiwan. It made landfall in Hualien County at 8:40 a.m. (10.40am AEST) on September 19, with winds of 162 kilometres (101 mi) and across the island at a speed of 20km/h. Shortly after its landfall, it moved south and again turned east and rapidly weakened into a Severe Tropical Storm. It had a Category 1 equivalent strength at that time. At 06:00 PM (Local time), the typhoon went back into the ocean. Post Storm Analysis proved that the system stayed on land for 9 hours approximately. The storm made its second landfall at Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou, Fujian province, China, at a Category 1 Typhoon intensity. The Storm caused a large scale damage to Taiwan. In the early hours of September 21, Fanapi weakened into a tropical depression over Guangdong province, China. On Septemner 22, Fanapi dissipated completely.

Member of the month

Cyclone barnstar
Cyclone barnstar

Jason Rees is the member of the month - October 2010

Jason is been awarded the member of the month - October 2010 for his excellent work at the construction of Tropical cyclone related articles. He is excellent when it comes to referencing. His work at the article Typhoon Fanapi (2010) is remarkable.

To do

  • Improve the 14 WPTC core articles to FA status
  • Finish List of Pacific typhoon seasons
  • Expand every season article worldwide to mention every storm in the season
  • Expand the articles in Category:Tropical cyclone articles to be expanded
  • Get every article on the vital articles list to GA status

Storm article statistics

Tropical cyclone articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low Other ??? Total
FA 6 12 64 66 148
A 1 1 9 16 27
GA 8 22 126 259 415
B 3 6 21 23 53
C 5 23 87 97 212
Start 5 58 232 239 4 538
Stub 1 17 94 59 171
Current 2 3 2 7
Future 1 2 3
Category 524 1 525
Disambig 7 581 588
Template 167 1 168
Assessed 29 141 637 770 1,294 27 2,898
Unassessed 1 2 3
Total 29 141 637 771 1,294 29 2,901


Project News

  • The 2011 Northern Hemisphere cyclone season articles are awaiting creation.
  • A replacement for Template:Infobox hurricane current has been discussed.
  • Hurricane Earl (2010) dab issue solved.
  • List of tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Earl (1998) being discussed for deletion.
  • Flattening MODIS real time images discussed.
  • List of Tropical Storms David, Hurricane Humberto, Tropical Storm Alex discussed.
  • NASA GRIP (Genesis and Rapid Intensification Project) explained.
  • Book:Greatest Category 5 Hurricanes, which is related to this project, has been nominated for deletion.
  • Early hurricane season names brought up a large discussion.
  • Format for season articles discussed
  • Use of colour in charts on season articles duscussed
  • new map icon discussed
  • Lists on Cyclones, Hurricanes, and Typhoons discussed
  • several of our SWIO categories have been nominated for CFD
  • moving of storm articles and the year in retired storm articles decided
  • Storm Article titles discussed

--Anirudh Emani (talk) 10:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shary image

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Hey there, I was wondering if you could upload a MODIS real-time image from the NASA rapid response system for me. I really have no idea how do to it, lol. There's like... two separate images; I've seen you merge them before? Here are the links 1 2 Even just the 1st one would be great. Take your time and thanks a lot in advance! Hylian Auree (talk) 08:26, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Hylian Auree (talk) 01:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, I really liked the Shary image result. I was wondering if you could do one for Tomas too? 12 Once again, it would be much appreciated! Hylian Auree (talk) 02:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bermuda Climate

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<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.weather.bm/climate.asp|title=Climate data for Bermuda - September 2010|date=2010-10-01|publisher=Bermuda Weather Service|accessdate=2010-11-06}}</ref> Just C&P this.Jason Rees (talk) 23:52, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Odile impact

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Heya, I found several websites in Spanish with detailed info concerning the impact of, and preparations prior to Odile. You could use Google Translate to get an idea of what they're saying; if it's too complicated, I know a good enough amount of Spanish to clarify. Thought it'd might help you out! Hylian Auree (talk) 16:51, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Odile move

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Jason Rees (talk · contribs) has requested a move of your sandbox to Tropical Storm Odile (2008). There is no need to clog up the article history with all your edits. It would be much better if you simply copy&paste your text from your sandbox into the main article. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 09:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Isnt that a breach of the GFDL though? especially as another person has edited the sandbox.Jason Rees (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
HS, I'd recommend doing what I did for Hurricane Jimena (2009) or did I violate the GFDL on that article, too. YE Tropical Cyclone 22:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Tropical Storm Barbara (2013), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Mph (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

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Andrea image

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Because I had uploaded the gallery version beforehand just for that purpose. The file you uploaded is a duplicate, but one from the WMS which hasn't been corrected for radiance and projection like the gallery version has. I would prefer the gallery version for it is easier to view cloud details and has better color. Supportstorm (talk) 05:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

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Hello, HurricaneSpin. You have new messages at Earth100's talk page.
Message added 06:50, 19 June 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]

Inks.LWC (talk) 06:50, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Image

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File didn't exist and I couldn't find it when searching on the commons. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 23:43, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sock Puppet Investigation

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Because I feel like we're just going to annoy the Commons admins if we keep that discussion over there, let's bring it to the relevant wiki. You can file an SPI for Earth200 as being Earth100's sock, but Earth100 is already indefinitely banned, and the circumstantial evidence is strong that the account actually is Earth100's. I simply don't see an SPI ending in a green light for a Check User run. There's simply no need for it, as it won't change the ban either way. If it is his sock, he's still indef'd; if it's not his sock, he's still indef'd. Inks.LWC (talk) 20:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Calm down

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I uploaded my image first and was going to add it to the article, but had to figure out the new editor, and that threw me off. I didn't intentionally replace your image. Supportstorm (talk) 19:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By the way could you crop your image closer to the storm and lighten it up a smidgen. Supportstorm (talk) 19:55, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry then. I thought it was another "better image" edit wars but I guess it was not intentional. By the way I replied on your talk page. Thanks, - HurricaneSpin (Talk) 20:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Join

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Can you join chat later so we can get the images sorted out for the timeline? Thanks. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 20:10, 23 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that when you edited Hurricane Patricia, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page San Blas. Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:48, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom elections are now open!

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Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

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Hello, HurricaneSpin. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

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Hello, HurricaneSpin. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

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Hello, HurricaneSpin. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

June 2019 WPTC Newsletter

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Volume XIV, Issue 39, May 31, 2019

The Hurricane Herald is the arbitrarily periodical newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006; it has been almost thirteen years since that time. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from April 14–May 31, 2019. This edition's editor and author is Hurricane Noah (talk · contribs).

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

← 34 · 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 →

Article of the month, by Jason Rees

History of tropical cyclone naming - The practice of using names to identify tropical cyclones goes back several centuries, with storms named after places, saints or things they hit before the formal start of naming in each basin. The credit for the first usage of personal names for weather systems is given to the Queensland Government Meteorologist Clement Wragge, who named tropical cyclones and anticyclones between 1887 and 1907. This system of naming fell into disuse for several years after Wragge retired, until it was revived in the latter part of World War II for the Western Pacific basin. Over the following decades, various naming schemes have been introduced for the world's oceans, including for parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and the Indian Ocean. The majority of these lists are compiled by the World Meteorological Organization's tropical cyclone committee for the region and include names from different cultures as well as languages. Over the years there has been controversy over the names used at various times, with names being dropped for religious and political reasons. For example, female names were exclusively used in the basins at various times between 1945 - 2000 and were the subject of several protests. The names of significant tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Australian region are retired from the naming lists and replaced with another name, at meetings of the various tropical cyclone committees.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity

Cyclone Fani was an extremely severe cyclonic storm that made landfall in Odisha, India on May 3. The storm achieved peak intensity as a near Category 5-equivalent cyclone with 3-minute sustained winds of 215 km/h (130 mph), 1-minute sustained winds of 250 km/h (155 mph), and a minimum central pressure of 937 hPa (mbar). Fani caused over $1.8 billion (2019 USD) in damage in India and Bangladesh and killed at least 89 people.

Since the last newsletter, twelve systems have formed.

  • Southwest Indian Ocean
    In the Southwest Indian Ocean, Cyclone Kenneth made landfall in Mozambique approximately 1 month after Cyclone Idai, causing widespread flooding and destruction. Overall, Kenneth killed at least 52 people and caused more than $100 million in damage. Additionally, Tropical Cyclone Lorna formed over the eastern portion of the basin in late April and dissipated in early May without affecting land.
  • Australian Region
    In the Australian Region, cyclones Lili and Ann formed in early May and both affected land. No deaths were reported, although Lili caused moderate damage in the Maluku Islands and East Timor.
  • South Pacific
    In the South Pacific, a tropical depression formed in mid-may, but failed to intensify and dissipated a few days later.
  • South Atlantic
    In the South Atlantic, Subtropical Storm Jaguar formed in late May and lasted for approximately two days before becoming extratropical.
  • Western Pacific
    In the Western Pacific, three weak tropical depressions existed during the first half of May.
  • North Atlantic
    In the North Atlantic, Subtropical Storm Andrea formed on the same day as Jaguar, but failed to intensify and dissipated on the next day.




  • The Eastern Pacific hurricane season began on May 15.
  • The Atlantic hurricane season will begin at 2:00 AM EDT on June 1.
  • The Central Pacific hurricane season will begin sometime after 12:00 AM HST on June 1.
Recent storms of the month
Edition Storm
36 Cyclone Idai
35 Typhoon Wutip (2019)

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter in April 2019

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue in April 2019. Sorted chronologically. Struckout users denote users who have left or have been banned.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Editorial for welcoming new users, by Hurricanehink

Every year, editors new and old help maintain the new season of season articles. The older users are likely used to the standards of the project, such as how to Wikilink and reference properly. Newer users might make mistakes, and they might make them over and over again if they don't know better. If anyone (who happens to read this) comes across a new user, please don't bite, because with enough pushback, they'll decide that this group of editors is too mean, and unfun. This is all a volunteer project; no one can force anyone to do anything. We're all on here because of our love of knowledge and tropical cyclones. If you find someone new, consider using the official WPTC welcome template - Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Welcome.

I also encourage that if you know any tropical cyclone researchers, please speak up and try recruiting them to edit. Veteran editors can't keep editing forever. Life gets busy, and the real world beckons!

Member of the month (edition) – Yellow Evan

Yellow Evan has been involved with WPTC since 2008. Since the last newsletter, Yellow Evan has taken 5 typhoon articles to good article status as well as created 2 more. Overall, he has created and/or significantly contributed to more than 130 good articles. Your work in the Western Pacific Basin is invaluable... Thank you for your contributions!

Latest WikiProject Alerts

The following are the latest article developments as updated by AAlertBot, as of the publishing of this issue. Due to the bot workings, some of these updates may seem out of place; nonetheless, they are included here.

Templates for discussion

  • 11 Dec 2024 – Template:WPTC AC (talk · edit · hist) TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c) was closed; see discussion

Redirects for discussion

Featured list candidates

Good article nominees

(1 more...)

Featured list removal candidates

Articles to be merged

Articles for creation

Featured Content

This section lists content that have become featured, articles and lists, since the past newsletter in mid-April 2019.
From April 14–May 31, 2019, 1 featured article was promoted:

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • An awards program for the project began on May 31. It involves 25 levels that may be gained by earning points for completing various actions such as getting good or featured articles. Additional awards will be added in the future.
  • As of this news letter, there are more articles ranked a good article or better (1317) than articles ranked B-class or worse (1272), for the first time in the project's history.
  • Every Atlantic hurricane season from 1945 to 2007 is rated at least a GA. That is an impressive feat, and an incredibly body of work among many editors.
  • Cyclone Raja became the 150th featured article in the project. Thanks to all of the editors and their tireless edits for writing 2.7% of all of Wikipedia's featured articles.
  • In the 24 hours after Hurricane Michael's TCR was released, the article on the hurricane was edited 82 times by 18 different users.
  • In March 2019, the most popular article in the project was Cyclone Idai, viewed 231,969 times during the month. The generic cyclone was 2nd most popular, with 131,080 views. In 3rd place was Hurricane Katrina with 112,283 views. Included in the top 20 were the 2018 and 19 Atlantic hurricane seasons, hurricanes Michael, Florence, Irma, Maria, and Harvey, and the 1896 Cedar Keys hurricane, which was TFA on March 20th.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 150 featured articles and 69 featured lists. There are 142 A-class articles, but that number is subject to change, depending if we mandate that all A-class articles have an A-class review first. There are 956 good articles, meaning it is possible we get to our 1000th GA by the end of the year. There are only 61 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 350 C-class articles, 720 start-class articles, and 141 stub-class articles, with 29 lists and 8 current articles. The number of lists may decrease further as the "Tropical cyclone X" articles continue to be reclassified as set index articles. These figures mean that nearly half of the project is rated a GA or better - including the lists/current/future articles, there are 1272 articles that are below GA status, versus 1317 that are GA or better.

About the assessment scale →

From the Main Page

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from April 14–May 31, 2019 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article
Did you know...?

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

NoahTalk 22:18, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

38th edition of The Hurricane Herald

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Volume XIV, Issue 38, August 1, 2019

The Hurricane Herald is the arbitrarily periodical newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006; it has been almost thirteen years since that time. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from June 1–July 31, 2019. This edition's editor and author is ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) .

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

← 35 · 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 →

Storm of the month and other tropical activity

Hurricane Barry was the wettest tropical storm on record in Arkansas, and one of only four hurricanes to strike Louisiana in July. Originating from a trough over the southeastern United States, Barry formed on July 11 off the southeast Louisiana coast. Despite wind shear and an asymmetrical structure, the storm intensified into a minimal hurricane before making landfall near Intracoastal City, Louisiana. Barry dropped heavy rainfall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio Valley, peaking at 23.43 in (595 mm) near Ragley, Louisiana. The storm caused flooding rains, power outages, and one death due to rip currents. Damage totaled over US$500 million.

  • The Atlantic hurricane season, and the Central Pacific hurricane season, began on June 1. The 2019-20 tropical cyclone year in the Southern Hemisphere began on July 1 in the South-West Indian Ocean, Australian region, and South Pacific.
  • Since the last newsletter, 18 other systems have formed worldwide, in addition to Barry.
  • Western Pacific
    In the Western Pacific, Tropical Storm Sepat in June passed near Japan and was classified as a subtropical storm by the JTWC. In early July, Tropical Storm Mun killed two people when it struck Vietnam. Tropical Storm Danas formed near the Philippines and moved northward, later crossing the Korean peninsula. Toward the end of July, Tropical Storm Nari moved across Japan as a tropical depression, and Tropical Storm Wipha struck southern China. There were also three tropical depressions, one of which the JTWC classified as a tropical storm.
  • Eastern Pacific
    After the latest start of a hurricane season since 1971, activity in the basin began on June 25 when Hurricane Alvin formed off the southwest coast of Mexico. Hurricane Barbara became a strong Category 4 hurricane, and its remnants later caused power outages in Hawaii. Tropical Storm Cosme, Tropical Depression Four-E, Tropical Storm Dalila, and hurricanes Erick, and Flossie also formed in July southwest of Mexico.
  • Atlantic
    Short-lived Tropical Depression Three formed near the Bahamas and dissipated east of Florida in late July
  • North Indian Ocean
  • Cyclone Vayu was a powerful cyclone that threatened western India, but stalled and weakened significantly before moving ashore. The storm killed eight people, and lashed western India with heavy rainfall and high tides.
  • South-West Indian Ocean
Recent storms of the month
Edition Storm
37 Cyclone Kenneth
36 Cyclone Idai
35 Typhoon Wutip (2019)

Member of the month (edition) – TheAustinMan

TheAustinMan has been involved with WPTC since 2009. Since the last newsletter, TheAustinMan worked on the Storm of the Month (Barry), as well as 1915 Galveston hurricane, Typhoon Alice (1979), 1937 Atlantic hurricane season, 1944 Jamaica hurricane, and the 1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane. A prolific editor, TheAustinMan has contributed to three featured articles and 46 good articles. Thank you for your contributions!

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter in June/July 2019

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue in May 2019. Sorted chronologically. Struckout users denote users who have left or have been banned.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 152 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 142 A-class articles, but that number is subject to change, depending if we mandate that all A-class articles have an A-class review first. There are 961 good articles, meaning it is possible we get to our 1000th GA by the end of the year. There are only 62 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 363 C-class articles, 717 start-class articles, and 141 stub-class articles, with 26 lists and 9 current articles. The number of lists may decrease further as the "Tropical cyclone X" articles continue to be reclassified as set index articles. These figures mean that more than half of the project is rated a GA or better - including the lists/current/future articles, there are 1283 articles that are below GA status, versus 1325 that are GA or better.

About the assessment scale →

Sourcing guidelines, by TheAustinMan

The core content policies on Wikipedia (neutral point of view, no original research, and verifiability) all apply to articles tagged by WikiProject Tropical cyclones. The project's style guidelines also provide information on how to cite sources effectively. Relevant guidelines discussing the WikiProject's tropical meteorology articles may also be found at WP:SCICITE and WP:SCIRS.

Reports, bulletins, and other products issued by Regional Specialized Meteorological Centers are the authoritative source on meteorological information pertaining to tropical cyclones in their respective basins. This includes both quantitative and qualitative information about a storm's characteristics, including intensities, durations, and locations. The most recent post-storm assessments take precedence over operational data. Thus, post-season revisions to a storm's "best track" file, new information presented in a tropical cyclone report, or official database adjustments made by the Atlantic hurricane reanalysis project, or other official reanalyses supersede operational information where they disagree. Data in operational RSMC products can still be used if later data does not dispute them. Information from other public agencies can also be used, but generally require in-text attribution. While the original best track data from meteorological agencies is a reliable source and can be referenced, readers often find difficulty interpreting them. Consider using IBTrACS, a more easily understandable track database, which is endorsed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for this information. Because the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting System (ATCF) used by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and National Hurricane Center is liable to change frequently in realtime, they should not be used for currently active storms. Forecasts from these agencies and RSMCs should only be used to cite the forecasts themselves; in other words, they can only be used to describe what was expected to occur, and never to describe what did occur.

Maps and other graphics published by meteorological agencies may be used to describe events (see the associated essay). However, they should only be referenced if they are explicit in conveying the supported information and do not require any rigorous meteorological interpretation (such as satellite analysis or drawing conclusions over what the arrangement of meteorological features represents). In general, self-published sources should not be used as sources for present or historical storm intensities. However, information contained in articles from reliable sources or commentary from established tropical cyclone experts can be used as sources for information not covered by WMO-endorsed agencies. If such sources dispute WMO-endorsed meteorological data, commentary on the disputed information may be used, making sure to attribute claims and giving due weight.

Storm effects are typically referenced with a wide array of published sources. These may include news organizations, risk assessment organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGO), government agencies, and impact databases. So long as they are reliable sources, they can be used as references for tropical cyclone impacts. Note that figures from early impact reports, often disseminated by the first NGO situation reports and news reports, may quickly be outdated in light of newer information. When sourcing damage totals or casualty figures, use the most recent value from a reliable source, as these values tend to be more stable and use more up-to-date information. If such figures are disputed by other reliable sources, this should be noted in the article, making sure to attribute claims and giving due weight. Routine calculations of damage and casualty figures (for instance, adding casualties from different countries) are acceptable as long as they arise from reliable sources.

Latest WikiProject Alerts

The following are the latest article developments as updated by AAlertBot, as of the publishing of this issue. Due to the bot workings, some of these updates may seem out of place; nonetheless, they are included here.

Templates for discussion

Redirects for discussion

Featured list candidates

Good article nominees

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Featured list removal candidates

Articles to be merged

Articles for creation

From the Main Page

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from April 14–May 31, 2019 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article
Did you know...?

History of WikiProject Tropical cyclones

The article for hurricane (tropical cyclone) was created on December 2, 2001. On October 3, 2002, User:Ed Poor created an article for Hurricane Lili while the storm was active and near peak intensity; since then, 163 other people have edited the article to help make it a . In March 2004, User:BigT27 created an article for the hyperactive 1995 Atlantic hurricane season, then the 3rd most-active Atlantic hurricane season on record. On August 14 of that year, an article was created for Hurricane Iniki, the first non-Atlantic storm, and on August 31, the 1900 Galveston hurricane became the first TC-related . On October 4, 2004, Cyclone Tracy became featured, which was the 2nd FA in the project. A week later, User:Golbez created the article for 2004 Pacific hurricane season, which was the first season article for the EPAC.

On May 19, 2005, User:Tom created Template:Infobox Hurricane, which standardized the infobox that appears in every storm article. On July 20, User:Skywayman created the article for the 2005 Pacific typhoon season, which became the third basin to get season articles. On July 31, User:Holderca1 created the article for 2004-05 Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone season – for the first several years on Wikipedia, the SHEM was handled in a singular article, but was split into SWIO, AUS, and SPAC beginning on April 16, 2007, and finished on April 21, 2013. During the hyperactive 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, articles were created quickly for the most powerful storms, including Hurricane Dennis which quickly became an FA.

On August 26, 2005, User:CrazyC83 created an article for Hurricane Katrina after the legendary storm crossed over southern Florida. By two days later, there were 500 edits to the article, and the hurricane was threatening to hit New Orleans as a Category 4 or 5. We now know it was “only” a Category 3 at landfall. In the 14 years since Katrina, there have been 6,327 editors to the Hurricane Katrina article, along with 23 sub-articles. During the 2005 season, there were debates among editors whether lesser notable storms, like Hurricane Cindy (2005), should have articles. At one point in 2006, there were articles for every named storm during the 2005 AHS, but in the 13 years since then, articles for tropical storms Franklin, Harvey, and Lee, and Philippe were created and merged. As a way to coordinate edits among the tropical cyclone pages, User:Jdorje created Template:Hurricane on September 12, 2005. This is the same template that appears on the talk pages for every article in the WPTC. On October 5, Jdorje officially created WP:WPTC, the tropical cyclone WikiProject. That October, in quick succession, the Atlantic hurricane seasons reached back to the beginning of recordkeeping (before 1600s) due to a collaboration of several editors; User:RattleMan created the first season article for the North Indian Ocean; User:Miss Madeline successfully nominated List of California hurricanes for featured list; and Jdorje created a a standardized storm path template.

In 2006, a series of users improved articles worldwide to featured article status. Professional met David Roth joined the project, and in the same year, the NOAA and NHC copied some material from Wikipedia, including track maps, and the Tropical Cyclone Report for Tropical Storm Chris (2006). In June 2006, User:Nilfanion created the project assessment page, which documents the status of every article, organized by basin, the year, and storm shaded by the quality. On August 1, the chat room on IRC for the project was created, which allowed real-time communication among editors. There’s something special about conversing with fellow weather geeks during an epic storm, which seems to have become all the more common. On January 1, 2007, the number of good articles in the project reached 100. On January 29th, a collaboration of users made the List of retired Pacific hurricane names the first featured topic in the project. It was joined by the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season in March 2007.

In 2008, further collaborations helped make the article for tropical cyclone a featured article, one of 100 FA’s in the project. Notably among project members, Tropical Storm Erick (2007) became featured on December 14, 2008. The storm lasted for a short amount of time over open waters, and as such, it was the shortest featured article anywhere on Wikipedia. Users questioned whether the storm was notable enough to have such a detailed article, but the article described the storm in articulate detail. After an AFD and two featured article review (and a series of low-notability storms being merged), Erick was delisted as a featured article on March 2, 2013. In the period from 2008 to 2013, users created task forces for various basins, articles for all of the seasons in the Atlantic and EPAC, and enough high-quality articles that more than half of all storm/season articles were good or featured articles. In January 2008, there were 1000 articles in the entire project. On January 1, 2014, User:Yellow Evan created Typhoon Nancy (1982), which was the 2000th article in the project. In October 2008, there were 100 FA’s in the project, which reached 200 on November 28, 2015, with Hurricane Fay (2014). By March 2016, every basin had at least 100 storm articles, multiple featured articles, and season articles of various quality.

Featured Content

This section lists content that have become featured, articles and lists, since the past newsletter in mid-April 2019.
From June 1–July 31, 2019, one featured article and one featured list was promoted:

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Proposed deletion of File:TD one-E 1979.jpg

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This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:01, 20 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

39th edition of The Hurricane Herald!

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Volume XIV, Issue 39, March 17, 2020

The Hurricane Herald: Special St. Patrick's Day and COVID-19 edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006; it has been almost thirteen years since that time. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from August 1, 2019–March 17, 2020. This edition's editor and author is ♫ Hurricanehink (talk).

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

From the Main Page

← 36 · 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 →

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • An awards program for the project began on May 31. It involves 25 levels that may be gained by earning points for completing various actions such as getting good or featured articles. Additional awards will be added in the future.
  • In March 2020, the most popular article in the project was the Beaufort scale, with about 4,800 daily views, followed by tropical cyclone with 3,865 daily views, and Hurricane Katrina, with 3,393 daily views. Hurricane Dorian remains popularly viewed, six months after it devastated the Bahamas. Rounding out the top 10 are hurricanes Sandy and Irma.
  • There is ongoing featured article review for the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The recent look at the article stemmed from a discussion about merging the List of storms in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which was created in January 2006 in response to the large season article. The 2005 article was then more of a summary, covering economic costs, the record activity, and focusing on storms by month (and not sequentially). For several years, there were a few season articles that had both a primary article and a dedicated list of storms article; all were eventually re-incorporated back into the main season article, recently including 2005 AHS. On March 3, 2020 (hard to believe that was this month), the list article was merged, as well as 2005 Atlantic hurricane season statistics, and articles for Franklin and Philippe. A singular article for the 2005 season was prepared in draftspace, and was incorporated into the main 2005 article.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

The 1988 and 2015 Pacific seasons are now good topics.

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue in May 2019. Sorted chronologically. Struckout users denote users who have left or have been banned.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Latest WikiProject Alerts

The following are the latest article developments as updated by AAlertBot, as of the publishing of this issue. Due to the bot workings, some of these updates may seem out of place; nonetheless, they are included here.

Templates for discussion

Redirects for discussion

Featured list candidates

Good article nominees

(1 more...)

Featured list removal candidates

Articles to be merged

Articles for creation

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for August

Typhoon Lekima became China's costliest typhoon ever recorded when it struck the country in early August, leaving 90 fatalities and over $9 billion in damage.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for September

Hurricane Dorian was the strongest hurricane on record to strike The Bahamas, and was regarded as the worst natural disaster in the country's history. Dorian formed on August 24, and moved through the Caribbean as an intensifying storm. On September 1, Dorian hit Great Abaco Island with sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), and struck Grand Bahama Island at the same intensity a day later. Dorian killed 58 people and left $7 billion in damage to the island nation. The hurricane later struck North Carolina as a minimal hurricane, and Nova Scotia as a post-tropical cyclone.

  • Atlantic - The tropics were more active in September. Tropical Storm Fernand killed one person and caused damaging floods in northeastern Mexico. Tropical Storm Gabrielle moved across the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Hurricane Humberto affected the Bahamas weeks after Dorian devastated the island chain, and later brought hurricane-force winds to Bermuda. Tropical Storm Imelda formed rapidly near the coast of Texas and dropped torrential rainfall, killing five people and inundating parts of Texas affected by Hurricane Harvey two years earlier. Hurricane Jerry and Tropical Storm Karen moved near or over the eastern Caribbean. At the end of the month, Hurricane Lorenzo became the easternmost Category 5 Atlantic hurricane, reaching that intensity in the eastern Atlantic Ocean; the hurricane caused a shipwreck, killing at least three people, and also passed through the Azores in early October.
  • Western Pacific - In early September, Tropical Storm Kajiki brought heavy rainfall to northeastern Vietnam, killing six people. Typhoon Lingling moved through the East China Sea before striking North Korea, killing eight people. In the middle of September, short-lived Tropical Storm Peipah dissipated south of Japan, and Typhoon Tapah passed between Japan and South Korea. At the end of the month, Typhoon Mitag was moving across South Korea. There were also a series of nine non-developing depressions.
  • Eastern Pacific - There were two major hurricanes in September – Juliette and Kiko. Short-lived Tropical Storm Akoni was in the Central Pacific. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Storm Mario and Hurricane Lorena interacted with each other, and the latter hurricane struck Mexico twice, killing one person. At the end of the month, Tropical Storm Narda followed a similar path to Lorena, killing four people in southwestern Mexico.
  • North Indian Ocean - In September, Cyclonic Storm Hikaa struck eastern Oman, killing one person. At the end of the month, a land depression formed over western India.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for October

Typhoon Hagibis was considered the most devastating typhoon to hit the Kantō region of Japan since Ida in 1958. It struck near Tokyo on October 12, triggering heavy rainfall and landslides. Hagibis killed 95 people along its path and left about US$9 billion in damage.

  • Atlantic - a series of weaker storms formed in October, beginning with Melissa, which caused significant flooding along the east coast of the United States from its predecessor extratropical low. After a weak tropical depression formed near Cabo Verde, there were two tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico – Nestor and Olga, which together left more than $250 million in damage and four fatalities to the United States gulf coast. Later in the month, Hurricane Pablo became the easternmost storm on record to attain hurricane status, having originated from a nontropical storm near the Azores. A few days later, Subtropical Storm Rebekah formed in the same region.
  • Eastern Pacific - there were three cyclones in the Eastern Pacific during the month, beginning with short-lived Ema in the Central Pacific. Later, Tropical Storm Octave lasted two days over open waters, and Tropical Storm Priscilla moved ashore near Manzanillo.
  • Western Pacific - in addition to Hagibis, two other storms formed in the western Pacific during October. Typhoon Neoguri and Typhoon Bualoi existed south of Japan. At the end of the month, Tropical Storm Matmo struck Vietnam, which later redeveloped in the North Indian Ocean as Cyclone Bulbul.
  • North Indian Ocean - there were two storms in the North Indian Ocean during October. The first was Super Cyclonic Storm Kyarr, which was the strongest storm on record in the Arabian Sea; the cyclone produced high waves throughout the basin, but didn't strike land. Later in the month, Cyclone Maha formed in the Arabian Sea, marking the first time on record there were two simultaneous storms in the body of water. Maha eventually struck Gujarat in western India as a depression.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for November

Cyclone Bulbul formed in the Bay of Bengal from the remnants of Tropical Storm Matmo, which struck Vietnam in late October. Bulbul intensified into the record-breaking sixth very intense tropical cyclone (the NIO equivalent to a hurricane). On November 9, Bulbul made landfall near the India/Bangladesh border, killing 38 people and leaving US$2.6 billion in damage.

  • Atlantic - Tropical Storm Sebastien formed northeast of the Lesser Antilles and moved across much of the Atlantic, becoming an extratropical cyclone near the Azores.
  • Eastern Pacific - there were two simultaneous tropical cyclones in the middle of the month. Tropical Storm Raymond brought rainfall to California, and Tropical Depression Twenty-One-E existed south of Mexico.
  • Western Pacific - Typhoon Halong was the strongest storm of the year worldwide, reaching winds of 215 km/h (130 mph) according to the JMA. The storm remained away from land. Also in the month, Typhoon Nakri struck Vietnam, killing six people. Typhoon Fengshen struck the northern Marianas Islands. Typhoon Kalmaegi and Tropical Storm Fung-wong affected the northern Philippines in short succession. Later in the month, Typhoon Kammuri formed, moving through the Philippines in early December, where it caused US$116 million in damage and 12 deaths.
  • South Pacific - Cyclone Rita passed through the Solomon Islands.

Member of the month (edition) – ChocolateTrain

ChocolateTrain first joined Wikipedia in April 2017. An Australian native, he is already a prolific writer on the Australian basin, and is responsible for half the edits to the current Australian cyclone season. ChocolateTrain wrote good articles on Cyclone Lili (2019) and Cyclone Nora, plus several articles that are C-class. We thank ChocolateTrain for his edits, and hopes he keeps writing about southern hemisphere storms!

Featured Content

From August 1, 2019–March 17, 2020, one featured list and three featured articles were promoted:

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 154 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 134 A-class articles, but that number is subject to change, depending if we mandate that all A-class articles have an A-class review first. There are 974 good articles. There are only 63 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 374 C-class articles, 733 start-class articles, and 150 stub-class articles, with 32 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better - including the lists/current/future articles, there are 1320 articles that are below GA status, versus 1334 that are GA or better.

There is a discussion about getting rid of redirect and list-class articles.

About the assessment scale →

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Collaborating - AKA the right kind of sharing, by User:Hurricanehink
As mentioned elsewhere in the newsletter, 2005 Atlantic hurricane season has changed recently. It was a collaborative effort of several users, making sure this top-importance vital article is still of featured-quality. (There is an ongoing discussion about removing its featured article status).

There are other kinds of collaborations. Recently, users Juliancolton and TropicalAnalystwx13 wrote Tropical Storm Kirk (2018) together. Each year, the season articles are written by many editors, by folks who add the latest satellite imagery or track. There are others who document the storm's journey, and what impacts they left. When a major storm is threatening a landmass (especially the United States), users edit from IP addresses far and wide to add the latest information. Unfortunately, some of these big storm articles languish, because they're written in real time without historical perspective, and the websites might no longer be up and running a few years later. Don't get me wrong, I know the excitement of being the first to write on Wikipedia when the NHC classifies something. However, there are lots of older articles that end up half-finished, or with broken weblinks. Thankfully we have the web archive.

We see the disruption that Covid-19 is causing in our world right now. Yea, it sucks to have everything canceled, for schools and bars and gyms and restaurants to be shut down. Some people experience that same feeling every few years when a hurricane/typhoon/cyclone strikes. It's easy writing/researching about these furious beasts of nature when we're in the comfort of our own home/office/library/school. And sometimes it's uncomfortable seeing how we rebuild. After every storm, there is help, often from the government. Politics have made my country turn fearful and hateful, and so I have to choose my words carefully. When nature is at its worst, my government is there after when people need it the most, providing financial assistance, logistical support, and a sense of national unity.

This pandemic is making a lot of people fearful of the unknown, how bad that unstoppable force will be. A lot of us may be stuck at home right now with a sense of fear and too much time on our hands. Consider, then, the spirit of collaboration, working together to document the world around us. If you're reading this, you are likely interested in meteorology. Go improve an article then. Now. Do it. :P Stop reading this and find an article you're interested in, and make it better. <3

Tropical cyclones by year
In 2019, there have been 143 tropical or subtropical cyclones. We (the thousands of editors who are writing the first draft of history in the middle of Earth's biggest climate crisis in many millennia) are writing the first draft of history. There might be edit wars, conflicts over whether a source is reliable, and maybe even a controversy surrounding a sharpie, Alabama, and a NWS weather map (see also Hurricane Dorian–Alabama controversy, AKA Sharpiegate). 2019 has featured several significant storms: Cyclone Idai, one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere. Cyclone Kenneth was the strongest cyclone to strike Mozambique. In February, Typhoon Wutip was the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded in the month of February.

The storms in 2019 represent about 0.116% of the known tropical cyclones on Wikipedia. We're aware of around 12,000 tropical cyclones; about one-third were in the Western Pacific, where storms have killed more than 1.4 million people. Storms in the western Pacific date back to the year 957, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In the Atlantic, we know of 2,443 tropical cyclones, dating back to 1494, and Christopher Columbus's 2nd voyage to the New World; however, paleotempestological evidence] of storms date back to 1330 BC. In the eastern Pacific, storms date back to 1537, when a hurricane struck Mexico and was recorded by a missionary. Storms in the South Pacific Ocean date back to 1568, and in the South Indian Ocean to 1615. Wikipedia coverage in the North Indian Ocean goes back to 1721.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for December

Cyclone Ambali was the first very intense tropical cyclone in the South-west Indian Ocean since Cyclone Fantala in 2016. It formed on December 3 as part of a series of storms in the western Indian Ocean in both hemispheres. Ambali's winds increased by 185 km/h (115 mph) in 24 hours, marking the fastest 24-hour intensification recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. The storm rapidly weakened after its peak, degenerating into a remnant low by December 8.

  • Western Pacific - Typhoon Phanfone moved through the central Philippines on Christmas Day, killing 50 people. Damage was estimated at US$67.2 million, enough to warrant the retirement of its international name, as well its local Filipino name Ursula.
  • North Indian - Cyclonic Storm Pawan formed in early December in the western Arabian Sea. It struck Somalia, causing flooding rains that killed six people. Pawan existed simultaneously to a deep depression off India's west coast, which killed 25 people. The season ended on December 10 when another deep depression formed in the Arabian Sea, which dissipated near the Somalia coastline.
  • South-west Indian Ocean - Cyclone Belna developed west of Cyclone Ambali, and struck northwestern Madagascar on December 9. The storm killed nine people and left US$25 million in damage. Cyclone Calvinina formed at the end of the month, passing near Mauritius on December 31, causing power outages and flooding. The storm became extratropical the next day.
  • South Pacific - There were two December tropical cyclones – a tropical depression, and Tropical Cyclone Sarai. Sarai passed near Fiji on December 27, causing two deaths and US$2.3 million in damage.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for January

Cyclone Tino was part of a broader convergence zone that affected ten South Pacific countries. Tino formed on January 11, and passed near Fiji on January 17 with winds of 120 km/h (75 mph), where two people were left missing. Tino became extratropical two days later.

  • South Atlantic - Subtropical Storm Kurumí formed on January 23 south of São Paulo. It existed for two days, until it was absorbed by a larger weather system that killed three people in Brazil.
  • South-West Indian Ocean - A series of three systems formed in the second half of the month, beginning with a short-lived tropical depression. Tropical Storm Diane moved across Madagascar in its formative stages, killing 31 people. It later passed near Mauritius, and eventually became extratropical. Tropical Storm Esami formed east of Madagascar and followed Diane's path.
  • Australia - the Australian season began when Tropical Cyclone Blake formed on January 4. It later struck Western Australia on the Dampier Peninsula, causing localized flooding. Simultaneous to Blake's development, Cyclone Claudia moved across Australia's Top End, dropping heavy rainfall, and eventually reached its peak intensity off northwest Australia. There were also two tropical lows during the month, including one low in the extreme southeastern Gulf of Carpentaria, which dropped 475 mm (18.7 in) of rainfall in Queensland.
  • South Pacific - Toward the end of the month, there was a short-lived tropical disturbance near American Samoa.

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for February

Cyclone Damien struck Western Australia near Karratha on February 8, having originated from a monsoon trough five days later. Damien caused localized flooding and power outages.

  • South-west Indian - Tropical Storm Francisco lasted for nearly two weeks, beginning as a short-lived storm near the Chagos, and moving across much of the basin as a weak disturbance. Francisco regenerated into a tropical storm near eastern Madagascar, moving ashore near Mahanoro; it killed one person in the country. Also in the month, Cyclone Gabekile formed on February 13, and weakened after it stalled over open waters.
  • Australia - there were two other storms in the basin during the month, in addition to Damien. Cyclone Esther moved across the Northern Territory, reached the coastline of the Indian Ocean, and then moved back east inland. The storm caused flooding rains along its path. Occurring simultaneously to Esther, Cyclone Ferdinand developed, intensified, and weakened off Australia's northwest coast.
  • South Pacific - Cyclone Uesi passed west of New Caledonia on February 11, causing flooding and power outages. It later moved into the Australian basin, where it transitioned into a subtropical cyclone. High waves killed one person in Sydney. Over a one week span, four tropical cyclones developed in the basin in short-succession near American Samoa, including two tropical disturbances. Cyclone Vicky caused power outages and flooding, followed only days later by Cyclone Wasi.

The 40th Edition of The Hurricane Herald

[edit]

Volume XL, Issue 40, May 1, 2020

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from March 17 to April 30, 2020. This edition's editor and author is Hurricanehink.

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

From the Main Page

← 37 · 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 →

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

Map
Map plotting the track and the intensity of the storm, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
February 2020 Cyclone Damien
January 2020 Cyclone Tino
December 2019 Cyclone Ambali
November 2019 Cyclone Bulbul
October 2019 Typhoon Hagibis
September 2019 Hurricane Dorian
August 2019 Typhoon Lekima (2019)
July 2019 Hurricane Barry (2019)
June 2019 Cyclone Kenneth
May 2019 Cyclone Idai

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for March

Cyclone Herold (not to be confused with April's storm of the month) was an intense tropical cyclone in the southwest Indian Ocean. It formed near northeastern Madagascar, where its flooding killed five people. Herold later passed between the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues before becoming extratropical.
Special thanks to Chicdat for helping write this newsletter's storm of the month!

  • Australia - the month began with Cyclone Ferdinand dissipating off northwest Australia. Several days later, a tropical low struck Western Australia, and Tropical Cyclone Gretel formed northeast of Queensland, later exiting into the South Pacific. There, the storm brushed New Caledonia with gusty winds and locally heavy rainfall. The month ended with another tropical low near Papua New Guinea.

Member of the month (edition) – TropicalAnalystwx13

TropicalAnalystwx13 first joined Wikipedia in September 2010. A long-time writer, TropicalAnalystwx13 (or TAWX13) is a prolific writer about tropical cyclones and tornadoes. Since the last newsletter, he worked on Hurricane Humberto (2019), now a featured article, as well as good articles for Tropical Storm Olga (2019), 1938 Atlantic hurricane season, and 1934 Atlantic hurricane season. We thank TropicalAnalystwx13 for his many edits, and hope he keeps up the good work!

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Featured Content
An illustration of the steamship Home breaking apart in shallow waters just off the beach. The Home is split in two, lying on its starboard side, and about to be struck by one particularly large wave.
Lithograph by Nathaniel Currier depicting the loss of the SS Home on the Outer Banks during Racer's hurricane, one of five recent featured articles.

From March 17 to present, five featured articles were promoted:

There are currently three featured article candidates:

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from March 17–April 30, 2020 in chronological order.

Did you know...?

Storms around the world, by Jason Rees
Over the last few months, the project has started to dip its toe into several other types of articles away from the traditional season, storm and timeline articles. These articles include lists on what tropical cyclones existed in which year, tropical cyclone by intensity and tropical cyclones affecting a certain territory, island nation etc. The hope is that these articles will be developed over the next few months to the point, where they get used by the international community.

We have had some early success with this goal with information from Category 5 South Pacific severe tropical cyclones being used by a Facebook page after Cyclone Harold. However, we need help developing these articles since there are approximately 150 countries impacted by tropical cyclones and there are approximately 15 tropical cyclones off all intensities per basin per year. You can help by finding resources for us to use, going through IBTRACS and the various databases published by the warning centres or even helping to expand the various articles.

''Opinion piece - , by Chicdat

As a reader: I first became interested in hurricanes when the buzz on Hurricane Dorian making landfall in the Bahamas came out at the end of August 2019. I was interested to know more about Dorian, but not too much. I went onto the solution page: 2019 Atlantic hurricane season, one of the first pages I saw on Wikipedia (that's where I got my signature, 🐔Chicdat ChickenDatabase, the Chicken links to 2019 AHS). As hurricane season continued, I "experienced" every single storm from Dorian to Sebastien. After hurricane season in the Atlantic ended, I turned my eyes to the Southern Hemisphere. By the beginning of 2020, I was even delving into FAs, GAs, and stubs.
As an IP: By late January 2020, I began questioning sharing my knowledge with the rest of Wikipedia, and on February 3, me my IP made what I believe was my first Wikipedia edit as an IP. However, many users were following the "All IPs are vandals, so let's revert their edits!" rule (e.g. here). Any coincidence that just 5 hours later...?
As Chicdat: Five hours after I was given a violation of the WP:IPs are humans too rule, I decided to create an account. I like chickens, and I had a database that I used for their egg production, which I call CHICDAT (Chicken Database), so I chose the username Chicdat. Not long after that, I made my first edit as Chicdat. On March 18, I created my first article, List of Alabama hurricanes. On February 24, I became an autoconfirmed user, and on March 19, I became extended confirmed. In late March, I created my first userspace draft, User:Chicdat/Cyclone Herold. In other words, that is how I became a Wikipedia user! 🐔Chicdat ChickenDatabase

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 996 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better.

About the assessment scale →

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for April

Cyclone Harold was a Category 5 storm on both the Saffir-Simpson and the Australian scale. The storm formed near the Solomon Islands on April 1, where high waves drowned 27 people on the MV Taimareho ferry. Near peak intensity, Harold struck the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, causing widespread damage and disruptions amid the ongoing pandemic, as well as two deaths. Harold later passed south of the main island of Fiji, resulting in power outages and one fatality. The storm subsequently passed just south of Tonga, causing power outages and high tides.
Special thanks to Hurricaneboy23, Jason Rees, and TheAustinMan for helping write 94% of this newsletter's storm of the month!

  • Eastern Pacific - Tropical Depression One-E formed on April 25 southwest of Mexico, becoming the earliest tropical cyclone in the basin (east of 140°W and north of the equator). The depression dissipated a day after formation.
  • South-west Indian - toward the beginning of April, Cyclone Irondro formed southwest of Diego Garcia and moved to the southeast, becoming an intense tropical cyclone before weakening and becoming extratropical near the boundary with the Australian basin. In the middle of the month, Tropical Storm Jeruto originated in the Australian basin and took a southwest trajectory over open waters, dissipating on April 16.

41st edition of The Hurricane Herald

[edit]

Volume XLI, Issue 41, July 1, 2020
←(Previous issues) 38 · 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 →

The Hurricane Herald: Special Hurricane Season/New SHEM Cyclone Year Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from May 1–July 1, 2020. This edition's editors and authors are Chicdat and Hurricanehink.

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

2018 Featured Topic

Hurricane Noah recently announced an initiative to get a featured topic for the year of 2018 with complete subtopics. The Eastern Pacific portion is very close to achieving a featured topic, and the Atlantic and North Indian Ocean are around a B-class average. The Western Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, and the global article for 2018 need your help! A lot of work is needed to get those three items up to par. For more information on which articles need specifically, please check out the project talk page. Getting a featured topic for an entire year would be an impressive feat for our project.

Happy New Year by Jason Rees

I want to invite you all to sing Auld Lang Syne with me and open up the egg nog with me as today July 1, 2020, marks the formal start of the 2020-21 tropical cyclone year, as well as the start of the season in the South-West Indian Ocean. As a result, it is a good chance to look back at the previous TC year and look forward to the season starting on November 1. As things stand, it appears that the status of the El Nino Southern Oscillation will either be La Nina or neutral conditions leaning towards La Nina. As a result, I would expect more activity to occur within the Coral Sea, near Queensland rather than out towards French Polynesia. On a social basis, the biggest question this year will be how will the island nations deal will Covid 19 and a major tropical cyclone - assuming it's still around in November. We got an early taster of how Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga will deal with it thanks Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold.


Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
April 2020 Cyclone Harold
March 2020 Cyclone Herold
February 2020 Cyclone Damien
January 2020 Cyclone Tino
December 2019 Cyclone Ambali
November 2019 Cyclone Bulbul
October 2019 Typhoon Hagibis
September 2019 Hurricane Dorian
August 2019 Typhoon Lekima (2019)
July 2019 Hurricane Barry (2019)

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for May

Cyclone Amphan was the second Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone of 2020, and the first tropical cyclone of the 2020 North Indian Ocean cyclone season. It formed in the southern Bay of Bengal, and made landfall on Odisha and Bangladesh, killing 128 people. It was a very strong super cyclonic storm. It was also the costliest North Indian Ocean tropical cyclone in recorded history, shattering the record held by Cyclone Nargis, after it left US$13.6 billion in damage.

Member of the month (edition) – KN2731

KN2731 first joined Wikipedia in 2015, and has contributed to/written 13 good articles in the project. Recently, he has contributed to the project-wide goal of improving tropical cyclones in 2018 to a featured topic, including tropical storms Sanba, Bolaven, and Ewiniar, plus Typhoon Maria. KN2731 has also worked in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific, and contributed to two featured lists – Timeline of the 2015 Pacific hurricane season and List of Category 3 Pacific hurricanes. We thank KN2731 for his many edits, and hope he keeps up the good work!

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Featured Content

From May 1 to present, two featured articles were promoted:

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from May 1–June 30, 2020 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List

There are currently two featured article canidates:

OPINION PIECE, by Chicdat

When a new storm undergoes rapid intensification and makes landfall, the members of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones try hard to create an article for it. Suddenly, the storm goes back out to sea again and makes landfall somewhere different. In one 20-kilobyte edit, Hurricaneboy23, let's say, adds in more information about this landfall, but not before the storm undergoes a cyclonic loop and makes a third landfall. As the article gets huge and bloated, it's split.

The story above is fictional, but things like it happen often, like in Cyclone Amphan's revision history. For Wikipedia to have an accurate coverage of tropical cyclones, there need to be enough members to put the new information — boosted by reliable sources, of course — into the article. So, if you haven't already, go to WP:WPTC/MEMBER and add your name! 🐔Chicdat ChickenDatabase

Burnout - an opinion piece by ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)
I've been editing Wikipedia for a while. I've retired a few times, thinking I would be done for good, but something kept drawing me back. It might be the thrill to be the first one to post an advisory, or if you found a damage total that wasn't in the article, or the thrill of publishing an article and making it the best source of information on a given storm. Those are all great reasons to edit and to continue editing. But while the text we write is just computer code, we all are humans, subjected to outside stresses and the dreaded real life (RL).

When you edit for too long, you might find that you can't finish that list of projects you wanted to work on. It is better to take a break from what you were working on, and try something different (maybe not even weather-related) so that editing becomes enjoyable again. There's no sense getting burned out and stressed. The work will eventually get done on Wikipedia. Some projects are in much worse shape, but improving slowly but surely. The WPTC has a leg up on other projects because we have such a passionate group of editors and writers. It's better for the long run to take a break, focus on RL, get some sun, have a laugh, and do whatever you can to stay sane these days.

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,002 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for June

Tropical Storm Cristobal formed on June 1 in the Bay of Campeche from the remnants of Amanda in the eastern Pacific. Cristobal looped over the Yucatán peninsula before progressing northward, striking Louisiana on June 7, marking the second-earliest landfall on record in the state. The system moved through the central United States, eventually becoming extratropical over Wisconsin. Cristobal killed four people and left US$343 million in damage.

  • Atlantic - in addition to Cristobal, Tropical Storm Dolly formed in late June off the east coast of the United States. Originating as a subtropical depression, Dolly transitioned into a tropical cyclone over the Gulf Stream, and became extratropical on June 24.
  • Eastern Pacific - there were two short-lived tropical cyclones in the basin in late June. Tropical Storm Boris formed on June 24 and was a minimal tropical storm, and Tropical Depression Four-E formed at the end of the month off of Baja California.
  • Western Pacific - one tropical storm - Nuri - formed in the South China Sea, and killed one person when it struck southern China.
  • North Indian Ocean - Cyclone Nisarga formed on June 1 off India's western coast. The storm intensified into a severe cyclonic storm before it made landfall south of Mumbai. The cyclone killed 6 people and caused US$665 million in damage.

42nd edition of The Hurricane Herald!

[edit]

Volume XLII, Issue 42, September 1, 2020
←(Previous issues) 39 · 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 →

The Hurricane Herald: September Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from July 1–August 31, 2020. This edition's editors and authors are (alphabetically) Chicdat, Destroyeraa, Hurricanehink, Jason Rees, KN2731, Typhoon2013, & Weatherman27.

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • As we rapidly approach the 15th anniversary of the project in October, it has been proposed that the Climate, Tropical cyclone, Severe Weather, and Non-tropical storms (defunct) wikiprojects get merged into a single project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather. This brand new project would remove the overlap that exists between the projects. It provide us with a better opportunity to develop articles such as List of named storms A, B, C etc; Tornadoes in Fiji/New Zealand/Hawaii/etc; Floods in 2018, 2019, 2020, etc; Floods in Bangladesh/United States/Egypt, etc; Weather of 1997, 1998, 2020, etc; Weather in Tokelau/South Africa/France, etc; Hurricanes in the United States, Hurricanes in Mexico, Typhoons in China, etc. The discussion continues on WP:Meteorology. Any feedback would be appreciated.
  • There are now more than 1,000 distinct good articles in the project, as of June, when Tropical Storm Sanba (2018) passed its GAR. That doesn't include the articles rated A-class that also passed GA status. There are now 1,299 good or featured articles, which 47.1% of all articles in the project. 80 net more good articles are needed for half of the project to be good or featured.
  • There are more than 500 articles in the Western Pacific, as of July, when Yellow Evan (talk · contribs) created Tropical Storm Ofelia (1993) and Tropical Storm Percy (1993). The WPAC is the second basin to reach that milestone, after the Atlantic, which crossed that threshold in 2008. In fact, the WPAC is growing at a rate of 33 articles per year (since 2017), while the Atlantic is only growing at a rate of 13.6 articles per year (also since 2017). At that rate, the WPAC would surpass the Atlantic in number of articles in 15 years, when both basins would have about 1,000 articles. The EPAC would only have about 450 articles by that point. At the current rate, the entire WPTC would have 4,632 articles. For reference, there are 2727 articles in the WPTC at the moment, 2,185 of which are a storm/season/timeline article.
  • The intensity lists by basin are progressing. List of Category 1 Atlantic hurricanes is still under construction, and could use help adding storms from 1936 to 2014. The List of Eastern Pacific tropical storms could use help adding storms from 1949 to 1989. The List of typhoons is going to take some time, as the current plan is to list every recorded typhoon, and not separate it (like the other basins) by category. This is because JMA is the RSMC for the WPAC, and they don't publicly use super/violent typhoon. Most intensity lists are finished for the North Indian Ocean, excepting the proposed List of depressions and deep depressions within the North Indian Ocean. Australia is almost done, only needing List of Australian region tropical lows, and SPAC is done all the way down to List of South Pacific tropical disturbances and tropical depressions. SWIO has only lists for very intense and intense tropical cyclones, so it could use more help.
  • There is a discussion to merge the nearly 600 disambiguation/set index article into naming lists by letter, such as List of named storms (I), instead of Tropical Storm Ingrid. This would make sure that the pages are centralized, which would make updating and navigation easier.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

Featured Content

From July 1 to present, two featured articles were promoted:

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from July 1–August 31, 2020 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List

There is currently one featured article candidate:

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

2018 Featured Topic

Hurricane Noah recently announced an initiative to get a featured topic for the year of 2018 with complete subtopics. The Eastern Pacific portion is very close to achieving a featured topic, and the Atlantic and North Indian Ocean are around a B-class average. The Western Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, and the global article for 2018 need your help! A lot of work is needed to get those three items up to par. For more information on which articles need specifically, please check out the project talk page. Getting a featured topic for an entire year would be an impressive feat for our project.

Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
June 2020 Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020)
May 2020 Cyclone Amphan
April 2020 Cyclone Harold
March 2020 Cyclone Herold
February 2020 Cyclone Damien
January 2020 Cyclone Tino
December 2019 Cyclone Ambali
November 2019 Cyclone Bulbul
October 2019 Typhoon Hagibis
September 2019 Hurricane Dorian

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for July

Hurricane Isaias caused widespread flooding and wind damage to the East Coast of the United States, spawning a destructive tornado outbreak and killing at least 18 people. Forming from a tropical wave near the Lesser Antilles on July 30, Isaias crossed Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and parts of the Bahamas, before making its final landfall in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. The storm proceeded up the East Coast, spawning 37 tornadoes and causing more than 3 million power outages, with more than half of them in New Jersey. Overall, Isaias caused a total of $4.2 billion in damage and 18 fatalities.

  • Atlantic - there were five named storms in the North Atlantic in July, tying the record set by 2005. In addition to Isaias, the first storm of the month was Tropical Storm Edouard, which formed near Bermuda and moved quickly across the north Atlantic. A few days later, Tropical Storm Fay became the first storm to hit New Jersey since 2011. Fay caused 6 fatalities and $400 million in damage. Short-lived Tropical Storm Gonzalo threatened the southern Lesser Antilles, but it dissipated while crossing into the Caribbean Sea. Hurricane Hanna formed in the Gulf of Mexico and rapidly intensified as it made landfall in Padre Island, Texas. The storm caused $500 million in damage and 5 fatalities. There was also a short-lived tropical depression near Cabo Verde.
  • Eastern Pacific - Tropical Storm Cristina nearly reached hurricane intensity as it moved to the southwest of Mexico, affecting Socorro Island. After two short-lived tropical depressions, Hurricane Douglas became the basin's first hurricane on July 23, which was the fourth-latest on record. Douglas would go on to strengthen into the season's first major hurricane, briefly attaining Category 4 status before weakening as it passed north of Hawaii. Damage in Hawaii was minor.
  • Western Pacific - For the first time on record, there were no tropical storms or typhoons during the month of July in the western Pacific. There were two nondeveloping tropical depressions during the month, as well as two tropical depressions in late July that would reach peak intensity in August. Tropical Storm Sinlaku formed on July 31 and made landfall in Vietnam, causing significant flooding and killing 6 people. Typhoon Hagupit formed east of the Philippines and later made landfall in Wenzhou, China, killing 12 and causing more than ¥2.858 billion (US$411 million) in damage.

Member of the month (edition) – ChessEric

ChessEric first joined Wikipedia in April of this year, and has quickly become a prolific weather editor. In addition to his work on tornado and severe weather articles, ChessEric helped write the bulk of the Hurricane Laura article (the storm of the month), in addition to making sure the article stayed free of vandalism, with 224 edits to the article as of this newsletter. ChessEric was one of 190 editors who worked on the Laura article. We thank ChessEric for his edits, and hope we can build on more collaborations in the future between the severe and the tropical cyclone Wikiprojects.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

WPTC and WP:ITN, by Destroyeraa

A few weeks ago, I created an article, Hurricane Isaias, as it threatened much of the East Coast. I've created several articles already, but Isaias is one that stood out to me. First of all, it affected me, my town and my state of New Jersey, along with millions of other people. Two months ago, I learned about Wikipedia's In The News section of the main page, which documents recent events that are in the news. I nominated Isaias' article on August 1 here, and the discussion was closed quickly after Isaias had weakened significantly after impacting the Bahamas. As Isaias made landfall in the Carolinas, spawned 36+ tornadoes and killed 18 people, I re-nominated Isaias [1], got rejected again, and I learned a few lessons that I want to share to other editors:

When posting

  • If you post something that isn't in the news or isn't notable at all, then it would be quickly closed without much discussion.
  • Don't feel upset when someone opposes your nomination. It is almost guaranteed that someone will oppose your nomination.
  • Keep improving the article. An article that is a stub won't likely be posted.
  • When posting about a person, make sure the article complies with BLP policies, and is adequately referenced and well-written.

I also learned a few lessons about which tropical cyclones to post. In July, someone nominated Hurricane Hanna (2020) here, and it was also rejected because it didn't meet the notability requirements. Also, keep in mind that damage estimates and death reports often come out several days after the storm, which makes passing the nomination for a storm like Isaias, a storm that caused $4.2 billion and 18 deaths, somewhat hard.

My opinions on when to nominate an article (this list mainly refers to tropical cyclone articles)

  • The storm should affect more than two countries. However, if the storm causes a lot of death and destruction in one country (such as Tropical Storm Imelda), see the requirements below
  • The storm should cause more than $1 billion in damage. However, if the storm causes less destruction and less death, see the requirements below
  • The storm should cause at least 10 or 20 deaths. Most ITN nominations about a disaster that have less than 10 deaths are usually rejected/closed.
  • The storm should break at least 1 notable record (such as the deadliest storm to hit a country in 20 years, or something like that).

There is currently a discussion on the WPTC project page about this topic.

New user perspective on WPTC, By Weatherman27

Around six months ago, I joined Wikipedia after seeing many articles on tropical cyclones and their seasons. Being someone who has studied (and been through) multiple storms, I realized I could help make a difference, bring more attention to tropical cyclones and that Wikipedia was the perfect place to do that. Soon after, I came across the WikiProject Tropical cyclones page, and after seeing what they did, I decided to sign my name and join the project. I really enjoyed how they gave to-do lists of tropical cyclone pages that needed work among other things. One of the great things about this WikiProject is the warm welcome I received when I joined and I got to know some of the more veteran editors, and they really helped me get around on Wikipedia, such as helpful tips and great advice to make better edits. As I have become comfortable editing and helping other users, some things came to mind that I thought other new users should know when they join the WPTC:

  • If you are new and have questions, don't be afraid to ask someone. There are plenty of helpful editors who know what they are doing, and who would be happy to give some great tips to get you used to editing weather articles on Wikipedia.
  • Don't be afraid to start editing. You can edit tropical cyclone pages as much as you want, just make sure you use the proper sources and citations.
  • Be kind. It is simply the Golden Rule, if you use it, others will too.
  • If you see something wrong, do something! If you see vandalism or any strange edits, make sure you revert them.
  • Help improve. There are plenty of tropical cyclone articles that need improvement and we need all the help we can get.
  • If you have any ideas but you're not sure if they would be right for an article, you can discuss them with fellow users on a talk page.

I am sure I missed some tips, but these are important for getting started with WPTC. This WikiProject has some amazing people and articles and I am sure new users (and veteran users as well) enjoy this as much as I do and will continue to make great edits as well as informative articles.

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,002 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for August

Hurricane Laura tied the 1856 Last Island hurricane as the strongest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in the U.S state of Louisiana, as measured by maximum sustained winds. It moved across the Lesser and Greater Antilles as a tropical storm, killing 35 people on the island of Hispaniola due to flooding and landslides. Laura rapidly intensified once it reached the Gulf of Mexico, becoming a powerful Category 4 hurricane on August 26 with peak winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) early the next day. On August 27, Laura made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana at peak intensity, producing wind gusts of 137 mph (220 km/h) in Lake Charles, and leaving at least $8 billion in damage. Overall, Laura killed more than 57 people, with more missing.

  • Atlantic - the basin continued its record pace of activity. In the middle of the month, Tropical Storm Josephine formed east of the Lesser Antilles and eventually dissipated north of the islands. Tropical Storm Kyle originated off the east coast of the United States and moved to the east-northeast. Hurricane Marco formed in the Caribbean and briefly strengthened into a minimal hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. For a few days, the NHC forecast back-to-back hurricane landfalls from Marco and Laura within two days of each other; however, Marco dissipated near the Louisiana coastline without causing significant damage. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Depression Fifteen formed off the southeastern United States.
  • Eastern Pacific - Hurricane Elida was the season's second hurricane, which brushed the Baja California Peninsula while moving northwestward. In the middle of the month, a series of storms formed, including a long-lived tropical depression, Tropical Storm Fausto, and Hurricane Genevieve, the last of which passed near the Baja California Peninsula. Genevieve killed two people, and its moisture spread into the southwestern United States. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Storm Hernan caused flooding and landslides in southwestern Mexico, and Iselle formed around the same time farther west over open water.
  • Western Pacific - after a quiet July, the basin became more active in August. Tropical Storm Jangmi brushed western Japan and South Korea with heavy rainfall. A short-lived tropical depression existed south of Japan. Severe Tropical Storm Mekkhala formed in the South China Sea and struck Guangdong, resulting in heavy rainfall and $154 million in damage. About a week later, Severe Tropical Storm Higos struck the same region, leaving eight deaths. Typhoon Bavi formed east of Taiwan and moved northward through the Yellow Sea, eventually striking North Korea, where it caused one fatality. Toward the end of the month, Typhoon Maysak formed east of Taiwan and followed a similar path to Bavi, becoming a powerful typhoon as it moved through the Ryukyu Islands. Another tropical depression formed between the Marianas Islands and Japan on August 31.

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.


43rd edition of The Hurricane Herald

[edit]

Volume XLIII, Issue 43, October 5, 2020
←(Previous issues) 40 · 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 →

The Hurricane Herald: 15th Anniversary Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from September 1–October 5, 2020, which is the 15th anniversary of the WPTC. This edition's editors and authors are ChessEric, Chicdat, Destroyeraa, Hurricanehink, and our member of the month, SMB99thx!

Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • As we rapidly approach the 15th anniversary of the project in October, it has been proposed that the Climate, Tropical cyclone, Severe Weather, and Non-tropical storms (defunct) wikiprojects get merged into a single project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather. This brand new project would remove the overlap that exists between the projects. It provide us with a better opportunity to develop articles such as List of named storms A, B, C etc; Tornadoes in Fiji/New Zealand/Hawaii/etc; Floods in 2018, 2019, 2020, etc; Floods in Bangladesh/United States/Egypt, etc; Weather of 1997, 1998, 2020, etc; Weather in Tokelau/South Africa/France, etc; Hurricanes in the United States, Hurricanes in Mexico, Typhoons in China, etc. The discussion continues on WP:Meteorology. Any feedback would be appreciated.
  • A series of goals, proposed for the project, has been extended to January 2021 for Wikipedia's 20th anniversary. Goals include tropical cyclone effects for every location around the world, merging the hundreds of disambiguation articles into lists by letter, and featured topics for every list of retired names. Some of these goals might take another 20 years to complete, but some are doable with some sustained effort.
  • Hurricane Noah announced an initiative to get a featured topic for the year of 2018 with complete subtopics. The Eastern Pacific portion is very close to achieving a featured topic, and the Atlantic and North Indian Ocean are around a B-class average. The Western Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, and the global article for 2018 need your help! A lot of work is needed to get those three items up to par. For more information on which articles need specifically, please check out the project talk page. Getting a featured topic for an entire year would be an impressive feat for our project.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:
Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
August 2020 Hurricane Laura
July 2020 Hurricane Isaias
June 2020 Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020)
May 2020 Cyclone Amphan
April 2020 Cyclone Harold
March 2020 Cyclone Herold
February 2020 Cyclone Damien
January 2020 Cyclone Tino
December 2019 Cyclone Ambali
November 2019 Cyclone Bulbul
October 2019 Typhoon Hagibis
September 2019 Hurricane Dorian

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for September (and the first 5 days of October)

Ianos, was a Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone, also known as a Medicane. The Mediterranean isn't officially a tropical cyclone basin, so there aren't any official intensity estimates for the storm. The system originated from a low pressure area north of Libya, and it developed organized convection while moving northeastward. On September 18, Ianos struck the Greek island of Cephalonia, and later moved across the Greek mainland. The World Meteorological Organization mentioned the medicane and its similarities to tropical cyclones. Although these medicanes are unofficial, Wikipedia covers them like other tropical cyclones, using the same reliable sources and news articles to document the event. As Ianos was created, not many users edited it, as coverage of tropical cyclones and storms outside of main development regions are, unfortunately, low. However, as Ianos was nominated and posted at ITN, a current news section on the main page, many users outside of the TC WikiProject began working on it, As these storms are becoming more common and better documented, these storms may be officially classified in the future.

  • Atlantic - September 2020 was the most active month on record in the Atlantic, with nine named storms forming, as well as Omar which formed on August 31 but was named a day later. Nana formed on September 1, rapidly intensifying into a minimal hurricane before making landfall in Belize. After a short lull in activity, Paulette and Rene both formed on the 7th, with the former intensifying into a strong Category 1 hurricane while making a rare landfall in Bermuda. The latter made landfall in the Cabo Verde Islands, causing minimal damage. Hurricane Sally had its origins over the Bahamas, and after stalling in the northern Gulf of Mexico it struck Alabama, dropping 36 in (910 mm) of rainfall on the Florida Panhandle; Sally left about $7 billion in damage and three deaths. On September 12, Hurricane Teddy formed, which grew into a powerful Category 4 hurricane, and later swept across Atlantic Canada. Near the Cape Verde Islands, Tropical Storm Vicky formed on September 14, and four days later, Wilfred formed in the same region. Tropical Storm Beta formed in the Gulf of Mexico on September 17 ahead of Wilfred and Alpha, and later brought heavy rainfall to Texas. A day later, Subtropical Storm Alpha formed near the coast of Portugal, marking only the second time that the Atlantic hurricane naming list was exhausted, thus requiring the usage of the Greek alphabet for names. Beta also formed, though before both Wilfred and Alpha. Beta would hit Texas and Louisiana with moderate flooding and kill one person.
  • Eastern Pacific - The month of September was not very active. Tropical Storm Julio formed from the mid-level circulation of Hurricane Nana in the Atlantic on September 4; however it stayed weak due to wind shear. In mid-September, tropical storms Karina and Lowell formed southwest of Mexico and were short-lived tropical storms. Toward the end of the month, Marie formed, becoming a hurricane on the last day of the month. Marie would later go on to be the current strongest storm of the EPAC season this year.
  • Western Pacific - The month of September was fairly active for the WPAC. Typhoon Maysak, which formed in late August, struck South Korea early in the month, followed days later by Typhoon Haishen, which became the season's first super typhoon. Haishen caused 4 fatalities and heavy damage in the Korean Peninsula. Later, Tropical Storm Noul formed on September 17, hitting Vietnam and causing 6 deaths and $30.4 million in damage. Later, Dolphin formed on the 19th, brushing Japan. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Storm Kujira formed northeast of the Marianas Islands.

Member of the month (edition) – SMB99thx

SMB99thx first joined Wikipedia in 2013, but didn't officially join the WPTC until August 2020. Since then, they have been a prolific contributor, helping with less visible pages such as project talk pages, or splitting older season articles in the North Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. They are a such a tireless contributor and kind user, who appreciates others' contributions while being humble about their own. It was SMB99thx who gave barnstars along with kind and encouraging messages to countless other WPTC contributors and Wikipedians. SMB99thx also worked on several lists, including area affects lists, various drafts, and List of named storms (T). We'll take that T and say TY to SMB99thx for all of their contributions, and wish them luck at college.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Featured Content

From September 1 to October 5, one featured article was promoted:

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from September 1–October 5, 2020 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List

There is currently one featured article candidate:

How WikiProject Tropical cyclones should move forward by SMB99thx

As we have seen in the month of August and September, there is a surge of new articles. Most of these new articles are season/decade articles and Pacific typhoon articles, and most of these articles are assessed by me as either Start-class or Stub-class. These articles I believe would have been rejected by WikiProject Tropical cyclones in the earlier years (especially 2008-2012) - and these reflected the changes in WikiProject Tropical cyclones after I joined in July 2020.

In order to counteract that surge of Start-class and Stub-class articles in recent months, I have been closely working on the Article requests page (used to be a primary contributor of the surge that happened in August and September), trying to make this recently-extended WikiProject 15th anniversary as some serious effort as well as revamping WikiProject To-Do (and completing some, but not all tasks) - and the results of my work on these three projects led into the explosive growth of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones draftspace (I tried to prevent this by publishing the half-finished drafts into mainspace (which is primarily composed of C-class with some speck of Start-class articles coming out of it, and these are the ones that aren't as obviously unfinished like Draft:Effects of Hurricane Dorian on the Mainland United States), and made several drafts on articles that are not considered notable like Draft:Hurricane Barbara (2019) into redirects or deleted, but there is less kinds of these drafts now) as well as discovery of several drafts that isn't done by this point or are not listed as part of WikiProject Tropical cyclones. These drafts are later linked to the Article requests page. I don't my work is done yet, and in order to consider that effectively done, I need to get these drafts done and submitted as C-class or higher.

However, there is a personal problem I had to face in order to getting this work done when I'm still new to WikiProject Tropical cyclones. Article creation from drafts are not my strength. I create articles mostly from splits, not from drafts. As such, I consider article creation from drafts to be personally tedious work. As our 15th anniversary gets near, it appears that things are changing. As the draft space exploded, it appears fellow WikiProject Tropical cyclones are helping me out in getting these drafts complete, especially Destroyeraa (helping me out in deciding which drafts can pass the cut), ChessEric (working on Draft:Tropical Storm Noul (2020)), Robloxsupersuperhappyface (for developing current events articles, alongside ChessEric), I like hurricanes (Tropical cyclone lists), Chicdat (for the work on Tropical cyclones in 2002 and will probably work on others), Janm 7 (for working on Tropical cyclones in 2011 and 2003), and Iseriously (for useful season summaries, and this isn't a WPTC member!). I also began to frequently give out barnstars to these hard-working people like Jason Rees and Hurricanehink.

These events led me to believe that, if this WikiProject has to move forward then in my opinion this WikiProject should:

  • Take things in Article requests, WikiProject To-Do, WikiProject Tropical cyclones draftspace and WPTC 15th anniversary push (now extended into January 15th, 2021) seriously. I have seen some serious neglect from this area of the WikiProject and i believe this really held back the growth of this WikiProject. In my opinion, this WikiProject could have been easily have 2500 articles, or even 3000 articles by now if that area of WikiProject had been taken seriously. Even possibly, this WikiProject could have a lot more quality articles than it is today!
  • Frequently collaborate with each other. Don't bite the newcomers, but help them! They will help you.
  • If someone wants to take a break, e.g. Yellow Evan, let them be. Don't hurt their feelings! (i.e. moving their userspace drafts into mainspace) If you are hurting their feelings, then this could discourage future collaborations that could advance this WikiProject.

Thanks for reading this opinion piece! And happy 15th anniversary, WikiProject Tropical cyclones!

OPINION PIECE - by ChessEric

Accuracy has always been one of my biggest sticking points when it comes to editing on Wikipedia. When I came here back in April, my first edit was a revert of misinformation on the 2020 Easter tornado outbreak article. Of course, I understand that as a relatively new user, I still have a lot to learn and I don't profess to know everything, even after I started several large projects that I will probably be working on for quite some time. My first tornado outbreak pages used only the Tornado History Projects which, while generally good for tornado tracks, provides no damage info and if weren't for editors like CapeVerdeWave and Halls4521, my "breakthrough" articles would be so incomplete. However, I've been able to research more and more and find ways to complete these articles and that has carried over into the tropical cyclone projects as well. My thing has always been is that If I can't find a source for it, then it's not true. I will continue to follow that motto and hope that others will do the same.

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,002 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Comparison of 2005 and 2020

WikiProject Tropical cyclones was founded on October 5, 2005. By that time, Wikipedia had its small share of articles, including the four deadly hurricanes that hit the United States in 2004. The hyperactive 2005 Atlantic hurricane season featured a series of deadly and historic hurricanes, the first of which was Hurricane Dennis. This is how the article looked on 10/5/05. It might not look like much, considering how much larger storm articles tend to be today. However, Dennis quickly became a featured article by February 2006. Its quality showed a marked improvement from the 2004 hurricanes. For comparison, here is what Hurricane Charley looked like on 10/5/05, with barely any references, no preparations, no aftermath, and one sentence worth of impact for a location with $1 billion in damage.

The busy 2005 season featured Hurricane Katrina, and in the aftermath of the storm, dozens of articles related to the hurricane were created. Some still exist, such as Katrina refrigerator, Memorial Medical Center and Hurricane Katrina, and Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Louisiana Superdome. I don't know if those hyper-specific articles would be created today, and many of these old articles are still of low quality. On the other hand, one of the most notable changes since 2005 is the improvement in articles throughout Wikipedia, both new and old. Every Atlantic season from 1945 to 2019 is a good article, and all but 31 seasons since 1851 are a good article. More impressive is how much other basins around the world have improved. As of June 2006 (the oldest date for our assessment tables), the EPAC only had articles back to 1970, WPAC with yearly articles back to 1945 (with a rump article for everything beforehand - there are now decade articles going back to 1850), and the NIO only had one yearly season article (with five-yearly articles going back to 1980, and one rump article for everything beforehand), with only six storm articles. There are now yearly NIO articles going back to 1960. Also as of June 2006, all SHEM storms were put into yearly articles going back to 1995, with three five-yearly articles going back to 1980, and then one article for everything beforehand. The SHEM is now split into its three sub-basins (plus a distinct article for SATL storms), with yearly articles back to 1970. There are also now yearly articles for tropical cyclones back to 2009.

15 years might not feel like much, or for some of you it's an entire lifetime. Users should be reminded of eventualism, in work will improve over time, especially with sustained editor attention. There are now over 2,000 articles in the project, versus less than 500 15 years ago, or 1000 10 years ago, or 1500 13 years ago. The project's growth hasn't always been even, but it has trended toward inclusion, with hundreds of articles that are the best resources available anywhere on a given storm/season/topic. As Mother Nature throws us hyperactive seasons, it will be difficult, but not impossible, to keep up with the annual cycle of tropical cyclone activity, so the world can remain informed of these swirling furies.

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.


44th edition of The Hurricane Herald!

[edit]

Volume XLIV, Issue 44, December 1, 2020
←(Previous issues) 41 · 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 →


The Hurricane Herald: Happy Thanksgiving Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from October 5–November 30, 2020. This edition's editors and authors are SMB99thx, Weatherman27, Chicdat, Hurricanehink, Cyclone Toby, Typhoon2013, and ChessEric. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

Featured Content

From October 5 to November 30, two featured articles were promoted:

From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from October 5–November 30, 2020 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List

There is currently one featured article candidate:

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 164 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 133 A-class articles, and 1,010 good articles. There are only 71 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 415 C-class articles, 788 start-class articles, and 182 stub-class articles, with 23 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
November 2020 Hurricane Iota
October 2020 Typhoon Goni (2020)
September 2020 Cyclone Ianos
August 2020 Hurricane Laura
July 2020 Hurricane Isaias
June 2020 Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020)
May 2020 Cyclone Amphan
April 2020 Cyclone Harold
March 2020 Cyclone Herold
February 2020 Cyclone Damien
January 2020 Cyclone Tino
December 2019 Cyclone Ambali
November 2019 Cyclone Bulbul
October 2019 Typhoon Hagibis

Storms of the month and other tropical activity for October and November

SotM for October: Typhoon Goni / Rolly
Typhoon Goni formed from east of The Philippines towards the end of October, just as Typhoon Molave ravaged the country. Taking in the plentiful favorable conditions, Goni, known as Rolly in The Philippines, explosively intensified into a Category-5 equivalent hurricane just three days after it became a tropical depression. An eyewall replacement cycle managed to curb its intensification. Goni finished the cycle a few hours before it made landfall, and explosively intensified again into winds of 195 mph (JTWC) and a pressure of 884 mbar. This allowed it to tie with typhoons Haiyan and Meranti as the strongest typhoon by wind speed. Goni made landfall at peak intensity, killing 25 people and causing US$368 million in damage.

SotM for November: Hurricane Iota
Hurricane Iota developed in the central Caribbean Sea in mid-November. Like Goni, it explosively intensified, strengthening 120 mph in 48 hours, and deepening 81 mbar in the same amount of time. Iota explosively strengthened late on November 15 and early on November 16, becoming a Category 5 hurricane at 15:00 UTC on the 16th. By the time Iota had achieved C5 intensity, three people were already dead in Colombia due to landslides. As the storm made landfall, and subsequently weakened and dissipated, adding to the destruction from Hurricane Eta. Iota killed at least 61 people.

  • Atlantic - Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota.

The active Atlantic hurricane season continued. In early October, Tropical Storm Gamma dissipated over the northern Yucatan and was absorbed by powerful Hurricane Delta, which was the season's third major hurricane. Delta weakened before hitting Quintana Roo, but restrengthened in the Gulf of Mexico, later hitting Louisiana as a low-end Category 2 hurricane in nearly the same location as Hurricane Laura in August. Delta killed six people and left US$4 billion in damage. A few days later, Hurricane Epsilon developed southeast of Bermuda, becoming a major hurricane and brushing the island to the east. Hurricane Zeta followed a similar path as Delta, striking Quintana Roo and later striking southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane; it killed 8 people and left U$3 billion in damage. At the end of the month, Hurricane Eta developed, becoming a strong Category 4 hurricane before striking Nicaragua. After killing hundreds of people in Central America, Eta reformed in the northwestern Caribbean. It made another landfall in Cuba, moved over the Florida Keys, and briefly became a hurricane again in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, before weakening and striking Cedar Key, Florida as a tropical storm. In early November, Tropical Storm Theta developed from a non-tropical low and moved across the eastern Atlantic.

Member of the month (edition) – Robloxsupersuperhappyface

Robloxsupersuperhappyface joined Wikipedia in July of this year, and has become the most prolific tropical cyclone editor relating to current events, as well as playing an enormous role in creation of newly formed tropical cyclones that eventually became destructive in many regions they are affected in (Hurricane Sally to Gulf Coast of the United States, Typhoon Goni to the Philippines, and Hurricane Iota to Central America respectively - Also, both Goni and Iota are Storms of the Month!). Because of that reason, Robloxsupersuperhappyface's articles are the one of the most viewed tropical cyclone articles in this year - as well as helped us on inviting prospective tropical cyclone editors to this project as they edited Robloxsupersuperhappyface's articles, leading into why we have more than 100 members in this WikiProject leading to this issue. As the result of brilliant Robloxsupersuperhappyface's contributions, we want to give many, many thanks to Super for helping this WikiProject grow so much recently. Happy Thanksgiving!

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter - project membership is over 100 now!

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically in order of which they joined.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Let's talk about that - An opinion piece by Weatherman27

Before I start, I would like to link everyone to a new essay regarding Force Thirteen. Here it is: WP:F13. I recommend users (old and new) to read this to understand why we don't use Force Thirteen as a source, and why it isn't a reliable source. If you want to see what good reliable sources are, read this: WP:WPTC/AS Now, I will get to the main point of this opinion piece.

Recently, I have gotten more involved in talk pages, and sharing my ideas and/or my opinions on different issues or ideas that have come up, primarily on 2020 Atlantic hurricane season's talk page. As I have discussed these thoughts and ideas with other editors, I have noticed and experienced some things such as being personally attacked, which has led me to want to reiterated some key points here. Despite the fact that they are mentioned commonly at the top of talk pages, I want to bring these up as it is important to have a good base where people can properly chat and discuss topics in peace.

1. Treat others with respect This one can't be stressed enough. Especially on talk pages, it is a place where you and your peers communicate issues, opinions, or ideas to each-other. This means discussing topics in a kind and adult manner. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing in what somebody may say, but that does not mean that you have the right to put them down for not having similar views. It is simply the Golden Rule.

2. Assume Good faith Along with my first point, I feel this one needs to be brought up. People have different opinions, and that is all right, but just because you may not agree with it or what they say, does not mean that it was not out of good faith. They were most likely voicing what they think on the subject, and that is alright. This also goes for edits. Unless it is pretty obvious that a user as vandalized something, it is always good to assume good faith, as other people might not know the rules as well as a more experienced editor.

3. Avoid Personal attacks This is a very important subject that needs to be remembered not just on talk pages, but on all other parts of Wikipedia as well. On talk pages, discussions can get pretty tense and heated, and I admit that I have gotten into a few of these arguments as well. Despite this, it is never okay to attack someone. As a user who has gotten personally attacked before, I can definitely say that it does not feel good, and usually the person who made the attacked will get warned or blocked, so please be kind and accept what other people have to say, because you will get nowhere by being rude.

4. Come to a consensus (preferably a clear one) On talk pages, whenever there is a discussion regarding something important like the merging of an article, people need to decide what the outcome of something important on a talk page. For example, if there is say, a merge discussion for an article on a tropical cyclone, many people will give their input. Usually, different people will have different views on whether to merge or keep the article. Sometimes, the editor will close the discussion early, but this is usually for unrelated reasons, though it sometimes may be because the editor had a change of mind. Now, if there is support for say a merge of the article, then that will be the consensus and the discussion will be closed and the article merged. This can also happen on the opposite side, if an article is to be kept, the discussion will be closed and article kept. Simply put, it is important to discuss and come to a clear decision if there is a consensus involved, to avoid difficulty with the article or page in the future.

These are just a few examples of things that editors of the WPTC need to remember when using talk page discussions. There are plenty of other things not mentioned here that are just as important when it comes to using talk pages. I made this simply to help remind editors the key points when using the discussions, and I hope these were helpful to new users as well as veterans. We need to really get better at staying calm and keeping civil. I have noticed lots of hostility and arguing lately, as well as edit warring and disputes. We need to work this out. We are supposed to work together as WPTC editors, so please fix it. It is sad seeing so many editors getting reported or having to get blocked from this. Once again, keep discussions civil and have a good day. Signing off,

🌀Weatherman27🏈

My experiences as a WikiProject Tropical cyclones member by SMB99thx

Hello again, people of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones! In here, I want to tell how my experiences with WikiProject Tropical Cyclones changed my views on WikiProjects, helped me out of trouble and to be able to regain the trust of many people in Wikipedia.

When I joined WikiProject Tropical cyclones, it was the second WikiProject I have ever joined. The first WikiProject I have ever joined is WikiProject COVID-19, and the reason why I joined that project is to gain trust of people when I contributed to COVID-19 articles and as well as my fight against an IP editor which turned out to be the LTA named Bedriczwaleta (and has been active much more longer than I thought, since February of last year (!!!!)). I have the same thought process (and combined with my plans of editing old season articles, which is not done yet) when I first joined this WikiProject, but joining the WikiProject Tropical cyclones turned out to be something different. It led me to know what are the purposes of WikiProjects are and in turn led me to join many other WikiProjects since.

As such, what made me change my views on WikiProjects during my time as a WikiProject Tropical Cyclones?

First of all, I have seen that WikiProject Tropical cyclones members always actively work together to advance project goals, actively participating in discussions and give much-needed advice on new WikiProject Tropical cyclones members (including me). Second, WPTC really cares about our articles (and the assessments) as part of their project goals. 2018 FT project and Meteorological history of Hurricane Dorian (Four Award!) is a prime example of this. Third, we are actively welcoming the new members of this WikiProject and giving these members opportunity to succeed with us by i.e. giving out WikiLove (barnstars). Fourth, we, like WP COVID-19, actively fight against vandals and other LTAs e.g. Sidow........., UnderArmorKid, and Iphonehurricane95.

These kinds of activity led me to change my belief on what WikiProjects truly are. You could see this kind of activity on other good WikiProjects like WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors, which I just joined recently on 26 October 2020 as of this newsletter and WikiProject Articles of Creation, which I have interest on joining but I might not be able to.

Now, why WikiProject Tropical cyclones brought me out of trouble (and Chicdat, for that matter)?

WikiProject Tropical cyclones is generally a content-creating WikiProject. We really care about improving tropical cyclone coverage on Wikipedia. Members of this WikiProject generally encouraged to communicate and discuss (in Wikipedia, in Discord, or in IRC channel), and this is what helped me and Chicdat out from trouble since our discussions from what I have seen is not always administrative.

Before I joined WikiProject Tropical cyclones (and when I was still new to WikiProject Tropical cyclones), I have been putting myself on trouble numerous times. I was an ANI regular, and as an ANI regular I detailed about my struggle to deal with the LTA Bedriczwaleta and I'm was also putting up IBAN proposals of User:Jadebenn and User:Moamem as well as User:U1Quattro and User:1292simon. While I have managed to get my proposal succeeded and finally got Bedriczwaleta back on track for a while (what I thought), in August 20 (as I was about to finalize my decision to enter my college I'm currently in right now) I got myself into serious trouble against IP range 185.66.252.0/23 (which is apparently good at programming - I'm not). I tried to get them blocked for PA (calling me a thief who has a black soul), but this is where when I realized that I had to attribute things I copied within Wikipedia and I had to apologize to the user. Since then, I did my best to attribute everything I had copied articles from (Example) and I also realized that ANI is not for me (as I do not want to get into troubles by just being there), which led me to quitting ANI until November of this year when I decided to involve myself on Miggy72 dispute (now banned for sockpuppetry - Miggy72 could have been invited to WPTC if he stopped on insisting to create non-notable topics).

After that incident with the IP range 185.66.252.0/23, I have stated that I do not want to get myself into trouble as a presence in ANI. As such, I decided to focus on what I want to do, which is to continue my project of splitting season articles of the yesteryear and began to increasingly involve myself within the project - to look for help and giving the best help that I can do for this WikiProject. The activity from that September led me to become Member of the Month in the previous edition of this newsletter. It was a comeback that I needed, and I want to thank WikiProject Tropical cyclones (especially Hurricanehink) for getting me on this situation. Without their help, I'm not sure if I could be here on this day.

Now, for the final question – why this WikiProject helped me (and Chicdat) regain trust of many people in Wikipedia?

As I stated before, this WikiProject encourages discussion within other members of this WikiProject, which in turn encourages close involvement in all sides of this WikiProject. Because of this, some people are actually helping us learning policies in Wikipedia as the time goes on, rather than falling in into blocks. As such, with time, I have seen that some admins are open for Chicdat to become a rollbacker, while I got hold on several automated gadgets that was more useful. It appears that these tools are the reason why these people are one of the more trusted people in Wikipedia, which in turn helped me a lot at gaining trust. Someday in the future, I'm looking to become an admin by myself. But that's for the another day. For now, what I'm currently doing now is to work at my craft to eventually prepare for the day when I will seek for adminship in the years ahead.

In conclusion, you can see that this WikiProject helped me to regain my standing, alongside Chicdat, Nioni1234, Cristianpogi678, HurricaneTracker495 - and of course - CyclonicallyDeranged! If not for this WikiProject, I don't think they are will be here. Chicdat could have been CIR-blocked like Prahlad balaji and PythonSwarm, Nioni1234 and Cristianpogi678 ending up like Binbin0111 and Miggy72, HurricaneTracker495 would have a trouble establishing himself (or probably will never establish theirselves and stay as an IP) and CyclonicallyDeranged fully driven out from Wikipedia.

By the way, to me, both Binbin0111 and Miggy72 are young, but unfortunately they took on the wrong path (Binbin0111 was one of the earliest Force Thirteen insinuators - Binbin0111 is probably the impetus of Force Thirteen policy in this project (as it was made back in 2017), while Miggy72... we know what happened). I feel bad for them, especially Binbin0111. Had Binbin0111 is willing to learn and took steps forward to become productive young editor like Yellow Evan and two other resilient young editors I have mentioned did, Binbin0111 could have been one of the most valuable editors in this project, especially in matters related to Western Pacific basin, and in extension, Vietnam.

That's it. That's what I have to say. College is increasingly getting into my feelings right now, but I will do my best as I can coming into December. Sorry if I have a bad English. Thanks for reading this opinion piece!

Greetings from Indonesia,

SMB99thx my edits!

45th edition of Hurricane Herald!

[edit]

Volume XLV, Issue 45, January 15, 2021
←(Previous issues) 42 · 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 →


The Hurricane Herald: Wikipedia's 20th Anniversary and New Year's Special Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from December 1, 2020–January 15, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are MarioJump83, Hurricanehink, Destroyeraa, Chicdat, Typhoon2013, CycloneFootball71, Hurricane Noah, LightandDark2000, Cyclone Toby (editor's pick for member of the month), Skarmory, Shift674, and HurricaneCovid. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

Typhoon Ike was also promoted from GA to A-class article.

Member of the month (Editor's Pick) – Cyclone Toby

Cyclone Toby first joined Wikipedia in July 2020 as I like hurricanes. Since then, they have become one of the most active editors, taking the initiative of fulfilling article requests, as well as helping us work on finishing many drafts we have. These articles include Hurricanes in Hispaniola, Hurricanes in Nicaragua, and Hurricanes in Honduras, as well as helping out getting Effects of Hurricane Dorian in the Carolinas (a long-standing draft that took many efforts to get it published to mainspace) nominated for GA, as of this writing. There are more articles Cyclone Toby is currently working on other than the ones previously listed. Also, Cyclone Toby is one of the kinder members of WPTC, actively welcoming many new editors that edited articles under WikiProject Tropical cyclones banner, as well as inviting some of these editors to the project, in which their influence ended up bringing more editors to WPTC without any invitation. We thank Cyclone Toby for work they have done in the past year, which was a horrible year for many of us, but Toby is one of many bright spots that helped us get through that year. As we enter the new year, we encourage Cyclone Toby to keep up their work and eventually complete these drafts, which will ultimately lead to the clearing of the backlog of drafts within the project.

Featured Content

From December 1, 2020 to January 15, 2021, there were no articles promoted to Featured Article status.
From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from December 1, 2020–January 15, 2021 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List
Did you know...?

There is currently one featured article candidate:

2018 Featured Topic Update
Featured Articles promoted (May 22–December 31)
Good Articles promoted (May 25–December 31)
Current Candidates
New Articles (Only C and below)
Next Steps

For the next steps of the 2018 Global FT project, we're likely to finish the 2018 Pacific hurricane season FT by the end of the year. Hurricane Bud (2018) is likely to become a Featured Article (FA) around the first anniversary of the 2018 Global FT task force, which will be in June 2021, while Hurricane Olivia (2018) is the most likely FAC next in line. Sooner or later (which might happen before Bud or Olivia is FA), Timeline of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season will be completed, and subsequently nominated for Good Article (GA) status. After that, 2018 Pacific hurricane season might be nominated for Featured Topic (FT) before the timeline or the article is nominated for FA, based on the likely order of completion provided by Hurricane Noah on December 22, 2020 with some changes due to priorities after that time.

We also began to focus more attention on the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season FT, as evidenced by Hurricane Beryl and Hurricane Chris (2018) becoming GAs by the time of this issue of The Hurricane Herald, as well as the merger of Meteorological history of Hurricane Michael into Hurricane Michael (despite the merge moratorium which was enacted in November 23, 2020 - this was made possible by getting the consensus for an exception to the merge moratorium), which boosted the prospects of Hurricane Michael becoming a GA by the time of the next issue or the following one. Our next step in the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season FT, as it is currently planned right now, is to have Hurricane Leslie (2018) promoted to a GA.

In the Western Pacific, the creation of Effects of Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines is still being planned out, while Cimaron, Trami, Kong-rey, and Son-Tinh are in line to be nominated for GA later on - and Jebi may well become a FA by the next issue. In the North Indian Ocean, Cyclone Titli was recently created and likely to be expanded later on. In the Southern Hemisphere, Cyclone Owen is currently being worked on to become a GA someday, while Berguitta, Josie, Keni, and Liua are still under construction. For the Mediterranean, Cyclone Zorbas will be expanded upon and nominated for GA, some time after this issue.

We are recruiting

If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to Hurricane Noah or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 164 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 133 A-class articles, and 1,010 good articles. There are only 71 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 415 C-class articles, 788 start-class articles, and 182 stub-class articles, with 23 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1,000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
Storm of the Year 2020 Hurricane Eta
December 2020 Cyclone Yasa
November 2020 Hurricane Iota
October 2020 Typhoon Goni (2020)
September 2020 Cyclone Ianos
August 2020 Hurricane Laura
July 2020 Hurricane Isaias
June 2020 Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020)
May 2020 Cyclone Amphan
April 2020 Cyclone Harold
March 2020 Cyclone Herold
February 2020 Cyclone Damien
January 2020 Cyclone Tino

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for December through January 15, 2021

Storm of the month for December  – Cyclone Yasa
Yasa was a powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that struck the island nation of Fiji in December 2020. The second tropical tropical disturbance, and the first and strongest severe tropical cyclone of the season, Yasa originated from a low pressure area on December 10, to the north of Port Vila, in Vanuatu. The storm became a tropical disturbance on the next day and was given the designation 02F by the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS). The system gradually strengthened over the next couple of days while moving southeastward, reaching tropical storm-equivalent status (Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Australian scale) and receiving the name Yasa on December 13. For the next 3 days, Yasa made a slow clockwise loop, during which time it underwent rapid intensification from December 14 to 16, bombing out from tropical storm-equivalent status to a Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone on both the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS) and the Australian scale. On December 16, Yasa reached its peak intensity, with maximum 10-minute sustained winds of 250 km/h (155 mph), maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 mph), and a minimum central pressure of 899 millibars (26.5 inHg). This made Yasa the fourth-most intense tropical cyclone recorded in the South Pacific basin, as well as the second Category 5 severe tropical cyclone in 2020, after Cyclone Harold.

Afterward, Yasa underwent an eyewall replacement cycle as it neared Fiji, causing the storm to weaken. Early on December 17, Yasa made landfall on Bua Province on Vanua Levu, as a powerful Category 4-equivalent tropical cyclone on the SSHWS (Category 5 severe tropical cyclone on the Australian scale). Following landfall, Yasa quickly weakened, dropping back to tropical storm-equivalent status within two days. Afterward, Yasa moved in a southward direction while continuing its weakening trend, falling below tropical cyclone status on December 19, and dissipating on December 24. Yasa killed 4 people in Fiji and left another person missing. As of this writing, the damage estimates for Yasa are still being calculated, but Yasa had caused extensive damage on Vanua Levu, likely becoming the most destructive tropical cyclone to strike Fiji since Winston in 2016.

  • North Atlantic – This season, after being the most active on record for its basin, in terms of tropical cyclone formation, officially ended on November 30.
  • Eastern Pacific – This season, along with the Atlantic hurricane season, ended on November 30.
  • Western Pacific – Tropical Storm Krovanh (Vicky) developed over the Philippine Sea. The storm is the third tropical cyclone to receive the name Vicky in the year 2020. The storm made landfall on Palawan on December 19, and eventually moved into the South China Sea.
  • North Indian Ocean – Activity continued into December, with the strengthening of Cyclonic Storm Burevi in the Bay of Bengal. Burevi then made landfall in Sri Lanka a few days later.
  • South-West Indian Ocean – The third cyclone of the season, Tropical Storm Bongoyo, formed, gradually strengthening over open waters. Within a few weeks, the season began to ramp up, with the formation Tropical Storm Chalane, before it made landfall on Madagascar and in Mozambique. After a tropical depression left the basin, another system would form, becoming Tropical Storm Danilo. On January 14, another Zone of Disturbed Weather developed over the central south Indian Ocean, which became Tropical Depression 07 two days later.
  • Australian region – A tropical low formed, slowly developing, before gaining tropical-storm strength winds. Soon after, another tropical low formed, this making landfall along the Pilbara Coast of Australia with tropical storm-force winds. Within just a few days, yet another tropical low formed that made landfall along the Kimberly Coast. After a series of two more tropical lows, another system formed. This low would strengthen into Tropical Cyclone Imogen, before making landfall along the Queensland Coast. A seventh tropical low developed on January 5, before dissipating five days later. On January 13, an eighth tropical low, 07U, developed east-northeast of the Cocos Islands.
  • South Pacific – The first system of the season, 01F, formed on December 11. Within a few days, the season began to ramp up, with the development of Tropical cyclones Yasa and Zazu, with the former rapidly intensifying and becoming a powerful Category 5-equivalent cyclone. Yasa went on to make landfall on the island of Vanua Levu in Fiji on December 17, becoming the most powerful tropical cyclone to strike the island nation since Winston in 2016.
  • South Atlantic – On December 27, Subtropical Storm Oquira, the second storm of the season, formed in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil. The system lasted for several days as a subtropical storm while moving away from Brazil, before transitioning into an extratropical low on December 31.

Storm of the Year 2020 – Hurricane Eta

Eta was a powerful and long-lived hurricane that devastated Central America in November 2020. The twenty-ninth tropical depression, record-tying twenty-eighth named storm, twelfth hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Eta originated from a vigorous tropical wave in the eastern Caribbean Sea on October 28. On October 30, the system organized into Tropical Depression Twenty-Nine, before becoming a tropical storm on the next day, at which time it was given the name Eta by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). On November 2, Eta became undergoing rapid intensification over the western Caribbean, as it progressed westward, with the cyclone ultimately becoming a Category 4 hurricane on November 3. Later that day, Eta reached its peak intensity, with 1-minute sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 922 mbar (hPa; 27.23 inHg), it was the third-most intense November Atlantic hurricane on record, behind the 1932 Cuba hurricane, and Hurricane Iota, which struck the same region just two weeks later. However, satellite data suggests that Eta may have reached Category 5 intensity at the time of its peak intensity, since reconnaissance aircraft failed to sample the hurricane's strongest winds at the time of its peak intensity. Despite this, in their post-storm report, the NHC maintained Eta as a powerful Category 4 hurricane. Six hours after reaching its peak, Eta underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, causing the storm to weaken somewhat. At 21:00 UTC on November 2, Eta made landfall south of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 km/h) and a central pressure of 940 mbar (hPa; 27.76 inHg). Following landfall, Eta rapidly weakened to a tropical depression by 00:00 UTC on November 5.

Despite the mountainous terrain, Eta's low-level circulation survived, and Eta retained tropical depression status for another day, during its two-day trek across Central America, before degenerating into a remnant low overland later on November 5. On November 6, Eta's remnant low moved north over water and regenerated into a tropical depression, before turning towards the northeast. Afterward, Eta reorganized into a tropical storm over the Caribbean on November 7, as it accelerated toward Cuba. On the next day, Eta made landfall on Cuba's Sancti Spíritus Province as a tropical storm, before quickly emerging into the Atlantic and turning westward. Over the next five days, the system moved erratically, making a third landfall on Lower Matecumbe Key in the Florida Keys, on November 9, before slowing down and making a counterclockwise loop in the southern Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Cuba, with the storm's intensity fluctuating along the way. Afterward, Eta turned north-northeastward and briefly regained Category 1 hurricane strength on November 11, before weakening back into a tropical storm several hours later. On November 12, Eta made a fourth landfall over Cedar Key, Florida. Eta weakened after making landfall, before eventually re-emerging into the Atlantic later that day. Afterward, Eta became extratropical on November 13, before being absorbed into another frontal system off the coast of the Eastern United States on the next day. In all, Hurricane Eta killed at least 211 people, left 120 people missing, and caused at least $7.9 billion (2020 USD) in damages, with the vast majority of the deaths and damages occurring in Central America. Just two weeks later, Central America was struck by Hurricane Iota as a high-end Category 4 hurricane, making landfall near the same location as Eta, which further exacerbated the disaster in the region.

Member of the month (edition) – Jason Rees

Jason first created an account on Wikipedia in August 2006, after tracking Hurricane Katrina and countless other storms in 2005. Since then, he has written four featured articles and 21 good articles. Recently, Jason has done great work expanding and cleaning up Cyclone Yasa, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the South Pacific basin. He is also an active content creator, currently writing Cyclone Meena. Overall, Jason has done an outstanding job expanding the scope of tropical cyclone articles in the Southern Hemisphere basins, such as the South Pacific, where there is, sadly, a shortage of active users. We want to thank him for his wonderful work, and thus award him the Member of the Month award for this edition.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

A year in review: WPTC's accomplishments in 2020

2020 has been a hard year for many of us. Depending on where you live, the COVID-19 pandemic began as early as January. In most of the world, the pandemic ramped up in February and March, reaching its first peak in April–May. A second wave struck in June–August, which saw cases dramatically increase across the globe, while the third and largest wave began around October. However, during this pandemic, through lock-downs and online learning, as well as the the insanely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, our WikiProject saw a huge influx of new editors showing interest in editing tropical cyclone articles. Here, we will take a look at the stats:

New WPTC members since January 1, 2020: AC5230, CycloneFootball71 (Previously Weatherman27), Chicdat, Hurricaneboy23, Chlod, Destroyeraa, NOOBSKINSPAMMER, HurricaneMichael2018, JoeMT615, MarioJump83, Buttons0603, Robloxsupersuperhappyface, ChessEric, Allen2, Mazum24, Modokai, CodingCyclone, Gumballs678, Janm 7, Cyclone Toby, Hurricanehuron33, Hurricane21, TornadoLGS, Iseriously, Jupiter50, ARegularWisconsinite, CyclonicStormYutu, ARay10, Gex4pls, Nioni1234, Dannisom, HurricaneCovid, Skarmory, Moline1, HurricaneIcy, Beraniladri19, HurricaneEdgar, Miguel 04012010, Cyclonetracker, Dam222, Hi 022828, Elijahandskip, TovarishhUlyanov, Animem 1, Shift674, Super Cyclonic Storm Corona, ThePelicanThing, FinnTheHurricaneFanatic, 8medalkid, Vida0007, TFESS, Doge1941, Tropical Storm Angela, HurricaneKappa, KingLucarius, Hurricanestudier123, 2 0 D a r t h S a n d M a n 0 5, iBlazeCat, FuturPDUCTIONS, SputtyTheSputnik, AveryTheComrade, Poxy4, SovietCyclone, Gummycow, Chong Yi Lam, German2k2k, Wikihelp7586, StopBoi, Final-Fantasy-HH, TheActiniumSpoon, Ididntknowausername, Dalandaniel, BrownieKing, Bunny04032010

New GAs since January 1, 2020: Hurricane Erin (1995), Typhoon Halola, 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Kirk (2018), Effects of Hurricane Wilma in Mexico, Hurricane Audrey, 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, 1916 Pensacola hurricane, Paleotempestology, 1934 Atlantic hurricane season, 1916 Virgin Islands hurricane, Cyclone Indlala, Typhoon Cecil (1985), Meteorological history of Hurricane Florence, 1929 Bahamas hurricane, 1938 Atlantic hurricane season, Tropical Storm Olga (2019), 1923 Atlantic hurricane season, 1893 San Roque hurricane, 2006–07 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Typhoon Zeke, Typhoon Amy (1991), Typhoon Yunya (1991), Effects of Hurricane Dorian in the Caribbean, Typhoon Sarika, Typhoon Warren, Typhoon Holly (1984), Typhoon Eli (1992), Typhoon Alex (1987), Typhoon Irving (1982), Tropical Storm Bolaven (2018), Tropical Storm Sanba (2018), Tropical Storm Nanmadol (2017), 2018 Pacific hurricane season, Hurricane Dolores (2015), Typhoon Percy (1990), Tropical Storm Ampil, Typhoon Jebi (2018), Tropical Storm Ewiniar (2018), Hurricane Barry (2019), Tropical Storm Bertha (2020), Tropical Storm Arthur (2020), Hurricane Chris (2018), Typhoon Louise–Marge, Cyclone Ava, Hurricane Beryl

New FAs since January 1, 2020: Tropical Storm Ileana (2018), Cyclone Chapala, Racer's hurricane, Hurricane Humberto (2019), Tropical Storm Zelda (1991), Hurricane Lane (2018), 1916 Texas hurricane, Hurricane Willa, Meteorological history of Hurricane Dorian, Tropical Storm Vicente (2018), Hurricane Hector (2018), Hurricane Walaka

Sockpuppetry in WPTC, by LightandDark2000

Due to recent incidents involving sockpuppetry within WPTC, I invited some editors to address the problem of socking inside the project. MarioJump83!

Sockpuppetry is a serious offense committed by various users on Wikipedia. Our own WPTC is not immune to this travesty. WPTC has seen its fair share of abuse from serial vandals and LTAs throughout the years. From 2013 through 2018, IPhonehurricane95 vandalized dozens of tropical cyclone articles and created more than 200 sock accounts. For several years, mostly spanning a two-year period from 2013 to 2014, IPhonehurricane95 defaced numerous tropical cyclone articles, mostly ones that he had once contributed to, were major storms, or were storms in an active tropical cyclone season. He also attacked essentially every single active editor on WPTC at the time, and he went on to attack every single Admin and CheckUser who had ever blocked him, in addition to making making racist remarks and threats of harassment. He eventually went cross-wiki, forcing the intervention of Stewards. In July 2014, he began including graphic 9/11 images in his vandalism, which further damaged the image of the project. IPhonehurricane95's vandalism inspired several copy-cat vandals, including one who has continued to plague the project to this day. This is a problem with LTAs and serial vandals – those who aren't stopped quickly enough and early on often bring bad publicity to the project, in addition to elevating the risk of copycat inspiring knock-offs. In 2016, IPhonehurricane95's socking spree dramatically decreased, with the LTA disappearing in 2018. Sockpuppetry on WPTC has not been nearly as bad since then, but sockpuppetry persisted on WPTC afterward, even to this day. Recent LTAs that WPTC had to deal with include Fly High in the Sky and Wyatt2049, and possibly Evlekis, with the later two engaging in a campaign of vandalism claiming fake Category 5 upgrades (or Category 0 downgrades) "from God" that attracted a lot of bad publicity. Recently, some users dabbled with socking, which got them into trouble. With the recent breaches of trust on WPTC and the confirmation of socking by CUs in several of the newer members, some members of WPTC have called for WPTC members to be vetted by CUs. In the past year alone, a few editors who had recently joined the project came out as sockmasters who went on to become LTAs, further adding to the pressure on WPTC. Personally, I feel that the newer users who joined within the past 6 months with a history of disruption should be examined by a CheckUser, but long-standing CU policy is to not investigate anyone unless there are serious allegations of sockpuppetry (with evidence). This policy exists for good reason, and these requests for blanket CUs may very well be turned down, if proposed.

Sockpuppetry is not only bad for the reputation and integrity of the project. It is also harmful to the well-being of editors on the site, especially when they become the targets of attacks. In addition, sockpuppetry breaks the trust of the community when the said offender is a trusted and valued member of the community, no matter the level and duration of the offense. Those editors have to work hard to regain the trust of the community, and in some cases, trust may never be restored. Perhaps equally as bad, sockpuppetry leads to false accusations of the practice and claims of intentional bad faith against both reformed ex-sockpuppeteers and non-socking editors alike. This further damages the reputation of the site, while unnecessarily inflaming tensions between editors on the project and damaging the cohesion between the community. These aspersions also hurt well-meaning editors on the site, and can have the unwanted consequences of embittering them or prompting them to go into retirement. While there are users on WPTC who are dedicated to rooting out and combatting vandals and sockpuppeteers on the site (including some who are a part of the Counter-Vandalism Unit), this is a responsibility that the entire project needs to bear as a whole, since socking is an issue that affects the entire project in one way or another. Editors should be willing and able to investigate potential cases of socking and other types of abusive behavior, while maintaining good faith at the same time. Sockpuppetry is serious issue and an ongoing challenge to the project. Equally as bad are unfounded allegations of the abuse against editors with a long-standing history of being a net-positive. However, together, as a community, we can combat this menace to safeguard the integrity and accuracy of WPTC articles, and make Wikipedia a healthy, productive environment. ~ LightandDark2000 🌀

The Renewal and Growth of WPTC, by LightandDark2000

WPTC had its humble beginnings in the early days of Wikipedia. The WikiProject was founded by Jdorje on October 5, 2005, during the heart of the record-breaking and devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The founding of WPTC provided a place for editors who had an interest in tropical cyclones to collaborate. Over the next few years, dozens of users flocked to WPTC, growing the ranks to over 60 active members by 2011. This was the first generation of WPTC editors, many of whom had been active on Wikipedia within a few years of its founding in 2001. The first WPTC editors worked hard on improving the quality and quantity of tropical cyclone articles, attaining 100 Good Articles (GAs) and several Featured Articles (FAs) by January 2007. The number of existing TC articles grew each month, with the project boasting 1,000 articles by January 2008. However, as the years passed by, long-time members of the WPTC gradually began dropping out. Reasons included entering college, a busy work schedule, loss of interest in the subject, and retirement from Wikipedia, among other reasons. By January 2011, more than 120 members had either become inactive or had left Wikipedia entirely. By the end of the year, WPTC membership had hemorrhaged to the point where roughly 19 users remained in the WikiProject. As of this writing, the first 13 members on the WPTC roster can be considered the remaining "core" of this first generation that has stayed with the project throughout the years. But the initial WPTC Golden Age was over. The flow of new recruits fell off sharply, and overall interest declined. WPTC would remain at this reduced level of membership and activity for years to come.

More users continued to join the WikiProject over the next several years, albeit on a significantly reduced scale. Even then, the vast majority of the work done on tropical cyclone articles were largely carried out by a "core" of roughly a dozen experienced editors who stayed on with the WikiProject throughout the year, even as tropical cyclone activity shifted between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. However, this reduction in the numbers of active users meant that many more articles ended up being neglected, or suffered from reduced quality. The flow of new GAs and FAs slowed down, and new FACs almost ground to a halt. Some long-time editors, such as Hurricanehink, continued to hammer out TC articles, while recruiting and mentoring new members. The second generation of WPTC editors began showing up in 2013 through 2016, including Nova Crystallis, Typhoon2013, Master of Time, KN2731, and me. (I had edited on Wikipedia for several years before then, but I wasn't officially a part of WPTC prior to 2014.) While new editors continued to join each year, others kept on leaving, and the size of the roster remained around the same size. On a Featured Article review, one of the reviewers even remarked that WPTC was no longer as lively as it once was, with much of the activity having died down. Working on WPTC grew depressing at times, with some of the active editors moving on to other topics when their basins of interest went inactive (usually when the northern hemisphere seasons came to an end). Articles suffered from quality control and content issues in numerous places, especially articles on storms outside of the North Atlantic and East/Central Pacific hurricane basins, where most of the activity from experienced editors was historically concentrated. Articles for storms in the Southern Hemisphere were the hardest-hit, with only a few editors, such as Jason Rees, continuing to work hard on them year-round. As usual, the vast majority of work fell on a tight-knit group of roughly two dozen editors, most of whom were senior editors who had been present since the early days of WPTC. At times, I wondered whether I would ever see the day in which we would have enough active editors on our roster to bring WPTC back to its former glory.

From 2016 to 2018, more users joined WPTC, including ChocolateTrain, Hurricane Noah, and MarioProtIV, some of whom would later play a key role in revitalizing tropical cyclone articles or WPTC on some level. In 2018, Hurricane Noah helped restructure some of the internal dynamics of WPTC, including the creation of specific task forces for certain topics and also designing a new award system, in order to help motivate WPTC members and also to help coordinate the work between other editors more effectively. That same year, he kicked off a massive campaign to get more articles to GA and FA status, By late 2020, more than two dozen articles had been brought up to GA or FA status, and WPTC saw its first potential Featured Topic Candidate in more than 6 years (the 2018 Pacific hurricane season). After 2019, the number of new members gradually increased, and activity picked up across the WikiProject. A third batch of new editors showed up between 2018 and 2019, tripling the WPTC roster to 60+ active members. These editors included FleurDeOdile, CycloneYoris, EBGamingWiki, Sandy14156, SaiTheCyclone, DavidTheMeteorologist, JavaHurricane, and others. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Despite the ensuing lockdowns and other fallouts from the pandemic, WPTC saw an explosion of new editors that same year. This 4th generation of editors was, by far, probably the largest influx of new membership that WPTC had ever seen. By the end of the year, the active membership roster had exploded from 69 to 124 active members. Our newer members from 2020 include AC5230, CycloneFootball71, Chicdat, Hurricaneboy23, Chlod, Destroyeraa, MarioJump83, ChessEric, Modokai, CodingCyclone, Cyclone Toby, TornadoLGS, HurricaneCovid, Skarmory, and many, many others. The wait was finally over. New life had been breathed back into WPTC. It was almost as if the good old days of the WikiProject were starting to return. While we've had our ups and downs this year, the influx of new editors infused WPTC with much-needed new blood and also helped relieve the senior editors of some of the burdens they've had to bear for years. Our hope is that the vast majority of these new editors will stay with us going forward, even as tropical cyclone activity cycles on and off across the world. Even after the pandemic-related lockdowns end.

In closing, I want to thank my fellow WPTC editors for my experience. When I first started as an IP editor on Wikipedia more than a decade ago, I never imagined that WikiProjects existed, not to mention one specifically tailored for tropical cyclones. I had a rough start here, with a bitey reception from most of the others who communicated with me, while also struggling to learn some of Wikipedia's fundamental policies (particularly citations). However, I eventually eased into the place and the others warmed to me, and my proficiency in editing improved as I spent more time on Wikipedia. The truth is, whenever I came under pressure in other areas of Wikipedia, whether it is from hounding, witch hunts, attacks, or other hostile behavior, I've always retreated back to WPTC. Why? Because I've always felt much more welcome here. And safe. In some ways, WPTC has become my home on Wikipedia. I've gotten so much more out of here than I had expected to as well. My time on Wikipedia helped sharpen my writing (and typing) skills, which was a rather nice bonus. I've also made a number of new friends here (some of whom I've grown rather close with), all of whom I enjoy working with. Thank you, all of you, for everything. Thank you for showing me what the Wikipedia experience should be like, and thank you for being willing to befriend me. I look forward to continue working with you all and growing with you in the years to come. May you all have a wonderful 2021! ~ LightandDark2000 🌀

My stress, by MarioJump83

Hello, this is my first opinion piece on Hurricane Herald as MarioJump83. In this opinion piece, I want to explain why I'm not as active as I'm hoping for in recent weeks. I do not plan to ever make this opinion piece at all, but I had to speak out about my issue with my activity in order to balance this edition of Hurricane Herald as well as to prevent attempts at adding my work-in-progress opinion piece to this issue because I'm planning to package that opinion piece with a long-finished but unfortunately delayed opinion piece. I want to apologize for delaying my work-in-progress opinion piece numerous times, given there are numerous issues about it, one of which (stress) will be addressed in this opinion piece.

Since last December, I have repeatedly have been on semi-wikibreaks. Wikipedia, as I know it, is a serious business. I was no longer the "nice guy" when I got my MoTM. Stress has been building up as I faced college exams as well as my father's stroke which happened on December 17, 2020. I attempted to break this semi-wikibreak once as I requested to change my name from SMB99thx into MarioJump83 for a breath of a fresh air (some days before that I requested deletion of my userpage for the same reason), and did some AfC reviewing spree in January 2 and 3. But as it turns out, it was quite a failure as three AfC submissions I accepted ended up being in jeopardy, with me trying to save the last one standing. I think these experiences ruined my chance to become a permanent new page reviewer, pushed me back into my semi-wikibreak once more and I had to enroll myself into New Page Patrol School in hopes of getting back into what I wanted. As such, I decided to commit into content creation as I was granted page mover rights (temporary) on January 4. As of now, I'm trying my best to come out on this second semi-wikibreak, bringing myself out of trouble that I didn't intend to participate in and planning to become autopatrolled some day as the college exams are winding over.

Wish me and my family for the best in the coming weeks, anyone! I'm hoping that it will happen after the release of this issue, if not later. By the way - even when I'm still stressed - I am going to wish everybody Happy New Year and Happy 20th Wikipedia anniversary! (Don't forget that we also reached edit number 1,000,000,000!)


46th issue of Hurricane Herald newsletter

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Volume XLVI, Issue 46, March 1, 2021
←(Previous issues) 43 · 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 →


The Hurricane Herald

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the member list. New members will automatically receive this newsletter. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from January 15–February 28, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are MarioJump83, Destroyeraa, HurricaneCovid, CycloneFootball71, HurricaneEdgar, Skarmory, Typhoon2013 (editor's pick for member of the month), and our member of the month, LightandDark2000! Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions, including past MoTMs and SoTMs, can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • In response to the initial selection of Cyclone Toby as MoTM of the last edition, the long established-practice of picking MoTM (edition) by the main editor of Hurricane Herald was changed, with one that involved most of the WPTC community being created. The original practice continues to live on, but in the form of MoTM (Editor's Pick), as wished by longtime editor of the Hurricane Herald, Hurricanehink. The details of this event were recorded in the notes of the last edition and in this edition.
  • On January 13, 2021, Destroyeraa announced the Cyclone Cup, which was inspired by the WikiCup. There are seven participants in the 2021 Cyclone Cup, who are: CodingCyclone, Skarmory, CycloneFootball71, MarioJump83, Jason Rees, HurricaneCovid, and LightandDark2000. This is the second-ever competition organized by members of WPTC. The first competition organized by WPTC members was the WPTC Bowl, which started on January 2012, before flaming out by the end of 2012 without anyone winning the competition. The WPTC Bowl was also inspired by the WikiCup, similar to the Cyclone Cup, but ran differently from the Cyclone Cup. We hope that the Cyclone Cup ends up successful, with a winner.
  • In the light of BCNY2011's membership situation (now globally locked and was found to be socking also), I, MarioJump83, heavily revamped the members list of WPTC as well as formalized WPTC bylaws, with some modifications, regarding inactive membership, thus allowing veteran WPTC members Runningonbrains, Juliancolton (two of the 14 WPTC core members), Atomic7732 and Derpdadoodle to rejoin the project. I also tried to enforce some guidelines regarding recruiting and membership as it was discussed previously, but since I did not discuss and establish the consensus in regards to enforcement and the shape of "guidelines" as of now is more of an essay, for now they will be considered unofficial and have yet to be implemented. It will be discussed later on, probably in a survey.
  • During Wikipedia's 15th anniversary, I officially revived the Non-tropical storms WikiProject (WPNTS), due to WPTC editors actively joining the WikiProject, despite the fact that the WikiProject was defunct. (More reasons will be stated in my opinion piece in the next issue of the WPNTS newsletter.) Despite its formal revival, WPNTS was not fully reorganized until February 7. That day, I closely modeled that WikiProject after WikiProject Tropical cyclones, thus tying WPNTS together with WPTC, as the two WikiProjects are closely intertwined. In the meanwhile, I discovered the defunct newsletter of WPNTS and later on, WikiProject Severe Weather, both of which has their last issues in March 2008. As I began WPNTS makeover, I revived both publications. The WikiProject Non-tropical storms Newsletter, which is known as The Frozen Times, and the WikiProject Severe weather Newsletter will become sister publications of The Hurricane Herald going forward. I have set their publication dates on March 15, and April 1, 2021, respectively, and they are going to become semi-regular newsletters. Before they ever get published, I implore you to help me writing these newsletters, the links for which are listed here: The Frozen Times, WikiProject Severe Weather.
  • Alongside the revamp above, I discovered the 2011 list through looking at the edit history of the members page, which shows the true extent of this WikiProject's popularity, as well as the members that joined the project after 2011 but were eventually removed from the roster, as the after effects of Hurricanefan25's mass removal of inactive WikiProject members. I restored them back to the list during and after the revamp - they were truly part of the WikiProject during the golden age of WPTC and I see it's removal by the sock of Perseus, Son of Zeus, as effectively destroying the history of the WPTC because of the importance of these members. The restored list reveals that Knowledgekid87 is actually a member of WPTC back in the day and clearly still participates in the project, while Rosalina2427 is actually an another member of the 14 golden age WPTC remnants that still remain to this day. (Note: These were the members that was listed before TheAustinMan joined the project) Our newsletter's subscribers AySz88, RingTailedFox, WmE, Douglasr007, Dylan620 and X! were actually members of this WikiProject, despite the belief that they weren't. And the others, such as Good kitty and Miss Madeline were very influential in the building of this WikiProject. In conclusion, you can see that there is more from the WikiProject than meets the eye. The WikiProject used to be huge before 2010s decade started, and they were the building blocks of the project that unfortunately were erased by some sock.
  • The three-month merge moratorium, which has been implemented since November 23, 2020, ended on February 23, at 03:45:00 UTC. During the moratorium, when it was in effect, there were generally no attempts to discuss changes to the moratorium, nor were there any requests for article mergers. However, there were two requests to allow an exception to the merge moratorium. One of which was to merge Meteorological history of Hurricane Michael to the Hurricane Michael as that article presents an obstacle for Hurricane Michael article to reach GA - the consensus for exception was quickly reached on Christmas 2020, and on January 5 the article was finally merged. The other, which was meant for Hurricane Jeanne's impacts articles, was never made into a proposal and thus were not seriously discussed at all. The first such merger after the merge moratorium expired was merging Tropical Storm Amanda (2020) and Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020) into Tropical Storm Amanda–Cristobal, which later was requested to be moved into 2020 Central America and Mexico floods and opposers of the merger requested splitting them back once again.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

2018 Featured Topic Update
Featured Articles promoted (January 1–February 28)
  • None during this issue.
Good Articles promoted (January 1–February 28)
  • None during this issue.
Current Candidates
  • None during this issue.
New Articles (Only C and below, January 1–February 28)
During this issue...

I, MarioJump83, the interim coordinator of 2018 Global FT's WPAC squad, feels bad with what is going on as I felt we are taking a step back with the ongoing real-life difficulties regarding important members of our task force. KN2731 had to take a wikibreak because of the compulsory service in Singapore and will likely be gone for two years; Destroyeraa's activities were highly inhibited by multiple illnesses, school exams, "bullying" issues, and series of winter storms this month; Hurricane Noah almost took a two-month-long wikibreak because due to college studies, which Noah is committed to (he also left the WPTC Discord for a couple of months, due to toxicity). I don't really like to take a lot of responsibilities within the 2018 Global FT task force, as I had joined with the intent of helping GA's that involves this year, i.e. like what I did in Cyclone Ava and Cyclone Owen as of now, but with so many of us were forced out of commission due to these problems I mentioned, I and LightandDark2000 had to take much of the responsibility within the task force. Because of this reason, I strongly recommend you, readers of Hurricane Herald, to join this task force to help take pressure off from us. Note that this is not a formal invite, as Wikipedia is free and anyone can edit, but this is what we have to deal with in this current situation, especially because of our real-life problems and commitments. Let's hope that we, including you, can make this through with what we can do!

We are recruiting

If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to LightandDark2000 or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:
Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
February 2021 Cyclone Guambe
January 2021 Cyclone Eloise
Storm of the Year 2020 Hurricane Eta
December 2020 Cyclone Yasa
November 2020 Hurricane Iota
October 2020 Typhoon Goni (2020)
September 2020 Cyclone Ianos
August 2020 Hurricane Laura
July 2020 Hurricane Isaias
June 2020 Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020)
May 2020 Cyclone Amphan
April 2020 Cyclone Harold
March 2020 Cyclone Herold

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for the rest of January and February

SoTM for January – Cyclone Eloise
Cyclone Eloise formed in January 14, to the east of another system, Cyclone Joshua, in the central South Indian Ocean. The disturbance developed into a tropical depression on January 16, and on the next day, the depression intensified into Moderate Tropical Storm Eloise. Eloise struggled to intensify, due to unfavorable conditions; however, the storm still managed to intensify further into Severe Tropical Storm Eloise on January 19. This strengthening trend did not last long, as Eloise made landfall in northern Madagascar, and interaction with mountains caused Eloise to weaken into a moderate tropical storm once more. Eloise emerged into the Mozambique Channel on January 20 and started intensifying again, despite having recently experienced a sustained land interaction. However, the storm slowed down, due to the location and the surrounding environment. Later on, Eloise managed to intensify into a full-fledged tropical cyclone, before proceeding to undergo rapid intensification as the storm neared landfall. Eloise peaked as a Category 2-equivalent tropical cyclone just before making landfall near Beira, Mozambique, on January 22, which had been affected by Tropical Storm Chalane just weeks prior, and was still recovering from the devastating impacts of Cyclone Idai nearly two years ago. Eloise then degenerated into a remnant low above Zimbabwe on January 25, and per JTWC, the remnants of Eloise soon dissipated above Botswana on January 26.

Eloise caused numerous disasters throughout numerous countries, specifically, in Madagascar, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and Mozambique. Mozambique was the hardest-hit. In Madagascar, Eloise destroyed 190 homes and caused the death of one person. In South Africa, Eloise caused the deaths of 10 people, four of which were children, in addition to being responsible for making another 7 people go missing. In Zimbabwe, Eloise caused damage and destruction to nearly a thousand homes, some of which were badly affected by Idai two years ago. Three people were also swept away by flooding from Eloise and were presumed to be dead. In Eswatini, over 1,500 people were affected by the storm, two of whom were killed. Eloise also damaged the water system and flooded the gravel roads and low-lying bridges. In Mozambique, the residents compared the cyclone's impacts to Cyclone Idai, which had catastrophically devastated the country two years earlier. This storm caused psychological trauma and mental health crises among the residents of the country. Eloise caused nine deaths in Mozambique, but massive amounts of farmland were flooded, and the storm also damaged over 30,000 houses, the majority of which were destroyed by the storm. 579 classrooms and 86 health centers had to be repaired after the storm.

SoTM for February – Cyclone Guambe
Cyclone Guambe formed as a disturbance in the Mozambique Channel in February 10. The disturbance subsequently transitioned into a subtropical depression two days later, as it made landfall in Mozambique. For the next several days, the system made a slow counterclockwise loop over Mozambique, while slowly organizing. The system re-emerged into the Mozambique Channel on February 16 and was designated as Tropical Disturbance 11. The disturbance was soon upgraded into a depression later that day, and the storm became Moderate Tropical Storm Guambe on the next day. Subsequently, Guambe proceeded to strengthen, intensifying into a severe tropical storm on February 18. Guambe then began to undergo rapid intensification, becoming a tropical cyclone on February 19, before peaking later that day as a Category 2-equivalent tropical cyclone. However, Guambe then underwent an eyewall replacement cyclone and began to weaken on February 20, as the storm accelerated towards the southeast. On February 21, Guambe became extratropical, Guambe was later absorbed by another extratropical cyclone on February 23.

Guambe caused widespread flooding in Mozambique, which displaced over 27,000 people and worsened the ongoing crisis in the region. Prisoners had to be transferred away from the cyclone because of potential flooding. There were no deaths recorded and damages were unknown, however the worst part of Guambe wasn't there yet. South Africa were also flooded by Guambe, which might have been caused by the secondary low-level circulation center (LLCC) of Guambe. This secondary LLCC had caused Guambe to slow down, which probably had devastating effects on Bazaruto Archipelago National Park's marine life, as 186 Spinner dolphins were probably killed by the storm. After Guambe re-emerged into the Mozambique Channel, no additional damage to human property was reported, thus marking the end of Guambe's impacts on land.

  • Western Pacific – The West Pacific basin saw its first tropical cyclone of the year develop, which was a tropical depression. This storm affected the Philippines for two days, on January 19–20. Another tropical cyclone developed in the next month, which developed into Tropical Storm Dujuan. Dujuan was not as damaging as the first tropical depression, but it ended up being deadlier. Dujuan dissipated soon after impacting the Philippines.
  • South-West Indian Ocean – Eloise, the seventh named storm of the season, formed on January 14, before becoming a named storm three days later. On January 19, Eloise made landfall on Madagascar as a moderate tropical storm. Afterward, the storm moved into the Mozambique Channel, undergoing rapid intensification as it neared Mozambique, before making landfall near Beira, Mozambique at peak intensity on January 23, as a Category-2 equivalent tropical cyclone, with the storm strengthening all the way up to landfall. Eloise weakened as it moved inland, dissipating on January 25. On January 17, Joshua entered the South-West Indian Ocean basin from the Australian region basin, before dissipating two days later. On January 27, Tropical Low 10U entered the basin from the Australian region, which was classified as Tropical Depression 09. The depression never strengthened into a tropical storm and soon dissipated on the next day. Faraji formed on February 4, and became a tropical storm next day. Faraji explosively intensified to become the first Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone (according to JTWC estimates) in the basin since Fantala in 2016, and the first Category 5-Equivalent tropical cyclone worldwide in 2021. Faraji was projected to restrengthen, and possible threaten land areas as it tracked westward towards Madagascar; however, this threat never materialized, as the storm encountered more hostile conditions and weakened instead. The storm degenerated into a remnant low on February 13, before dissipating 3 days later. Guambe formed on February 10, and became a subtropical depression two days later, while making landfall near Inhambane, Mozambique. The system remained inland until February 16, when it re-emerged into the Mozambique Channel and was designated as Tropical Disturbance 11. The disturbance then began to strengthen, becoming a tropical storm on the next day, and a tropical cyclone later three days later. Guambe peaked as a Category 2-equivalent tropical cyclone on February 19. The cyclone was forecasted to strengthen even further; however, Guambe underwent an eyewall replacement cycle and began to weaken. The storm became post-tropical on February 21 and dissipated two days later.
  • Australian region – On January 16, Tropical Low 07U intensified into Tropical Cyclone Joshua. Afterward, five more storms developed in the basin within the second part of the month: Tropical Low 08U, Tropical Cyclone Kimi, Tropical Low 10U, Tropical Low 11U, and Tropical Low 12U. Joshua moved into the South-West Indian Ocean basin on January 17. On January 21, 08U made landfall in the Western Territory of Australia, before dissipating two days later. Kimi meandered off the coast of Queensland from January 16 to 19, before dissipating offshore. 10U formed to the southeast of Christmas Island and remained over water throughout its duration. 10U exited the basin into the South-West Indian Ocean on January 27. On January 25, Tropical Low 11U formed, followed by Tropical Low 12U on January 28. 11U became Lucas and exited the basin as it peaked on February 1. Tropical Low 12U remained overland for most of its existence, moving parallel to the western coastline of Australia for 5 days, before emerging over open water on February 4. 12U never reached tropical cyclone intensity, and became extratropical on the next day. However, the storm turned back towards Australia and resumed moving parallel to the coast, before dissipating several days later. Tropical Low 13U formed on February 6, a day after 12U became extratropical, and made landfall near the North Territory–Queensland border, before dissipating on February 8. Another tropical low, 14U, formed ten days later, and lasted for five days before dissipating. Tropical Low 15U formed on February 23 and became Marian. Marian eventually proceeded to undergo rapid intensification, becoming a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone on February 28, making it the most intense cyclone of the season, as of this writing. Tropical Low 16U formed near the end of the month.
  • South Pacific – Tropical Disturbance 04F developed to the west of Port Vila, Vanuatu, on January 22. Several days later, Tropical Disturbances 05F and 06F developed near Fiji. All three systems organized into tropical depressions by January 28. 04F and 06F never developed into tropical cyclones, while 05F became Cyclone Ana. Cyclone Ana dissipated February 1, the same day that Cyclone Lucas entered the basin. Lucas became subtropical on February 3, before dissipating shortly afterward. On February 7, Tropical Disturbance 09F formed and nearly reached tropical cyclone status, before dissipating. Two weeks later, Tropical Disturbance 10F developed near Wallis and Futuna but never developed into a tropical depression.
  • South Atlantic – On February 4, a rare, fully-tropical storm was designated in the basin as 01Q by the NOAA. The storm lasted briefly before losing tropical characteristics, with the NOAA discontinuing their bulletins later that day. However, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center never issued advisories on the storm.

Member of the month (edition) – LightandDark2000

LightandDark2000 joined Wikipedia as an IP editor on May 2, 2009. Although a couple of users encouraged him to make an account early on, he decided to continue editing articles from his IPs for the next few years. He registered his user account in May 2012 and spent another year on Wikipedia as an IP editor, before fully transitioning over to his account in the summer of 2013. He received an invitation to join WPTC in March 2014, which he accepted. Ever since joining WPTC, LightandDark2000 has been a regular editor on tropical cyclone articles and one of Wikipedia's most active rollbackers, putting him on the forefront in the fight against vandals and LTAs, and actively steering the WikiProject out of stagnation. He also defended WPTC from numerous vandals, including the likes of the LTAs IPhonehurricane95 and Lightning Sabre. In late 2014–early 2017, LightandDark2000 largely moved out of WPTC into MILHIST (as well as taking a 3-month WikiBreak in the fall of 2016—due to college work and stress from on-wiki hounding), before returning to WPTC in September 2017, following the devastating landfall of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. From there, LightandDark2000 regularly contributed to tropical cyclone articles, as well as articles on other storms and natural disasters, before taking a series of WikiBreaks in late 2019 through mid-2020, due to college work and real-life activities.

However, LightandDark2000 returned in July 2020, just as the extremely-active North Atlantic hurricane season got underway. By the time the last issue of The Hurricane Herald was released, LightandDark2000 had made a full return and was ramping up activity, even as WPTC was beset by a series of problems within its membership, ranging from blocks to stress-induced WikiBreaks. During this time of crisis, LightandDark2000 stepped up very quickly - first, he helped out a number of users who were struggling with personal issues on the WikiProject. Then, he joined 2018 Global FT (currently the Interim Coordinator, with Hurricane Noah and KN2731 stepping aside due to real-life commitments). From there, he conducted his first GA review, which was for Hurricane Beryl. After that, he took on a major role in the writing of the previous issue of The Hurricane Herald, which as of this writing is the biggest issue of Hurricane Herald ever published, at an excess of 50,000 bytes, as well as being the most visually-balanced Hurricane Herald issue since the first issues of Hurricane Herald (if it were to be viewed using a 1920×1080 desktop using Legacy Vector). For these reasons and his contributions to the WPTC in the past, we will finally thank LightandDark2000 for all of his contributions by rewarding him with the Member of the Month for this edition. It's quite sad that he didn't get this award since the restart of Hurricane Herald in late 2018 to this day, but now, he has the opportunity to win the award for the first time. We are hoping to see more from LightandDark2000 in the future. For example, he joined the 2021 Cyclone Cup (and also volunteered to take on the role of a judge, if necessary), a new competition for WPTC members based on the WikiCup!

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Featured Content

From January 15 to February 28 no featured article were promoted.

From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from January 15–February 28, 2021 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List
Did you know...?

There are currently no featured article candidates.

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 164 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 133 A-class articles, and 1,010 good articles. There are only 71 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 415 C-class articles, 788 start-class articles, and 182 stub-class articles, with 23 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Special thanks to David Roth, Keith Edkins, Hylian Auree and HurricaneSpin

In this section, we want to thank these first-generation WPTC members for being able to stay in here for years before 2020. They (David, Keith, Hylian and Spin) are one of greatest content creators in WPTC history, helping to build and shape WPTC for what it is now today. Without them, we don't know if WPTC would be like today. David Roth's expertise, Keith Edkins' maintenance activities, Hylian's and Spin's content creation skill helped a lot in the early days of WPTC and we hope some of us can replicate what they can do in today's WPTC.

Member of the month (Editor's Pick) – Typhoon2013

Typhoon2013 first edited Wikipedia in August 2013, and ever since joining Wikipedia, Typhoon2013 has been one of the most prolific editors in Western Pacific basin. Since last November, Typhoon2013 has been working very hard on getting tropical cyclone intensity lists of Western Pacific basin done, lending a hand in creation of named storms lists of C, P, R, and S (alongside finishing List of named storms (T) which I was unable to complete because of college), as well as finishing storm lists of Pacific typhoon seasons from 1980 to 1964. For the efforts Typhoon2013 has done leading to the publishing of this newsletter, I, MarioJump83, as one of many editors of Hurricane Herald, will be picking Typhoon2013 as the Member of the Month (Editor's Pick) and thank him for his contributions to build a bedrock foundation for the rapidly-growing Western Pacific coverage of the Wikipedia. We wish Typhoon2013 best of luck at college!

My experience here on Wikipedia - by Destroyeraa

Was planned to be published in 44th edition of Hurricane Herald, however due to some issue (and per Destroyeraa's request), I have delayed this opinion piece further into this edition. At this point, I do not want to see this opinion piece getting delayed further into May 2021 as I really, really want this OP, alongside my OP below to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. MarioJump83!

I created my Wikipedia account on January 18, 2020. I seems so long ago. My first edit was creating my user page, and my first mainspace edit was on Hammonton, New Jersey. My first autoconformed edit was on my userpage. By then, I was editing about myself and roads. My first tropical cyclone edit was on January 30, on Tropical Storm Nestor, which got reverted. I also edited about the coronavirus epidemic before it became a worldwide pandemic. I edited List of United States tornadoes in April 2020, but got bitten on the talk page, though my love for tornadoes kept me editing pages. I also began editing numerous cyclone pages, and joined WPTC on May 19. It was sad that no one noticed that I joined, and no one welcomed me on my talk page for five months already. I submitted my first article, Tropical Storm Bertha (2020), which was accepted. I was still rather new, and mistook Chicdat as an admin. It was June already. Still, no one welcomed me. Finally, on June 5, Hurricanehink took notice of my edits and welcome me! Around the same time, I downloaded Twinkle. I found the CSD function very cool, and I admittedly didn't read WP:CSD and misused it. One month later, I met my first real vandal, which turned out to be a Force Thirteen kid who was messing around changing everything to Force Thirteen without leaving a source or an edit summary, which most people will take as vandalism. It turned out to be pretty rough, and did not end well for both of us. I was still learning at that stage, as shown here. After that, my experience here got much better. Perhaps it was the "learning-the-ropes" phase that is the hardest for all Wikipedians. I created and wrote some good articles, with my first being Hurricane Dolores, promoted on September 24. I also developed a good relationship with many of my fellow Wikipedians, including the editors/writers of this newsletter and many other newer and older users. Then came the sock block. I'll not get into much detail about that, though I will be forever indebted to the countless users who vouched for me and who welcomed me back to the community with open arms. Thank you. I am glad to be here today.~ Destroyeraa🌀🇺🇸

My experiences of tropical cyclones and tropical cyclone editing before joining WPTC - by MarioJump83

I planned this OP way back to September 2020, but because of issues with length and college (also even stress - detailed in my previous opinion piece My stress), I decided to delay this opinion piece until now. I also intend to publish this opinion piece alongside Destroyeraa's OP above, thus pushing back the date where I can publish this opinion piece further. Thus I fully apologize for delaying this opinion piece for way too long. I was unable to spend my time on building this opinion piece because of these issues and thus getting this opinion piece complete in time. By the way, this will be the final opinion piece I will write for Hurricane Herald - I'm done with it after two opinion pieces as SMB99thx and two opinion pieces as MarioJump83. It was so much fun creating opinion pieces, but I don't want to have opinion pieces for four straight issues already since the 43rd edition! I'm still editing Hurricane Herald in the future, but not writing opinion pieces any further - ...unless you're inviting me to write an opinion piece in my user talk page, which I'll do my best to comply.

Hello, WikiProject Tropical cyclones! I want to tell you about the reasons why I liked and loved tracking tropical cyclones and my experience regarding editing tropical cyclones before I joined this WikiProject.

First of all, I have been watching tropical cyclones but on-and-off since 2012. That year, Hurricane Sandy as I remembered it got significant coverage on my country, Indonesia (Badai Sandy). That hurricane was the first tropical cyclone that I had ever known in my life (it's possible that Hurricane Katrina had significant coverage in my country, but I didn't remember anything at all about it), and without it I would never known about tropical cyclones by myself. When that hurricane was about to be finished, I visited the article about 2012 Atlantic hurricane season on Wikipedia, and it was the first article about tropical cyclones that I have ever read on Wikipedia. From that day, my interest on tropical cyclones grew but it was limited to the Atlantic hurricanes only. When 2013 started, if I'm thinking about tropical cyclones I frequently visited 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, and in particular the Seasonal summary section, which drew my eyes into when I didn't edit tropical cyclone articles yet.

In November 2013, however, as I'm becoming an uncle of one (now three), Typhoon Haiyan showed up. That typhoon which devastated the Southeast Asian brother country of Philippines caused my interest on tropical cyclones to grow outside of Atlantic hurricanes. Now I'm finally aware of what's happening in Pacific, and it was the first time that I learned that tropical cyclones are everywhere in the world, not just Atlantic. That time, I read 2013 Pacific typhoon season as well as 2013 Pacific hurricane season (I don't remember reading these kinds of articles before that). When I read about it, I also visited 2013 Atlantic hurricane season once again and I was shocked by that it wasn't active! As such, I didn't watch tropical cyclones that much for most of 2014 and 2015. Hurricane Patricia didn't convince me enough to watch tropical cyclones again. In 2016, things changed again that led me to make my first edits on tropical cyclones in Wikipedia.

Once Hurricane Matthew came and with it significant coverage on Indonesia that I have never seen since Hurricane Sandy, I finally watched tropical cyclones full-time for the first time. That hurricane was the cyclone that finally got me going for the tropical cyclones (not just the recent seasons, but the older seasons and also SHEM) and my quick-growing interest on tropical cyclones led me to find what made me uncomfortable. That led me to make my first edit on tropical cyclone-related articles in Wikipedia - which was to add Central Pacific to a navigation template about leading tropical cyclones in March 7, 2017. Later that month, I made a second edit, which was to remove a year from a link to Hurricane Omar. These additions are quite "cosmetic" (as said by ChessEric about Hurricane Michelle GA), but soon enough in the next month I found more things that made me more uncomfortable - they are legitimate vandalism. The first edit I made in that month was to revert a vandalism on Hurricane Andrew (I edited it again after that, which was to change mb to mbar). On the next day, I fixed another vandalism in 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. That isn't the end yet, as I found one more vandalism in Hurricane Dennis, and I promptly fixed them.

As I'm getting more invested on tropical cyclone articles, I've eventually heard and found out why some articles didn't have (XXXX year) in them - and it is because that they are primary topics. When I see some articles like Hurricane Linda (1997), which I thought they are primary topics (I eventually realized that they are not, and I have not requested moving these articles under WPTC banner ever since), I sought the same treatment in these kinds of articles that I thought was primary topics and thus I requested moves in many of these said articles under that thought. I believed that these requests will garner support by most of the WPTC members (which I thought will think for the same), but never did I know that these requests gained overwhelming opposes, primarily from WPTC members - and they talked to me about it. Of course, I panicked and I have to withdraw some of these nominations.

That didn't stop me from editing more WPTC articles, and I started to do these requested moves again soon after. This is probably the most successful things I have ever done through my pre-WPTC membership career in the WPTC realm. After withdrawing some of these nominations, I began to work on a split of 1940–49 Pacific typhoon seasons article by starting the discussion on one in May 14. Two weeks later, as I said before, I started requesting more of these nominations in a batch on May 27 - which was wildly successful (only one of them were failed, and that was Tropical Storm Bret of 1993). In a month after these nominations, and with the consensus for split, I finally worked on the split itself. 1940 Pacific typhoon season and 1949 Pacific typhoon season has been split from the article much more earlier, with Hurricanehink creating an article for the 1940 season in May 23, 2014 and Typhoon2013 split the 1949 section from the article in December 19, 2016. I continued what Hurricanehink and Typhoon2013 has been doing, with copying content from the original article into the respective season articles. First, I reverted them to the original before Hurricanehink merged them. Afterwards, I copied the respective sections from the original into respective articles and removed the respective sections in the original article. From the IDs, you can notice that I did this not in order. Afterwards, I moved the original article into 1941–44 Pacific typhoon seasons without moving it's talk page, which I want to admit was a mistake and made a major ramifications (I even started a RfD, which should not happen) in my attempts to get it back without getting it's talk page removed later in October 2020. Once moving the article, I created redirects for the recently moved article (which includes 1941 Pacific typhoon season, 1942 Pacific typhoon season, 1943 Pacific typhoon season, and 1944 Pacific typhoon season, all of which eventually turned into articles), and quickly changed redirects of the respective storms into the newly restored articles. It was a massive effort that day on June 27, 2017, and the experience that I never forgotten.

After that month, I returned into requesting moves once again for the third time, riding on the recent wave of successes. I requested the moves of Hurricane Norman (1978) and Hurricane Liza. Hurricane Liza move request was successful but Norman did not. By that point, the frustration from WPTC members are showing up and by the time I requested moving Typhoon Ida (1958) into Typhoon Ida, I had to be stopped. I also moved Typhoon Pamela (1976) into Typhoon Pamela without any discussion, but you know my intentions by that point, and the move was soon reverted. I had a talk with Yellow Evan regarding these actions, and I soon relented, never requested any moves ever since. I didn't do much for the rest of the year - the most notable moves are moving disambiguation pages Tropical Storm Noru and Tropical Storm Banyan into Typhoon Noru and Typhoon Banyan, respectively. Moving on to the next year, I did not do much once again. Most of the activity that year was working on the most of Tropical Storm Son-Tinh (2018) article. Keep in mind that I plan to return working on that article as a part of 2018 Global FT efforts, and that happened because KN2731 is going to take a break for most of this year.

Onto the 2019, I did something that I think planted the seeds for my future MoTM run and vast WPTC growth in 2020. Most of the activity in general involves creating links to the future articles, but I also fixed redirects for most 1930s seasons and created redirects for the rest of 1960s decade for NIO basin. I planned something greater than that, however, but because I had to use my phone and not my laptop (it was broken) I wasn't able to do so. That plan was a factor leading to me joining the WPTC in July 2020 (after I realized about the benefits of joining the WikiProjects) and I began realizing the plan as soon as I got my laptop back. What I did for the most of August 2020 and September 2020 was mostly set in stone back in the previous year, if you don't notice that. If I didn't plan it back in the day, I don't think I would ever got that MoTM (it would have been Destroyeraa most likely).

That was a story. It is a long story. It took me pains to get myself established in WPTC, but now here I am. If anyone could have invited me back in the year 2018, I would have rejected it like CyclonicallyDeranged, whom I believe has been driven out of Wikipedia. But coming to this year, I realized the benefits of joining the WikiProjects and now, as said by Hurricanehink, I became a vital editor for WPTC.


47th issue of Hurricane Herald newsletter

[edit]

Volume XLVII, Issue 47, May 1, 2021
←(Previous issues) 44 · 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 →


The Hurricane Herald

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the member list. New members will automatically receive this newsletter. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from March 1–April 30, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are MarioJump83, Chicdat, Super Cyclonic Storm Corona, HurricaneEdgar, Dam222, AwesomeHurricaneBoss, LightandDark2000, LowercaseGuy (one of the editor's picks for Member of the Month), and our Members of the Month, CycloneFootball71, and CodingCyclone! Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions, including past MoTMs and SoTMs, can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • After Destroyeraa became inactive (due to school), Hurricane Noah took on the role of the main judge of the Cyclone Cup, starting from the final week of Round 1. He clarified the rules, making it clear that completing a secondary review for Featured or Good Articles, or bringing an article to a peer review was not a way to get points; instead, you have to be the original reviewer of that article. However, for FAs, GAs, and A-Class articles, those who nominate and improve those articles to promotion will earn points for their promotion. This was done to make the Cyclone Cup's rules run closer to those of the WikiCup. In addition, the lengths of Rounds 3 and 4 were extended, to make them more uniform. Rounds 1–3 now last 2 & 1/2 months each, while Round 4 lasts for 2 months, pushing back the end of the Cyclone Cup to October 31. After Noah became the main judge, the first round of the Cyclone Cup ended at 11:59 p.m. UTC on March 31, 2021. LightandDark2000 was the leader in the first round, with 110 points, mainly due to him creating several new articles and getting Tropical Storm Rolf to GA status. MarioJump83 and HurricaneCovid also scored a lot of points this round, raking in 85 and 70 points, respectively. Jason Rees and CodingCyclone also qualified, with 15 and 10 points, respectively. Skarmory and CycloneFootball71 were eliminated for not having any points and also for not ranking in the top 5.
  • On April 6, 2021, WPTC was notified of an ongoing process to merge all meteorology projects (except WikiProject Climate Change) into one, WikiProject Weather. This was because many of the weather-related WikiProjects (excluding WPTC) have long suffered from inactivity and a lack of active members. Once merged, the project would run in a similar way to the Military History WikiProject, meaning that it would be a large WikiProject with a broad scope, and the individual WikiProjects would become large Task Forces within the broader WikiProject. The former WikiProjects will essentially continue to function as they do now; the biggest differences will be in the names of the former WikiProjects/new Task Forces and also how the relevant articles are categorized, in addition to more coordination and pooling of resources. The current Task Forces within each WikiProject will also continue to exist, as subdivisions under the larger, primary Task Forces within the Weather WikiProject. The merging process is expected to take a few months as of this issue (May 1, 2021). The actual merger will not be completed until everything is ready.
  • Over the past couple of months, WPTC and some of the other Weather WikiProjects went through a period of turmoil, mostly involving perennial edit-warring and hostile behavior from some users (including a handful from outside of the Weather WikiProjects). The negative environment created by these events led two WPTC members to retire (one of whom later opened up to returning) and several others to either go on WikiBreaks or withdraw in some other way. While the worst of the troubles have passed, the WikiProject is still recovering from the fallout. There will be more monitoring of users within and outside of the WikiProject to prevent incidents like these from recurring in the future.
  • Sennecaster found some extensive copyvio in quite a few articles under the scope of WPTC, with quite a few coming from WPac articles. She notified the project in late April, and there are a few editors working on finding, removing and reporting copyvio. All articles must be checked as part of this sweep. If you are able to help, your service would be greatly appreciated, Please note that you must contact Sennecaster or someone else who is experienced in fixing copyvio before starting. In addition, please get Sennecaster's consent before starting, as the project is going on in her userspace.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

New A-Class articles include Cyclone Leon–Eline and Hurricane Olivia (2018).

Member of the month (Editor's Pick) – Akbermamps and LowercaseGuy

In this edition of Hurricane Herald, I (MarioJump83, one of the Hurricane Herald editors) am going to pick Akbermamps and LowercaseGuy. Both of them contributed to nearly all of the new articles since the publishing of the last issue (and also they contributed to the last issue itself). All of these articles primarily covered the Western Pacific basin, but also they worked on missing Tropical cyclones in xxxx articles and Southern Hemisphere articles. They both were driving factors in some of the greatest growth the WPTC has ever seen since Issues 42, 43, and 44. Both of them are hard workers, who remain civil, and treat others with kindness, despite hardships. Akbermamps also has reverted many nonconstructive edits from many different articles, plus they have made many great edits to tropical cyclone articles, as said above. LowercaseGuy also has made many great edits, per above, plus they have kept the newsletter up to date with all of the new article creations, new GA's, and A-class articles within the project. Because of this, I can only say that I am very proud of them!

2018 Featured Topic Update
Featured Articles promoted (March 1–April 30)

None during this period.

Good Articles promoted (March 1–April 30)
Current Candidates
New Articles (Only C and below, March 1–April 30)
Some updates

Since the last issue of this newsletter, I have noticed that there is an uptick of activity involving 2018 Global FT topic recently. Hurricane Noah came back from almost-retirement, then afterwards improved Hurricane Olivia (2018) into A-class, 2018 Pacific hurricane season within striking distance of it and Timeline of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season potentially became the second featured list we are going to have this year. Meanwhile, I have been focusing all of my efforts in WPTC at improving Cyclone Owen, by Chicdat, into GA status and end all drama between him and all other WPTC editors. Two MoTMs that I have personally picked, Akbermamps and LowercaseGuy, joined the fray (not joining us officially) and improved some 2018 Pacific typhoon season articles that I have created, including the creation of both two articles listed above (and as of right now, Akbermamps is building up Timeline of the 2018 Pacific typhoon season article in his sandbox). I'm very glad to see this happening and I hope this newly found activity could be kept up in the next two months. During these months, I am hoping that Noah might make efforts at improving Hurricane Bud (2018) towards FA eventually. MarioJump83!

We are recruiting

If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to LightandDark2000 or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:
Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
April 2021 Cyclone Seroja
March 2021 Cyclone Niran
February 2021 Cyclone Guambe
January 2021 Cyclone Eloise
Storm of the Year 2020 Hurricane Eta
December 2020 Cyclone Yasa
November 2020 Hurricane Iota
October 2020 Typhoon Goni (2020)
September 2020 Cyclone Ianos
August 2020 Hurricane Laura
July 2020 Hurricane Isaias
June 2020 Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020)
May 2020 Cyclone Amphan

Storms of the month and other tropical activity for March and April

SoTM for March – Cyclone Niran

Cyclone Niran originated from a developing tropical low off the coast of Queensland on February 27. Afterward, the system slowly began to strengthen, while making a slow clockwise loop, bringing heavy flooding to parts of Queensland. On March 1, the system strengthened into a Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Australian region basin scale, and was given the name Niran by the BoM. On March 3, Niran began to undergo rapid intensification as it began accelerating away from the Australian coast, towards the southeast. On March 5, Niran crossed over into the FMS's area of responsibility, in the South Pacific basin. Soon afterward, the cyclone reached its peak intensity as a Category 5 tropical cyclone on both the Australian region scale and the Saffir–Simpson scale (SSHWS), with maximum 10-minute sustained winds of 205 km/h (125 mph), maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 mph), and a central minimum pressure of 931 millibars (27.5 inHg). Several hours later, Niran underwent an eyewall replacement cycle and encountered wind shear, which caused the storm to begin weakening. The storm continued moving towards the southeast at a rapid pace, and on March 6, the storm struck the island of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, as a Category 3-equivalent tropical cyclone on the SSHWS, although the storm's eye stayed offshore. On March 6, Niran transitioned into an extratropical cyclone, and two days later, Niran was absorbed into another larger extratropical storm to the south. Niran caused at least $200 million (2021 USD) in damages, the vast majority of which came from banana crop damage in Queensland. No deaths were reported from the storm.

SoTM for April – Cyclone Seroja

On March 19, the BoM began monitoring a developing tropical low to the south of Timor, which they designated as 22U. On April 3, the system fully developed into a tropical low. For the next couple of days, the system made a slow counterclockwise loop over a part Indonesia and over Timor, gradually strengthening as it did so, causing torrential floods that killed at least 229 people. On April 4, the system strengthened into a Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Australian region scale and was named Seroja by TCWC Jakarta. On April 5, Seroja began moving southwestward, away from Indonesia. The storm encountered wind shear during this time, but the storm maintained tropical cyclone intensity. On April 7, Seroja began closely interacting with Tropical Low 23U to the northeast, which later became Cyclone Odette, as a result of the Fujiwhara effect. The two storms began closely interacting on April 8, as the two storms drew closer to each other. The interaction initially caused both storms to weaken, though Seroja eventually restrengthen and 23U strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Odette later that day. However, soon afterward, Seroja became the stronger storm and begen to absorb Odette into its circulation. On April 10, Seroja absorbed Odette, before turning to the southeast and strengthening again. The system continued stregthening up until landfall, and the system made landfall on April 12 near Gregory, Western Australia, at peak intensity, as a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone on the Australian region scale and a Category 1-equivalent tropical cyclone on the Saffir–Simpson scale. Afterward, Seroja weakened as it moved inland, and the system transitioned into an extratropical storm, before emerging into the Great Australian Bight. Later that day, Seroja was absorbed by a larger extratropical cyclone to the south. Seroja killed at least 229 people and left another 102 missing, making it the third-deadliest tropical cyclone recorded in the Australian region basin. The storm also caused over $490.7 million (2021 USD) in damages.

Typhoon Surigae near peak intensity on April 17
  • Western Pacific – On March 14, a short-lived tropical depression formed near the Philippines, before dissipating later that day. On April 12, Typhoon Surigae, the fourth depression, second named storm, and first typhoon of the 2021 Pacific typhoon season, formed on April 12. It began a period of rapid intensification on April 16, undergoing a brief eyewall replacement cycle, and reaching its peak intensity on April 17, becoming the most intense typhoon to form in the month of April. At its peak, the storm had a minimum central pressure of 895 mbar (895.0 hPa; 26.43 inHg), maximum 10-minute sustained winds of 220 km/h (140 mph), and maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 305 km/h (190 mph), making the storm a powerful Category 5-equivalent super typhoon on the Saffir–Simpson scale (SSHWS). Afterward, the storm underwent two eyewall replacement cycles, after which the storm became annular by April 20, with a symmetrical shape and a large eye, while moving northwestward, off the coast of the Philippines. Afterward, the storm gradually began to weaken, and its structure began to degrade on April 22, as the system turned northeastward. Weakening accelerated after that, as the storm encountered more unfavorable conditions. Surigae transitioned into a subtropical storm on April 23, before becoming extratropical on the next day. On April 26, Surigae's extratropical remnant underwent explosive intensification as it accelerated northeastward, reaching an extratropical peak of 944 mbar (944.0 hPa; 27.88 inHg) on April 27, as a powerful hurricane-force extratropical cyclone. Afterward, Surigae's remnant gradually weakened, as it turned eastward. On April 30, Surigae's low-pressure center dissipated and was replaced by a new one later that day, marking a center reformation, with the new low-pressure center quickly dominating the storm. Afterward, Surigae's remnants moved into the Gulf of Alaska, before slowing down and turning to the northwest, while rapidly weakening. On May 2, the storm was absorbed into another extratropical cyclone near the Aleutian Islands, on May 2. Late on May 6, this storm was absorbed into yet another extratropical cyclone to the southeast, within the Gulf of Alaska. Surigae brought tropical storm-force winds to Micronesia and Palau and grazed the Philippines as a powerful storm, causing over $10.45 million in damages in U.S. dollars and running the cargo ship LCU Cebu Great Ocean aground, killing 10 people and leaving 8 others missing.
  • North Indian Ocean – On April 2, Depression BOB 01, the first storm of the season, developed over the Andaman Sea. For the next couple of days, the storm slowly moved northward, towards Myanmar, before dissipating on the next day.
  • Australian region – Cyclone Marian moved into the South-West Indian Ocean basin on March 1, before moving back into the Australian region basin on the next day. The storm gradually weakened while moving southeastward, before becoming an extratropical cyclone on March 9. Cyclone Niran, which had formed on February 27, peaked as a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone on March 5, before exiting the basin into the South Pacific basin soon afterward. The storm damaged many of the banana crops in Queensland, causing at least $180 million (2021 USD) in damages in Australia. During the remainder of the month of March, Tropical Lows 18U, 19U, 20U, and 21U formed, but each of those storms dissipated without ever having any significant impacts. On April 2, Tropical Low 23U formed around Indonesia, followed by Tropical Low 22U on April 3; these storms developed into Cyclones Odette and Seroja, respectively. 23U gradually moved southward, before interacting with Cyclone Seroja on April 8, and strengthened into Cyclone Odette later that day. However, the storm was gradually drawn into Seroja's circulation, and on April 10, Odette was absorbed into Seroja. Tropical Low 22U made a slow counterclockwise loop over Indonesia and over Timor from April 2 to 5, causing destructive flooding, and killing at least 229 people. The system strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Seroja on April 4. On April 5, Seroja began to leave Indonesia and moved southwestward. From April 8 to 10, Seroja interacted with the nearby Cyclone Odette, before absorbing the latter on April 10, and turning southeastward. Soon afterward, Seroja strengthened further into a Category 1-equivalent tropical cyclone, strengthening all the way until its landfall near Gregory, Western Australia on April 11. The system became extratropical on April 12 and re-emerged over open water, before being absorbed into another extratropical cyclone later that day. On April 9, a short-lived tropical low formed, before dissipating later that day. On April 23, yet another short-lived tropical low developed, before dissipating on the next day. This was the last storm of the season. The season officially ended on April 30.
  • South-West Indian Ocean – On March 1, Cyclone Marian briefly entered the basin. During that time, MFR decided to defer advisories to the BoM, as the cyclone was expected to re-enter the Australian Region within a short period of time. On March 2, it exited the South-West Indian Ocean basin. The same day, the precursor to Cyclone Habana formed as well as an invest which would become Cyclone Iman. Habana was named 2 days later, and Iman was named on March 7. Cyclone Habana stayed out to sea and did not cause any known damage or deaths. It was quite long lived, spanning 2 weeks and reaching Intense Tropical Cyclone (and Category 4-equivalent) intensity. On the other hand, Cyclone Iman made landfall in Madagascar and Réunion, causing moderate rainfall in the former country and flash floods and heavy winds in the latter. Tropical Depression 15, a brief storm, also formed in late March. After a period of inactivity, Moderate Tropical Storm Jobo was named on April 20. For the next several days, the storm tracked westward, before weakening into a remnant low on April 24 and making landfall on Tanzania shortly afterward. The storm dissipated later that day. On April 30, the season ended for most of the basin, except for the region around Mauritius and Seychelles, for which the season will end on May 15.
  • South Pacific – On March 5, Tropical Depression 11F formed to the southeast of Port Vila, Vanuatu, before dissipating on the next day. On March 5, Cyclone Niran also entered the basin from the Australian region basin, as a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone. The storm gradually weakened as it quickly moved to the southeast, before striking the island of Grande Terre in New Caledonia as a Category 3-equivalent tropical cyclone on March 6. Afterward, the storm raced off towards the southeast and became extratropical later that day, before dissipating on March 8. Niran did at least $20 million in damages in New Caledonia, bringing the storm's damage total to at least $200 million. The storm did not have any reported deaths. On April 9, a tropical low entered the basin from the Australian region basin, which became Tropical Depression 13F. For the next couple of days, the system moved southeastward, making landfall on New Caledonia in the process, and strengthening after it moved back over open waters. However, the system rapidly weakened on April 11 and dissipated later that day. On April 24, the JTWC began monitoring a subtropical system in the eastern part of the basin, which they classified as Subtropical Cyclone 96P. The system was short-lived, as it dissipated late on the next day. No more storms developed in the basin that month. On April 30, the season officially ended.
  • South Atlantic – According to the Brazilian Navy, an extratropical system transitioned into a subtropical depression on April 19. On April 20, the system strengthened into a subtropical storm and was named Potira. The system slowly moved towards the southeast, before dissipating on April 25.

Member of the month (edition) – CycloneFootball71 and CodingCyclone

In this edition of Hurricane Herald, we present CycloneFootball71 and CodingCyclone as the Members of the Month. Both users joined Wikipedia and WPTC in the year 2020, and they helped us navigate into a better place during the COVID-19 pandemic and during the WPTC conflicts in 2020 and 2021. Their participation lifted and maintained our spirits during the tense situations and what's happening in the world. CycloneFootball71 is the kindest WPTC member we have ever seen, actively giving out barnstars and writing out statements that can be considered as "motivational", never targeting anyone, while also making contributions to articles, and participating in talk-page discussions, and occasionally, reverting vandalism. CodingCyclone, meanwhile, gave Wiki-project Tropical Cyclones the first featured list in years, and she helps out with wording, current cyclones, and other neglected timelines, and all around is kind, and thoughtful to everyone within the Wikipedia community. She is someone who has matured to become a great, and experienced editor here. We thank her for all of her contributions, and hope she continues to keep up the great work, and kindness.

Unfortunately, 2020 was not a kind year for the two of them, particularly for CycloneFootball71, as he suffered from numerous illnesses, a few injuries, the loss of a friend (offwiki) and he retired (though he came back, thankfully) numerous times; these troubles even continued into 2021. Meanwhile, CodingCyclone stayed, but she entered a semi-WikiBreak, due to real life matters she had to attend to. However, both of them are editing at full speed now, and helped us realize what 2021 should be, full of hope and a better year than 2020 was.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Thank you, JavaHurricane

JavaHurricane, one of the prominent Wikipedia rollbackers since 2019, decided to quit WikiProject Tropical cyclones in April 7, 2021 after series of arguments regarding how the merger of Tropical storms Amanda and Cristobal was handled (though this was later resolved). This followed a series of events that included numerous edit wars, hostile interactions (involving both members and non-members of the Weather WikiProjects), incompetence issues, and trouble dealing with a number of serial vandals. These issues added on more and more stress to some of our members, with the botched handling of the Amanda/Cristobal merger being the last straw, which culminated in several WPTC members, especially the younger ones, to leave the project. Destroyeraa decided to fully retire from Wikipedia, but LightandDark2000 managed to get him consider rejoining WPTC after a lengthy series of off-wiki discussions, contingent upon the WikiProject improving its conduct. A MoTM of this edition, CycloneFootball71 also decided to retire, following the decision of Destroyeraa to quit WPTC, but quickly reconsidered and instead took an indefinite WikiBreak, which later became a Semi-WikiBreak. LightandDark2000 himself also considered quitting from WPTC and leaving Wikipedia entirely (since WPTC activities are his primary reason for being on Wikipedia in the first place), but he decided to stay for now (unless things continue to grow worse, in which case, a full retirement as a registered user is likely). Another MoTM, CodingCyclone, went on a semi-WikiBreak instead of quitting like some of others did.

Although the worst of the turmoil seems to be over now, WPTC is still slowly recovering from the damage. However, it is clear, unfortunately, that JavaHurricane will not return to the project, due to the loss of faith and time. We hope that this will never happen again. To JavaHurricane himself: thank you. Thanks for all the edits you've made in 2020 and in 2021. You are one of the building blocks that led to the WPTC revival last year. Without you, we would have had more difficulty combating some of the LTAs we've recently dealt with. You've made plenty of quality improvements and also carried out a decent amount of anti-vandalism activities. If you ever wish to rejoin the project, you will always be welcome here. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.

Featured Content

From March 1 to April 30, one featured list was promoted.

From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject-related materials that have appeared on the main page from March 1–April 30, 2021 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List

March 11 – Typhoon Maemi

None during this period.
Did you know...?
None during this period.

There is an article currently nominated as featured list candidate:

Article of the Month: Tropical Storm Rolf

Tropical Storm Rolf, also known as Tropical Storm 01M, was an unusual Mediterranean tropical storm that brought flooding to Italy, France, Spain, and Switzerland in November 2011. Rolf originated from an extratropical system near western France on November 4. For the next few days, Rolf moved eastward into the Mediterranean Sea, before making a slow clockwise loop off the coast of France. Despite the generally unfavorable conditions in the Mediterranean Sea, Rolf transitioned into a subtropical depression on November 7, before becoming a tropical storm later that day and turning northeastward. On November 8, Rolf reached its peak intensity, with 1-minute sustained winds peaking at 85 km/h (50 mph, 45 kn) and a minimum central pressure of 991 mb (29.3 inHg). During the next day, the storm turned westward and made landfall on the island of Île du Levant, in France, and soon afterward, near Hyères in southeastern France. Following its second landfall, Rolf quickly weakened, dissipating on November 10. Rolf was the first tropical cyclone ever to be officially monitored by the NOAA in the Mediterranean Sea.

Rolf caused widespread flooding across southwestern Europe, especially in France and Italy, with the majority of the damage from the storm occurring in those two countries. Torrential rainfall from Rolf caused multiple rivers to overflow their banks in France and Italy, flooding multiple cities and resulting in extensive property damage. The storm forced numerous schools and businesses to close temporarily, and also caused significant damage to 300 farms in France. Floodwaters from Rolf's rainfall also cut the power to over 8,000 customers and necessitated thousands of rescues, in addition to forcing thousands of evacuations. The storm also caused the largest flood event seen in Gipuzkoa, in northern Spain since 1983. Rolf killed 12 people, and the storm was also the costliest Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone in the 2010s, with the storm causing at least $1.25 billion (2011 USD, €925 million) in damages.

Current assessment table

Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 166 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,012 good articles. There are only 120 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 416 C-class articles, 832 start-class articles, and 200 stub-class articles, with 27 lists, and 7 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

How to Cite Sources on Tropical Cyclone Articles, by LightandDark2000

In my years of experiences here on WPTC (and on Wikipedia, in general), I've noticed that citing sources properly is a skillset that many editors are lacking in. While a good number of the experienced editors are familiar with how to fill out citations on Wikipedia, this is something that the most of the newer editors struggle with, especially those who have never written a research paper before. Given the influx of new members in WPTC over the past year, I've decided to write a simple tutorial on how to properly complete citations in tropical cyclone articles.

First of all, lets start with a standard citation template. This format will be used for the vast majority of citations on tropical cyclone articles:
<ref>{{cite web|url=|title=|website=|author= |publisher=|location=|date=|access-date=}}</ref>

For our example, lets use this special "Tropical Cyclone Update" advisory for Hurricane Isaias, which was issued when the storm made landfall in North Carolina, early on August 4, 2020 (UTC time).

  1. Every citation template is enclosed by the "<ref></ref>" tags. Since we are using a reference template instead of a bare citation, we also have double brackets enclosing the interior of the template. We are citing a web page, so we will enter in "cite web" after the first set of brackets. You can either type out the entire template manually, copy and paste the citation template from above, or use a citation tool (if you know how to use those).
  2. To cite this source, first, create or paste the citation template above right after the chunk where you want to cite it (immediately after the period, comma, or whatever punctuation mark is present). Copy the website url (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2020/al09/al092020.update.08040316.shtml) and paste it after "url=". For NHC and CPHC advisories, please DO NOT EVER use the live/refresh links. Those links are unstable and change each time a new advisory is issued. Only use the links from the Advisory Archives, such as this archive for 2020.
  3. Next, copy the title of the advisory and paste it after "title=". The advisory/discussion titles for NHC publications are near the top of the page, below the page heading and below the first lines of text identifying the publication. For NHC publications, the title is located on the third line of text, on the second "paragraph" or group of text. The title for this advisory is "Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update".
  4. If the source is in a language other than English, then we will also add the "|language=" parameter and specify the language. However, if the source is in English, then this parameter isn't needed.
  5. Then, enter in the website title or url for the "website=". For most citations, we use either the "website=" or "publisher=" parameter instead of using both of them; however, we can use them both if the title of the website is significantly different from the name of the publisher. In this example, the website url is "nhc.noaa.gov", so we would enter in this url address after "website=" if we were to use this parameter.
  6. After that, enter in the name of the author. We either use the "Last name, First name (and middle initial)" format, or the "Full name (first and last names)" format. Use only one format for consistency. For this example, we will use the "full name" format, as it would naturally appear on print. If there are more than one author, we would add a number after the "author=" parameter, such as "author1=". There are three authors for this advisory, whose last names are: Brown, Zelinsky, and Beven. Simply entering in the last name is NOT ENOUGH. We need their full names. For the NHC and NWS employees, you may need to do a little bit of research to find out their full names (or ask another more experienced editor here on WPTC), which isn't that difficult. A quick Google search shows that their full names are: Daniel Brown, David Zelinsky, and Jack Beven. So then, fill out the author portion of the citation template as follows: "author1=Daniel Brown|author2=David Zelinsky|author3=Jack Beven".
  7. Then, enter in the name of the publisher, at "publisher=". For our example, this would be the National Hurricane Center. Since this is an official advisory/bulletin involving a government agency/organization, we also need to fill out the "location=" parameter to indicate the location of the agency's headquarters (we don't need this parameter for citing standard news articles or webpages). The NHC is based in Miami, Florida, so we would fill out the next part of the citation as "location=Miami, Florida".
  8. After you have completed the previous steps, enter in both the date and the access-date. We use either the "Month Day, Year" format or the "Day Month Year" format for our citations (the name of the month is fully written out). For the sake of consistency, please use ONLY ONE format. It should remain consistent throughout the article. For this example, we will use the "Month Day, Year" format used in American English, since the NHC's areas of responsibility primarily involve the United States and the Western Hemisphere. The "date" is the date on which the publication or article was published. We use UTC time to determine the date. The advisory was published on 11:15 EDT on August 3, 2020. This is roughly equivalent to 03:15 UTC on August 4, 2020, so the date is "August 4, 2020". The accessdate is the day on which YOU accessed or read the publication. Let's say that you read the advisory on August 6, UTC time. Then, the accessdate would be "August 6, 2020". The dates for this citation should be filled out in this manner: "date=August 4, 2020|access-date=August 6, 2020"

Once you have done all of this, your completed citation should have the following code:
<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2020/al09/ al092020.update.08040316.shtml |title=Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update|website=nhc.noaa.gov|author1=Daniel Brown|author2=David Zelinsky|author3=Jack Beven|publisher=National Hurricane Center|location=Miami, Florida|date=August 4, 2020|access-date=August 6, 2020|language=en-US}}</ref>

Which should appear as follows in the article:[1]

With this tutorial, hopefully you now know how to properly cite sources within tropical cyclone articles. Properly citing sources is a crucial skill on Wikipedia. It allows you to make complete, professional references that can be accessed and reused by just about any other editor. Additionally, creating incomplete or improper citations forces other more experienced users to clean up after you, which not only wastes time, but also prevents an article from becoming a Good Article or Featured Article until these issues are completely resolved. Citing sources is an important skill and one that every experienced editor is expected to master. Citing sources takes time to learn, so don't be discouraged if you don't fully master the art at the beginning. As with everything else in life, new skills require "practice" to perfect, and as you cite more and more sources, you'll find that citing sources becomes easier and faster for you. I hope you find this guide useful in your journey on Wikipedia. May it help mold you into a superb writer, like many other experienced editors who have come before you. Best of luck, and happy editing! ~ LightandDark2000 🌀

  1. ^ Daniel Brown; David Zelinsky; Jack Beven (August 4, 2020). "Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update". nhc.noaa.gov. Miami, Florida: National Hurricane Center. Retrieved August 6, 2020.

Destroyeraa and the Project, by Chicdat, CodingCyclone, CycloneFootball71, MarioJump83, and LightandDark2000

Destroyeraa registered his account on Wikipedia in January 2020. He gained experience like all of us, and received several user rights in the process. He improved several articles to GA status, the first being Hurricane Dolores (2015). He made WikiProject Tropical cyclones a good place to be. He made some mistakes, of course, but learned from them quickly. But by 2021, real life seemed to be catching up to Destroyeraa. He went into periods of semi-wikibreaks. His editing became more sporadic. He has not edited since March 3, 2021. WikiProject Tropical cyclones has experienced plenty of turmoil since then, especially in late March and early April. Some users have been very hostile. There has been copyright problems. Drama is being created. With the exception of a few remarks by LightandDark2000 on-wiki, the project has not heard from him for a long time. I wish that he would come back, and I miss him. When Destroyeraa went, it seems that the short revival of WikiProject Tropical cyclones went with him as well. I came as the renewal of WPTC was beginning, so I knew no other state of the project.

To Destroyeraa himself: Please come back. You made the WikiProject a good place to be. I miss you so much; you were like a real life friend. ~ 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me!

Destroyeraa was the person who invited me to the project. Like many others, his hard work and diligence made him a role model to me. Without him, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. He gave me advice when I was trying to improve Hurricane Fran (which I never completed, but would like to do as an honor to him) and helped me realize some of my earlier edits were a bit CIR-y and disruptive (albeit unintentionally). He was always unfailingly civil and helped other editors when they were down. He also created the Cyclone Cup which is actually really fun and something that I personally would never have thought of, and is helping to drive some people to create and improve more articles. To me, he was a symbol of the rebirth of WPTC. When he left, it seemed as though that age disappeared. I know that real life always takes precedence over Wikipedia, but hopefully he can figure out how to balance the two and come back soon. CodingCyclone! 🌀 📘

Destroyeraa has had a profound effect on the WPTC. He has been so helpful and kind throughout his time on Wikipedia, and I want to thank him for that. He has done so much for us throughout his time here, and Wikipedia has not been the same for the project since he left. He has helped me through lots, during some very difficult times, and he has been a great friend. He helped me create my first Opinion piece ever, which helped me get into editing these newsletters for the editors of this project. Despite some mistakes, he overcame these and became even better than before, and he really inspired me to improve myself in the realm of editing tropical cyclones. He did so much for this project, and me and the rest of this Wikiproject want to thank him for all that he has done. I am not sure what else to say, as Chicdat and CodingCyclone said everything that was in my mind. However, he was a great friend. Destroyeraa, you will be missed here on Wikipedia. I hope one day you may return and regain your faith in WPTC again, but for now, I only hope and wish for the absolute best for your life. Thank you again. 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox

Destroyeraa brought me to speed during my initial WPTC tenure as SMB99thx, since I was not that active in my first years and also not aware of Wikipedia's changing guards, like newer users having advanced permissions so quickly, having many user scripts, very communicative on-and-off-wiki (i.e. using Discord), and so much more that I don't understand back when I first joined in WPTC. By learning from him, eventually, I did have the same advanced permissions like his up to last month, having many user-scripts, as well as using a custom theme for Wikipedia, which is not Vector, and its very cool! Without him, I may have been going into a path Chicdat is currently taking right now, as Chicdat wasn't able to stay as a page mover and a rollbacker early in his Wikipedia career, then got into several troubles which led me into adopting him. Now, I am going to give him lessons that I learned from Destroyeraa himself. Other than that, I don't have anything much to say about him, but I hope he's back again to help me once more, and bring me further growth as an editor going forward, which could potentially assist me at shepherding Chicdat into a better place. MarioJump83!

The others above have pretty much captured what I would like to say, and since Destroyeraa and I have stayed in contact off-wiki, I'll make this brief. Destroyeraa was a one-of-a-kind. I've been here for 12 years now, and I have to say that I've rarely ever come across someone like him; even less so in real life. The work he has done in just one year on Wikipedia (as a registered user) is absolutely astounding; it took me 6 years for my editing to reach that level of professionalism. I have not seen anyone like him show up on WPTC since Hurricane Noah joined in 2017. He is really smart, and he is also one of the nicest people I've ever met. And he's a very good friend as well. Destroyeraa, I bet you were able to guess most of what I said here, but you should know that you're a real gem. Those of us here miss you, and there are others as well. And I did tell you that your absence would be felt, didn't I? Regardless of what you think, what you do here does and will affect us. I'm very happy that you've decided to come back this summer, once you get out of school. I hope to see you around the place then. Your friend, LightandDark2000 🌀


48th issue of Hurricane Herald newsletter

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Volume XLVII, Issue 48, September 4, 2021
←(Previous issues) 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 →


The Hurricane Herald: 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Special Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue your subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project-related events from May 1–September 3, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are LightandDark2000, MarioJump83, HurricaneParrot, CodingCyclone, CycloneFootball71, HurricaneCovid, HurricaneEdgar, Jason Rees, and Destroyeraa (the MoTM for this issue). Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • A CCI case was filed concerning WPTC.
  • The second round of the Cyclone Cup ended earlier than expected on June 13. Jason Rees was eliminated with 0 points. CodingCyclone was in the lead for this round with 105 points for getting Timeline of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season to FL, along with completing a couple reviews and helping Tropical Storm Fay (2020) get to GA. She was followed by MarioJump83 with 80 points for getting Cyclone Owen and Cyclone Kelvin to GA, and LightandDark2000 with 40 points for ITN recognitions and various reviews. HurricaneCovid also managed with 10 points for creating April 2021 nor'easter. The third round ended on September 1. HurricaneCovid was eliminated with 0 points. LightandDark2000 took first place this round with 130 points, from getting two GAs, two DYK nominations, and various reviews. He was followed by CodingCyclone at 50 points, for getting one GA and conducting a couple of reviews. MarioJump came in third, with 10 points.
  • WPTC and WPSVR were merged into WikiProject Weather as subprojects in early July, following a series of discussions. Please see the WPTC talk page and Archive 47 of the WPTC talk page for more details. The merger should be fully completed by the end of the year, after WikiProject Meteorlogy is merged into WP Weather.
  • A new, user-friendly track map generator for WPTC was created by CodingCactus and CodingCyclone. After a few weeks of work, the track map generator is essentially completed and ready for use. A downloadable software version was developed and released shortly afterward, which can be found here. The online version of the new track map generator can be found here. There is currently an RfC on the WPTC talk page on whether it can be used to upload tracks on Commons.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

Member of the month (Editor's Pick) – Nova Crystallis and Supportstorm

In this edition of Hurricane Herald, I (MarioJump83, one of the Hurricane Herald editors) am going to award Nova Crystallis and Supportstorm with my pick. Both of them are second-generation of WPTC members who joined Wikipedia in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Their most notable work were off-wiki: Nova Crystallis created the WPTC Discord server in August 2018, an idea of Hurricane Noah's, and has since then administered the server to this day, including several server cleanups on the occasions of server disruptions. Supportstorm, meanwhile, is one of the most prolific track creator in all of WPTC, which led some WPTC members (Janm 7 in particular) to ask him for tracks, and as of now, he's actively converting track images from JPG into PNG versions, including the creation of tropical cyclones by year tracks. However, their on-wiki work deserve appreciation as well, since Nova Crystallis has created numerous GA-class WPAC pre-1980 typhoon articles pre-1980, in addition to actively creating GAs for WikiProject U.S. Roads, while Supportstorm takes their time to add their tracks into the articles once they're done and was once assisted in the creation of 1960s North Indian Ocean cyclone season articles back in 2013.

2018 Featured Topic Update
Featured Articles promoted (May 1–September 3)
Good Articles promoted (May 1–September 3)
Current Candidates
New Articles (Only B-Class and below, May 1–September 3)
Recent updates

As we entered the summer and the start of the Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone seasons, several users wrote new articles for the FT project and brought several to GA status.

We are recruiting

If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to Hurricane Noah, LightandDark2000, or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Current assessment table

As of this issue, there are 162 featured articles and 81 featured lists. There are 3 A-class articles, and 1121 good articles. There are only 173 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 669 C-class articles, 793 start-class articles, and 137 stub-class articles, with 1127 lists, and 0 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the four milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
August 2021 Hurricane Ida
July 2021 Typhoon In-fa
June 2021 Tropical Storm Claudette (2021)
May 2021 Cyclone Tauktae
April 2021 Cyclone Seroja
March 2021 Cyclone Niran
February 2021 Cyclone Guambe
January 2021 Cyclone Eloise
Storm of the Year 2020 Hurricane Eta
December 2020 Cyclone Yasa
November 2020 Hurricane Iota
October 2020 Typhoon Goni (2020)
September 2020 Cyclone Ianos
August 2020 Hurricane Laura

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for May, June, July, and August

SoTM for May: Cyclone Tauktae

Tauktae originated from a tropical disturbance, which was first monitored by the India Meteorological Department on May 13. The disturbance drifted eastward and organized into a deep depression by May 14. The storm soon took a northward turn, continuing to gradually intensify, and the system strengthened into a cyclonic storm and was named Tauktae later that same day. Tauktae continued intensifying into May 15, reaching severe cyclonic storm status later that day. Tauktae began to parallel the coast of the Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra, before rapidly intensifying into a very severe cyclonic storm, early on May 16. Early on May 17, Tauktae intensified into an extremely severe cyclonic storm, reaching its peak intensity soon afterward. Later that same day, Tauktae underwent an eyewall replacement cycle and weakened, before restrengthening as it neared the coast of Gujarat, making landfall soon afterward. After making landfall, Tauktae gradually weakened as it turned northeastward, moving further inland. On May 19, Tauktae weakened into a well-marked low-pressure area. Tauktae brought heavy rainfall and flash floods to areas along the coast of Kerala and on Lakshadweep. There were reports of heavy rain in the states of Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra as well. Tauktae resulted in at least 169 deaths in India, and left another 81 people missing. There were also 5 deaths reported in Pakistan. The storm displaced over 200,000 people in Gujarat. The cyclone also caused widespread infrastructure and agricultural damage to the western coast of India.

SoTM for June: Tropical Storm Claudette (2021)

Claudette originated from a broad trough of low pressure over the Bay of Campeche on June 12, which moved erratically over the region for the next several days. Moving northward with little development due to unfavorable upper-level winds and land interaction, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) initiated advisories on it as a Potential Tropical Cyclone late on June 17, due to its imminent threat to land. The disturbance finally organized into Tropical Storm Claudette at 09:00 UTC on June 19 as it was over southeast Louisiana. Claudette weakened to a depression as it turned east-northeastward before moving through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Baroclinic forcing then caused Claudette to reintensify into a tropical storm over North Carolina early on June 21 before it accelerated into the Atlantic Ocean later that day. Soon afterward, it degenerated into a low-pressure trough on the same day, before being absorbed into another extratropical cyclone on the next day.

Claudette produced gusty winds, flash flooding, and tornadoes across much of the Southeastern United States. Claudette overall caused minor impacts along the Gulf of Campeche’s coastline due to the system stalling in the region as an Invest and a Potential Tropical Cyclone. Impacts were most severe in Alabama and Mississippi, where heavy rains caused flash flooding. Several tornadoes in the states also caused severe damage, including an EF2 tornado that damaged a school and destroyed parts of a mobile home park in East Brewton, Alabama, injuring 20 people. At least 14 people died in Alabama due to the storm. Total economic losses across the United States exceeded $350 million.

SoTM for July: Typhoon In-fa

In-fa was first noted by the JTWC as an area of low pressure, located east of the Philippines on July 14. Favorable conditions helped the storm to intensify, becoming a tropical depression, two days later and a tropical storm on July 17, being assigned the name In-fa by the Japan Meteorological Agency. Located in a weak steering environment, the system struggled to organize under dry air and moderate wind shear before organizing further. It continued to move mostly westward, strengthening into a typhoon and deepening quickly. The storm struggled to organize itself significantly due to continuous dry air intrusions and its frequent motion changes. On July 21, it reached its peak intensity, with maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 175 km/h (110 mph), and 10-minute sustained winds of 150 km/h (90 mph) on the system. Nevertheless, the system reached its minimum barometric pressure of 950 hPa (28.05 inHg), three days later, after passing through the Ryukyu Islands. As it entered the East China Sea, marginal conditions started to take their toll on the system, with In-fa weakening steadily and slowly, until it made its consecutive landfalls over Putuo District of Zhoushan and Pinghu on July 25 and 26, respectively, as a tropical storm. For the next couple of days, the storm slowly moved inland while gradually weakening, before turning northward on July 29. Later that day, In-fa weakened into a remnant low over northern China. The remnants continued their northward trek for another couple of days, before dissipating near North Korea on July 31.

Typhoon In-fa exacerbated and played a part in starting the 2021 Henan floods, a flooding event that killed at least 302 people and dealt upwards of 82 billion yuan (US$12.7 billion) in damage, while leaving at least 50 people missing. The typhoon itself killed 6 people and caused at least $2 billion in damages.

  • North Atlantic – The NHC started issuing tropical weather outlooks on May 15, before the Atlantic's first system, Tropical Storm Ana, formed on May 22. This continued the trend of systems forming, before the official start of the season on June 1, for the seventh year in a row. During June, three tropical cyclones developed in the basin: Tropical Storms Bill, Claudette, and Danny. Bill remained off the East Coast of the United States and had limited impacts. Claudette was designated as Potential Tropical Cyclone Three and organized into a tropical storm at landfall. The system subsequently moved through the Southeastern United States. Danny was a short-lived tropical storm that made landfall in South Carolina, before dissipating on the next day. On July 1, Hurricane Elsa developed east of the Lesser Antilles and rapidly intensified into a Category 1 hurricane in the Caribbean; however, due to the storm's rapid forward motion and wind shear, Elsa weakened back into a tropical storm. It passed just north of Jamaica and made landfall on Cuba, before emerging into the Gulf of Mexico. Elsa briefly regained Category 1 hurricane intensity, before weakening back into a tropical storm and making landfall on Florida on July 8. The storm moved up the East Coast of the US, becoming extratropical on July 9 and dissipating on July 14. In August, six tropical cyclones developed: Tropical Storm Fred, Hurricanes Grace, Henri, and Ida, Tropical Storms Kate and Julian (Kate was named later), and Hurricane Larry. Fred developed on August 11. The system impacted Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba, before degenerating back into a tropical wave on August 14. On August 15, Fred regenerated into a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico, before making landfall on the Florida Panhandle on August 16. The storm weakened into a remnant low on August 18, while moving through the Eastern United States, before dissipating on August 20. Hurricane Grace developed on August 13. The system took a westward track and affected much of the Caribbean, before strengthening into a Category 1 hurricane and making landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula on August 19. Afterward, Grace rapidly intensified in the Gulf of Mexico, before making landfall on Veracruz as a Category 3 major hurricane. Grace rapidly weakened afterward, degenerating into a remnant disturbance on August 21. Grace's remnants would later cross into the East Pacific and redevelop into Tropical Storm Marty. Henri developed to the east of Bermuda on August 16. The system made a slow counterclockwise loop off the East Coast of the US, before turning northward and developing into a Category 1 hurricane on August 21. On the next day, Henri weakened back into a tropical storm and made landfall on Rhode Island, before proceeding to make a slow westward loop over New England for a day, causing widespread flooding across the region. Henri subsequently turned eastward and weakened into a remnant low, before dissipating on August 24. On August 26, Hurricane Ida developed in the Caribbean. The system intensified into a Category 1 hurricane on August 27, before making landfall on western Cuba and emerging into the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequently, Ida began to undergo rapid intensification, as it moved northeastward. Ida peaked as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on August 29, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 929 millibars (27.4 inHg), making landfall in Louisiana at a similar intensity, becoming one of the most powerful hurricanes recorded making landfall on the state. Ida became extratropical on September 1, subsequently causing historic flooding and a tornado outbreak in the Northeastern United States. On September 3, Ida stalled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, before being absorbed into a developing low on the next day. The current death toll is at 71, and the damage total is estimated to exceed $50 billion (2021 USD), making Ida the sixth-costliest tropical cyclone on record. On August 28, Tropical Storm Kate developed over the Tropical Atlantic and proceeded to move northward. On the next day, Julian developed and tracked in a similar direction. On August 31, Hurricane Larry developed over the Tropical Atlantic, becoming a Category 3 major hurricane on September 2.
  • East Pacific – The East Pacific hurricane season officially started on May 15. The NHC issued its first advisory of the year on the first tropical system, Tropical Storm Andres, on May 9. Andres broke the record for the earliest named storm formation on record, beating 2017's Tropical Storm Adrian by about a day. Tropical Storm Blanca developed near the end of that month and remained offshore. Tropical Storm Carlos originated as a tropical disturbance near southern Mexico on June 2, though the system failed to coalesce into a tropical cyclone until June 12. The second half of the month saw the formation of Tropical Storm Dolores and Hurricane Enrique. Dolores made landfall in southwestern Mexico as a high-end tropical storm, while Enrique paralleled the southwestern coast of Mexico, before dissipating over the southern Baja California Peninsula. July saw the development of four systems: Hurricane Felicia, Tropical Storm Guillermo, Hurricane Hilda, and Tropical Storm Jimena. Felicia developed into a powerful Category 4 annular hurricane, and peaked with maximum sustained winds of 125 kn (145 mph; 230 km/h) and a minimum barometric pressure of 947 mbar (27.96 inHg). Guillermo and Hilda both remained offshore, with very little impacts. Jimena developed on August 30, and remained at sea. In August, five tropical cyclones developed in the basin, including: Tropical Storms Ignacio and Kevin, Hurricane Linda, Tropical Storm Marty, and Hurricane Nora. Both Ignacio and Kevin remained offshore and had minimal impacts. Hurricane Linda developed into a Category 4 hurricane and was a long-lived annular hurricane, peaking with maximum sustained winds of 115 kn (130 mph; 215 km/h) and minimum pressure of 950 mb (28.05 inHg). Linda gradually weakened as it moved westward, entering the Central Pacific on August 20 and becoming post-tropical shortly afterward. On August 21, the remnants of Hurricane Grace from the North Atlantic entered the basin, before regenerating into Tropical Storm Marty on August 23. Marty dissipated shortly afterward. On August 25, Nora developed to the south of Mexico. The storm eventually developed into a hurricane on August 28 and paralleled the western coast of Mexico.
  • Central Pacific – The Central Pacific hurricane season officially started on June 1. Hurricane Linda's post-tropical remnant entered the basin on August 20. On August 23, Linda's remnants struck Hawaii as a tropical storm-force low, before the remnants were last noted on the next day.
  • West Pacific – On May 11, Tropical Depression 02W (Crising) to the southeast of the Philippines, marking the formation of the third system in the basin. Crising moved across the southern Philippines, before dissipating. This was followed by another unnamed tropical depression and Tropical Storm Choi-wan later that month; the latter affected the Philippines and Taiwan. In June, three systems developed: Tropical Storm Koguma, Typhoon Champi, and another unnamed tropical depression. Koguma affected Hainan and northern Vietnam, while Champi passed to the east of Japan. Activity picked up in July, with 12 tropical cyclones developing, including: Tropical Depressions 07W (Emong) and 08W, Typhoon In-fa, Severe Tropical Storm Cempaka (known in China as "Typhoon Cempaka"), Tropical Storm Nepartak, and four other unnamed tropical depressions. Emong passed near southern Taiwan, before making landfall in China. 08W tracked through the Philippines, Hainan, and northern Vietnam, during its lifetime. Typhoon In-fa struck China in late July and slowly moved inland, exacerbating the already-devastating 2021 Henan floods. Cempaka slowly moved ashore in southern China and made a counterclockwise loop through southern China and the Gulf of Tonkin, before dissipating; Cempaka was classified as a typhoon at its peak intensity by both the China Meteorological Agency (CMA) and the JTWC. Napartak exhibited subtropical characteristics for most of its lifetime and made landfall in northern Japan. Activity continued into August, with six more tropical cyclones developing. These included an unnamed tropical depression, Tropical Depression 12W, and Tropical Storms Tropical Storm Lupit, Nida, Mirinae, and Omais. 12W developed on August 1; the system eventually dissipated on August 6, near southern Japan. Lupit affected a large swath of areas, from southern China, to Taiwan, to Japan, before eventually dissipating. Nida developed to the east of Japan and remained offshore, before becoming extratropical on August 8. The storm's remnants accelerated northeastward, eventually making landfall on Alaska on August 10. Mirinae developed to the east of Taiwan, and tracked close to the east coast of Japan, before becoming extratropical on August 10. The storm's remnants accelerated eastward across the Pacific, making landfall in western Canada on August 15. Omais developed near the International Date Line on August 10, and the system tracked westward. Omais became extratropical on August 24, but its remnants went on to affect South Korea, northern Japan, and part of the Russian Far East, before dissipating. Despite the burst of storm formation in July and August, activity in the West Pacific has been below-average, as of this writing.
  • North Indian Ocean – The first cyclone of the year, Cyclone Tauktae, formed on May 14, and intensified into an Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm on the IMD scale, and a Category 4-equivalent tropical cyclone on the SSHWS scale. Tauktae made landfall in Gujarat on May 17, before dissipating two days later. The second cyclone of the season, Cyclone Yaas, formed on May 23, and made landfall along the Odisha coast on May 26, before dissipating on May 28.
  • South-West Indian Ocean – On May 15, the South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season officially ended for the region around Mauritius and Seychelles.
  • Australian region – On May 31, a tropical low, the last system of the season, formed to the west-northwest of the Cocos Islands. The tropical low continued moving southeastward, before it was last noted on June 3, bringing the 2020–21 tropical cyclone year to a close.
  • South Atlantic tropical cyclone – On June 29, Subtropical Storm Roani developed to the southeast of Brazil, just outside of the Brazilian Navy's area of responsiblity; as such, the storm went unnamed at the time. On the next day, the system entered the Brazilian Navy's area of responsibility and was assigned the name Raoni. The storm soon peaked as a powerful subtropical cyclone, with a minimum central pressure of 986 millibars (29.1 inHg) and maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 50 mph (85 km/h), according to the Brazilian Navy, making Roani the most powerful tropical or subtropical cyclone in the South Atlantic since Hurricane Catarina in 2004. Roani took a northeastward track while gradually weakening, before degenerating into a remnant low on July 2. Roani's extratropical precursor brought powerful gusts and heavy rain to parts of Brazil. From June 24 to July 2, Raoni contributed to an unusually-strong cold wave across portions of South America, setting record low temperatures and bringing rare snowfall to parts of the region.

Member of the month (edition) – Destroyeraa

Destroyeraa joined Wikipedia as an IP editor in 2018. His edits back then were sparse, mostly involving correcting typos and grammar articles in articles that he read. In 2019, he began editing more often, and he started editing articles on weather, especially those on storms in the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. Although he contributed to those articles, his edits appeared to go unnoticed. On January 17, 2020 (January 18, UTC time), Destroyeraa created his user account on Wikipedia. In May of that year, he joined WPTC, though no one welcomed him for a month. Around this time, he co-created his first article, Tropical Storm Bertha (2020). He also began contributing larger amounts of contents to articles, in addition to creating new ones. In July 2020, Destroyeraa created an article for Hurricane Dolores (2015), which became his first GA later that month. By this time, he had become a regular WPTC editor and a key contributor, often updating the articles for various storms, such as Hurricane Isaias. As time went on, Destroyeraa contributed more content and built up his accomplishments. In October, he got Dolores's article posted to the Did You Know? section on the Main Page, and he got more articles promoted to GA status as well. He also started engaging in anti-vandalism activities, combatting multiple vandals and even some LTAs. However, he was blocked for a week for engaging in sockpuppetry.

Nevertheless, after his block, Destroyeraa resumed contributing to various articles, and he also helped out with the workings of WPTC. In January 2021, Destroyeraa created the Cyclone Cup, a fun competition based on the WikiCup for WikiProject Weather users to participate in, in order to help encourage more article creation and the improvement of article quality. However, by March 2021, his school work caught up with him, and he was forced to take a WikiBreak for the next few months. In early April, Destroyeraa made the decision to retire from Wikipedia, due to a recent spate of drama and negative behavior on WPTC; however, after some off-wiki persuasion, he was persuaded to change his mind. In June 2021, Destroyeraa officially returned to WPTC. While he was a lot more inactive, largely due to summer assignments and real-life activities, he still contributed to Wikipedia from time to time. As of the publication of this newsletter, Destroyeraa has created 24 articles and brought five articles to GA status. He has become one of the most accomplished WPTC users who joined post-2020, and he plans on continuing his work in the future. We wish him the best of luck in his future on Wikipedia and in his studies at school, and we hope to continue seeing him around here.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
  1. Sleepinthestars (talk · contribs)
  2. SR.1111111 (talk · contribs)
  3. BiddybudBoy (talk · contribs)
  4. CycloneEditor (talk · contribs)
  5. TheGreatSpring (talk · contribs) (Has since gone inactive)
  6. Kayree kh (talk · contribs)
  7. Destroyeraa (talk · contribs) (Rejoined)
  8. SolarisPenguin (talk · contribs)
  9. SsSsSølarRadia -75 (talk · contribs)
  10. Nakosi (talk · contribs)
  11. Kritphon (talk · contribs)
  12. FreeWikiFrog (talk · contribs)
  13. Drdpw (talk · contribs)
  14. André L P Souza (talk · contribs)
  15. HurricaneIcy (talk · contribs) (Rejoined)
  16. Kellis7 (talk · contribs)
  17. ElenaCyclone (talk · contribs)

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Thank you, TropicalAnalystwx13, MarioJump83, DachshundLover82, and Cyclone Toby

TropicalAnalystwx13 left Wikipedia in September 2020 without notice. He was one of the most prominent content contributors within the past decade, and he also welcomed some of the other users when they joined. Within the past few months, MarioJump83 went into semi-retirement, and both DachshundLover82 (previously known as Robloxsupersuperhappyface) and Cyclone Toby decided to fully retire from Wikipedia. These users made their decisions after suffering from a lack of interest in editing, a variety of real-life issues (including health issues for DachshundLover82), and also a lack of time. MarioJump83 was an invaluable editor who had made many edits and written multiple aritcles and GAs, and they also brought new users to WPTC, in addition to mentoring Chicdat. DachshundLover82 and Cyclone Toby were both seasoned article writers, having authored multiple articles and even promoting some articles to GA status. Each of these users were MoTM picks in recent issues of The Hurricane Herald. We wish them the best in life and hope to see them again someday.

Featured Content

From May 1 to September 3, a featured list, a featured article, and a featured topic were promoted:

From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from May 1–September 3, 2021 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List
Did you know...?

There is an article currently nominated for featured article status:

Article of the Month: 2018 Pacific hurricane season

The 2018 Pacific hurricane season was one of the most active Pacific hurricane seasons on record, producing the highest accumulated cyclone energy value on record in the basin. The season saw 26 tropical cyclones, 23 named storms – the fourth-highest value recorded, tied with 1982, 13 hurricanes, and 10 major hurricanes, in addition to one unofficial subtropical storm. The season also featured eight landfalls, six of which occurred in Mexico. The season officially began on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific, and on June 1 in the Central Pacific; they both ended on November 30. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Pacific basin. However, tropical cyclone formation is possible at any time of the year, as illustrated when the first tropical depression formed on May 10, five days prior to the official start of the season.

The accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) index for the 2018 Pacific hurricane season was around 316 units. Broadly speaking, ACE is a measure of the power of a tropical or subtropical storm multiplied by the length of time it existed. Therefore, a stronger storm with a longer duration contributes more to the seasonal total than several short-lived, weaker storms combined. 2018 had the highest total ACE of any Pacific hurricane season on record, having surpassed the 1992 Pacific hurricane season.

Tropical Cyclone Anniversary: August 29, 2005 – Hurricane Katrina

On Monday, August 29, 2005, at 6:10 a.m. CDT (11:10 UTC), Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Buras-Triumph, Louisiana, before making another landfall near the Louisiana–Mississippi border, a few hours later. The storm made landfall as a powerful high-end Category 3 hurricane, with maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) and a central pressure of 920 millibars (27 inches of mercury). The storm had weakened from its peak as a Category 5 hurricane, due to an eyewall replacement cycle. Katrina caused the levee system in New Orleans to fail, flooding the city, and causing enormous amounts of destruction. The floods also ended up killing many residents of the city. In all, Katrina killed 1,836 people and caused an estimated $125 billion (2005 USD) in damages, making the storm the costliest hurricane on record in the United States and also worldwide (tied with Hurricane Harvey, without factoring in inflation), and also making the storm one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the United States in the 21st century.

My Experience on Wikipedia, by LightandDark2000

I joined Wikipedia as an IP editor on May 1, 2009 (May 2, if you go by UTC time). Although a couple of users encouraged me to make an account early on, I decided to continue editing articles from my IPs for the next few years. I just felt that I wasn't ready for a user account yet. In 2010–11, I experienced hounding from another user on some TV show articles, which made me withdraw from those articles for a while and briefly consider quitting Wikipedia. I registered my user account in May 2012, but I spent another year on Wikipedia as an IP editor, before fully transitioning over to my account in the summer of 2013. I also created my first articles in 2012. I pretty much grew used to using my account and decided to stick with it. :) In March 2014, I received an invitation to join WPTC, which I obviously accepted. I had considered myself a member of WPTC since 2012, but I didn't really know about WikiProjects, much less how to join them (otherwise, I would've joined much earlier). Since 2010, I had regularly contributed to articles. While I didn't have a solid grasp of how to cite sources at the time, I managed to contribute a good a mount of content, in addition to cleaning up spelling and grammar errors. As time went on, my article-writing skills improved, and so did my knowledge of Wikipedia policies. I will admit: I did have difficulty at times, and my temper got me into trouble from time to time. However, these mistakes made me more determined to better myself, and avoid the same missteps in the future. I also engaged in anti-vandalism activities quite often, which brought me into conflict with IPhonehurricane95 and his copycap, Lightning Sabre, whom can be considered the two most vicious LTAs that WPTC has had to deal with. In late 2014–early 2017, I largely moved out of WPTC into MILHIST, due to my interest in the recent conflicts involving the terrorist organization ISIL in the Middle East. I contributed a lot to those articles, though I still contributed to tropical cyclone and other weather articles from time to time. I had made some friends on-wiki by this point, including Master of Time and EkoGraf. In early April 2016, a small number of users were fed up with some of my edits and decided to launch a witchhunt in order to get me topic banned (or even completely banned, for some). While the case was eventually dropped, it was very disturbing to me and made me consider permanently retiring from Wikipedia. In August 2016, the combination of college work and stress led me to take a 3-month WikiBreak. I pulled a full exit and considered never coming back.

However, I enjoyed contributing to Wikipedia too much (hehe), and during my winter break, I returned and resumed editing. In 2017, my editing activity gradually ramped up, and in September 2017, I returned to WPTC, following the devastating landfall of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. During my time in MILHIST, my citation skills had greatly improved. Once again, I regularly contributed to tropical cyclone articles, as well as articles on other storms and natural disasters, which I greatly enjoyed. I also observed the peak of the hyperactive 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, including the devastating landfalls of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. However, as I had noted before in some previous Op-Eds and elsewhere, I noticed that WPTC had stagnated, and had serious manpower issues. As we remained a rather small WikiProject for a while, it grew a little depressing at times. In December 2017, a combination of poor habits and overworking myself took its toll on my health and I suffered a severe burnout, and I was forced to leave Wikipedia until late January 2018 (a mistake I intend never to repeat). In 2017 through 2019, WPTC's membership slowly grew in size, a few of whom became very accomplished article-writers over time, and I met Hurricane Noah and others. I eventually acquired a number of user rights in order to help with my work on Wikipedia, including Pending Changes Reviewer, Rollbacker, and Page Mover. I continued tracking tropical cyclones and regularly contributing to those articles through the summer of 2019. However, in September 2019, I took an extended series of WikiBreaks through mid-2020, due to college work and real-life activities.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic went global, and lockdowns ensued. During this time, WPTC began seeing an explosion of new editors, though I remained inactive on-wiki for another several months and missed out the first part of this growth (much to my regret). In July 2020, I finally returned to Wikipedia, during the appearance of Comet NEOWISE and the impending landfall of Hurricane Isaias. Through the remainder of the year, I gradually increased my contributions, though I had to cut back on my editing activity until December, due to college. During this period, I met some of our new WPTC members, including Destroyeraa, HurricaneCovid, CodingCyclone, CycloneFootball71, and AC5230, and I made new friends, growing extremely close to some of them. I became more involved in WPTC's work, and I also helped out some of my fellow users when they needed it. In January 2021, I joined Destroyeraa's Cyclone Cup, a competition he made based on Wikipedia's WikiCup. In the past several months, I've witnessed and experienced several tumultuous episodes on WPTC, but I toughed them out. I continued contributing to various articles during this time, and I also got my first GA, Tropical Storm Rolf, with assistance from Destroyeraa. (Yeah, I didn't have the confidence to attempt a GA before then, even though I probably had the skills to do so since 2017.) In the summer of 2021, my activities began to wane once again, as I turned my attention more towards real-life activities, taking a break, and preparing for the upcoming school year. As of this writing, I am currently in college classes once again. I probably won't remain a regular editor for more than a year (since I will be searching for employment by then) and I will likely be forced into permanent Semi-Retirement then, but truly I appreciate my time here. I've created at least 26 articles and I have 3 GAs, and I'm looking forward to more content creation in the near future.

In closing, I'd like to thank my fellow editors for everything. When I first joined, I was unaware of the existence of this WikiProject (much less WikiProjects in general). I've had a rough start, but I've grown a lot during my time here, both as a writer and as a person. (I have to say, my time editing on Wikipedia really improved my writing and typing skills, which really helped me in school.) I've also made some good friends here. WPTC was also kind enough of a WikiProject for me to feel comfortable retreating to during times of trouble. I've experienced a lot here during my 12 years on Wikipedia, and looking back on it, it was worthwhile. Thank you all for everything, ~ LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk)

My experience on Wikipedia, by codingcyclone

I first joined Wikipedia on May 15, 2020. It's been over a year since then, and I've definitely learned a lot and will continue to learn more about contributing here. When I first joined, I never thought that I would be where I am today. To those who have given me advice and support, and been all around lovely people throughout my journey here (you know who you are), to name a few, hehe, your generosity means a lot to me. You have seen me at my best and at my worst, and you've been there for me through it all. You're all very sweet. codingcyclone advisories/damages 05:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To start off, my wikistory isn't all that interesting, and I'm not as experienced or accomplished as the other members of WPTC, but I've been wanting to write an opinion piece, so here we go. I made my first edit the day I joined. I didn't understand the concept of WP:BOLD, so my first few edits were to talk pages to discuss what to do. I also did not know how to sign my posts. LOL. I was a bit naïve, and in retrospect, I did some stuff prematurely. Luckily, I never did anything that was too damaging to the encyclopedia at this stage. At this point, my 'better' edits were mainly typo correcting, and copyediting. My activity was sparse due to IRL stuff from May to September 2020, but by October 2020, I had found out about Twinkle, and was making more edits, mostly to revert vandalism. This led to a minor dispute with an IP after I reverted their edit, which, to me, looked like blanking. I was wrong in classifying it as vandalism, and I violated WP:DEADHORSE when replying a month later. I do think that both the IP and I were wrong in some respects, but they were certainly more experienced than me, and I was definitely mistaken in trying to continue the argument. I continued to fix typos and revert vandalism, until I saw all the neglected tropical cyclone season timelines on Wikipedia, and I started to fix them. I created Timeline of the 2013 North Indian Ocean cyclone season (very incomplete still, I'll get to it soon™) and brought Timeline of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season to FLC (still needs a bit of work, though), leading to its promotion and my first little bronze star. I did my first GAR and helped out with the GANs of Tropical Storm Fay (2020) and Hurricane Paulette. I also helped start off 2021's Atlantic and Eastern Pacific timelines, and actually guided a new editor a bit. As of this edition's release, I'm helping the 2018 FT with timelines for the Southern Hemisphere. My activity is starting to lessen, since I'm going to be kind of busy IRL and I'm trying to manage my life more efficiently and other personal stuff, but I won't forget about Wikipedia. I'll always be here, fixing the timelines up.

Semi-retirement, by MarioJump83

Hi! MarioJump83 here. You know by this point that I'm semi-retired, and you can see the farewell message above by fellow members. I won't give much clarification on why I have semi-retired in this newsletter, but I'm not fully gone just yet.

As I am making this piece, I have removed the DachshundLover82 farewell message which I made by myself as they are strongly reconsidering retirement and became much more active recently, as well as changing some of my farewell message, but as you can tell from these, retirement isn't a sure thing. You can still edit anywhere at any time.

I've got plans to work on Wikipedia in my semi-retirement like Cyclone Cup stuff and Spoken Wikipedia but here's a catch with a little bit of clarification (that's why I said "I won't give much" - that means I still give some clarification eventually): I feel much more restricted than I have ever was since I got my laptop on September 2020 (which led to the peak of my activity next month). I tried to sleep by day and night, but my sleep attempts keep getting disturbed thus leading to lack of sleep. And many more I won't tell for now - there's a lot more than this, but it is more private. I'll can give more about why I semi-retired, but only on WPTC IRC or contact me directly on Discord (you can search SMB99thx on WPTC Discord).

By the way, this will be my final OP on Hurricane Herald, but probably not the final edit on Hurricane Herald yet. Thanks for giving me support, though, for helping me cope through mental stresses for all this time, which my family didn't give much thought about it, if not truly helping at all, since they are all about their business, AND as well as trying to get me regain interest on Wikipedia, but I don't feel like I'm going to come back on full speed this year. Not sure about next year, though.

Tropical cyclone infobox images, by LightandDark2000

In 2016–2018, WPTC experienced a serious of vicious edit wars involving the main infobox image on numerous tropical cyclone articles, the most vicious of which was the Hurricane Ophelia (2017) image war. Most of them were visible satellite images Vs. Infrared satellite (IR) images that were slightly closer to the peak. This series of edit wars affected numerous articles, and they continued until the edit-warriors either stopped with their attempts at changing images or ended up getting blocked (most of those blocked were IPs who continued the edit wars). In August 2020–August 2021, a new series of edit-wars erupted over tropical cyclone infobox images once again. The largest of these newer wars was one that involved Hurricane Delta's infobox image. While many of those conflicts involved the same issue of visible satellite image Vs. IR images seen in the 2016–2018 edit wars, the newer wars also included competing visible satellite images that editors thought looked better than the original, for one reason or another. I have seen these edit wars affect multiple articles (though not as many as the older wars from a few years ago), but after all this warring, multiple WPTC users have grown fed up with it, including me. After various discussions on- and off-wiki, as a project, we have successfully moved more towards discussions first instead of edit-warring, though image-warring still crops up occasionally. First of all, I will say this to those who have participated in the image wars, and those who are inclined to do so in the future: knock it off. Consider this your only warning: If you have image-warred and you have been told to stop, if you do it again, there will be consequences. It does not matter who "started it" or who was "wrong". Edit-warring, especially image wars, are completely unacceptable. Not only are they unacceptable, but they are extremely stupid. WPTC has a set of image policies that dictate what kinds of images should be used in the infoboxes of tropical cyclone articles. While there is some wiggle room for interpretation, these guidelines should be followed regarding the infobox images. You can see the linked page for the image policies themselves, but I will list the most important points here:

  • Quality First: Low-quality images are completely unacceptable for use in tropical cyclone infoboxes. If another image is of significantly higher quality than an older one, the older one should be replaced.
  • Use the most iconic image whenever possible: The most well-known or famous image of a storm should be used, if it exists. Even if it is not the peak intensity image. An image of the storm at its peak intensity is usually the most iconic image; however, this isn't always the case. The image used should always be the best option for representing the storm. If there is no "most iconic image" in existence, then the most representative visible satellite image should be used.
  • Visible satellite images beat non-visible satellite images: Visible satellite images should be used whenever possible. As long as a high-quality visible satellite image exists for a storm and accurately represents it, it should be used over all the other options. And as stated above, this image should be the most representative one of the storm. If there are no high-quality visible satellite images available, or if all of the existing visible satellite images fail to accurately portray the storm, then a high-quality Infrared satellite image may be used instead. And if an IR image is used, it should be colored in.
  • Colored images are preferred to non-colored ones: After considering all of points previously listed, a good colored image should be used, if possible. If there is no colored visible satellite image available, then a greyscale image can be used instead. Edited color images made to resemble visible satellite images are acceptable for use, but those should be used with caution, and they should be well-done.
  • Discuss First, Don't War: If you want to change an image that has been maintained for a long time on an article, or if you want to change the image for a storm that has a history of edit-warring, please discuss it on the talk page first. DO NOT edit war. A refusal to abide by Wikipedia's policy will have consequences, and these can include topic bans, blocks, or other types of sanctions.

Please consider these guidelines in the future regarding tropical cyclone images and any changes made to them. Editing on Wikipedia should not be stressful or filled with conflict. Instead, editing should be productive, and even enjoyable. We should all keep a level head and take a mature approach in all matters. Hopefully, together, we can make these image wars a thing of the past. ~ LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk)

LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 19:21, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

48th issue of Hurricane Herald newsletter

[edit]

Volume XLVII, Issue 48, September 4, 2021
←(Previous issues) 45 · 46 · 47 · 48 · 49 →


The Hurricane Herald: 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Special Edition!

The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue your subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project-related events from May 1–September 3, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are LightandDark2000, MarioJump83, HurricaneParrot, CodingCyclone, CycloneFootball71, HurricaneCovid, HurricaneEdgar, Jason Rees, and Destroyeraa (the MoTM for this issue). Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.

WikiProject Tropical Cyclones: News & Developments

  • A CCI case was filed concerning WPTC.
  • The second round of the Cyclone Cup ended earlier than expected on June 13. Jason Rees was eliminated with 0 points. CodingCyclone was in the lead for this round with 105 points for getting Timeline of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season to FL, along with completing a couple reviews and helping Tropical Storm Fay (2020) get to GA. She was followed by MarioJump83 with 80 points for getting Cyclone Owen and Cyclone Kelvin to GA, and LightandDark2000 with 40 points for ITN recognitions and various reviews. HurricaneCovid also managed with 10 points for creating April 2021 nor'easter. The third round ended on September 1. HurricaneCovid was eliminated with 0 points. LightandDark2000 took first place this round with 130 points, from getting two GAs, two DYK nominations, and various reviews. He was followed by CodingCyclone at 50 points, for getting one GA and conducting a couple of reviews. MarioJump came in third, with 10 points.
  • WPTC and WPSVR were merged into WikiProject Weather as subprojects in early July, following a series of discussions. Please see the WPTC talk page and Archive 47 of the WPTC talk page for more details. The merger should be fully completed by the end of the year, after WikiProject Meteorlogy is merged into WP Weather.
  • A new, user-friendly track map generator for WPTC was created by CodingCactus and CodingCyclone. After a few weeks of work, the track map generator is essentially completed and ready for use. A downloadable software version was developed and released shortly afterward, which can be found here. The online version of the new track map generator can be found here. There is currently an RfC on the WPTC talk page on whether it can be used to upload tracks on Commons.

New articles since the last newsletter include:

New GA's include:

Member of the month (Editor's Pick) – Nova Crystallis and Supportstorm

In this edition of Hurricane Herald, I (MarioJump83, one of the Hurricane Herald editors) am going to award Nova Crystallis and Supportstorm with my pick. Both of them are second-generation of WPTC members who joined Wikipedia in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Their most notable work were off-wiki: Nova Crystallis created the WPTC Discord server in August 2018, an idea of Hurricane Noah's, and has since then administered the server to this day, including several server cleanups on the occasions of server disruptions. Supportstorm, meanwhile, is one of the most prolific track creator in all of WPTC, which led some WPTC members (Janm 7 in particular) to ask him for tracks, and as of now, he's actively converting track images from JPG into PNG versions, including the creation of tropical cyclones by year tracks. However, their on-wiki work deserve appreciation as well, since Nova Crystallis has created numerous GA-class WPAC pre-1980 typhoon articles pre-1980, in addition to actively creating GAs for WikiProject U.S. Roads, while Supportstorm takes their time to add their tracks into the articles once they're done and was once assisted in the creation of 1960s North Indian Ocean cyclone season articles back in 2013.

2018 Featured Topic Update
Featured Articles promoted (May 1–September 3)
Good Articles promoted (May 1–September 3)
Current Candidates
New Articles (Only B-Class and below, May 1–September 3)
Recent updates

As we entered the summer and the start of the Northern Hemisphere tropical cyclone seasons, several users wrote new articles for the FT project and brought several to GA status.

We are recruiting

If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to Hurricane Noah, LightandDark2000, or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.

WikiProject To-Do


Here are some tasks you can do:

Current assessment table

As of this issue, there are 162 featured articles and 81 featured lists. There are 3 A-class articles, and 1121 good articles. There are only 173 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 669 C-class articles, 793 start-class articles, and 137 stub-class articles, with 1127 lists, and 0 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.

About the assessment scale →

Project Goals & Progress

The following is the current progress on the four milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.

Storms of the month over the last year
Month Storm
August 2021 Hurricane Ida
July 2021 Typhoon In-fa
June 2021 Tropical Storm Claudette (2021)
May 2021 Cyclone Tauktae
April 2021 Cyclone Seroja
March 2021 Cyclone Niran
February 2021 Cyclone Guambe
January 2021 Cyclone Eloise
Storm of the Year 2020 Hurricane Eta
December 2020 Cyclone Yasa
November 2020 Hurricane Iota
October 2020 Typhoon Goni (2020)
September 2020 Cyclone Ianos
August 2020 Hurricane Laura

Storm of the month and other tropical activity for May, June, July, and August

SoTM for May: Cyclone Tauktae

Tauktae originated from a tropical disturbance, which was first monitored by the India Meteorological Department on May 13. The disturbance drifted eastward and organized into a deep depression by May 14. The storm soon took a northward turn, continuing to gradually intensify, and the system strengthened into a cyclonic storm and was named Tauktae later that same day. Tauktae continued intensifying into May 15, reaching severe cyclonic storm status later that day. Tauktae began to parallel the coast of the Indian states of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra, before rapidly intensifying into a very severe cyclonic storm, early on May 16. Early on May 17, Tauktae intensified into an extremely severe cyclonic storm, reaching its peak intensity soon afterward. Later that same day, Tauktae underwent an eyewall replacement cycle and weakened, before restrengthening as it neared the coast of Gujarat, making landfall soon afterward. After making landfall, Tauktae gradually weakened as it turned northeastward, moving further inland. On May 19, Tauktae weakened into a well-marked low-pressure area. Tauktae brought heavy rainfall and flash floods to areas along the coast of Kerala and on Lakshadweep. There were reports of heavy rain in the states of Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra as well. Tauktae resulted in at least 169 deaths in India, and left another 81 people missing. There were also 5 deaths reported in Pakistan. The storm displaced over 200,000 people in Gujarat. The cyclone also caused widespread infrastructure and agricultural damage to the western coast of India.

SoTM for June: Tropical Storm Claudette (2021)

Claudette originated from a broad trough of low pressure over the Bay of Campeche on June 12, which moved erratically over the region for the next several days. Moving northward with little development due to unfavorable upper-level winds and land interaction, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) initiated advisories on it as a Potential Tropical Cyclone late on June 17, due to its imminent threat to land. The disturbance finally organized into Tropical Storm Claudette at 09:00 UTC on June 19 as it was over southeast Louisiana. Claudette weakened to a depression as it turned east-northeastward before moving through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Baroclinic forcing then caused Claudette to reintensify into a tropical storm over North Carolina early on June 21 before it accelerated into the Atlantic Ocean later that day. Soon afterward, it degenerated into a low-pressure trough on the same day, before being absorbed into another extratropical cyclone on the next day.

Claudette produced gusty winds, flash flooding, and tornadoes across much of the Southeastern United States. Claudette overall caused minor impacts along the Gulf of Campeche’s coastline due to the system stalling in the region as an Invest and a Potential Tropical Cyclone. Impacts were most severe in Alabama and Mississippi, where heavy rains caused flash flooding. Several tornadoes in the states also caused severe damage, including an EF2 tornado that damaged a school and destroyed parts of a mobile home park in East Brewton, Alabama, injuring 20 people. At least 14 people died in Alabama due to the storm. Total economic losses across the United States exceeded $350 million.

SoTM for July: Typhoon In-fa

In-fa was first noted by the JTWC as an area of low pressure, located east of the Philippines on July 14. Favorable conditions helped the storm to intensify, becoming a tropical depression, two days later and a tropical storm on July 17, being assigned the name In-fa by the Japan Meteorological Agency. Located in a weak steering environment, the system struggled to organize under dry air and moderate wind shear before organizing further. It continued to move mostly westward, strengthening into a typhoon and deepening quickly. The storm struggled to organize itself significantly due to continuous dry air intrusions and its frequent motion changes. On July 21, it reached its peak intensity, with maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 175 km/h (110 mph), and 10-minute sustained winds of 150 km/h (90 mph) on the system. Nevertheless, the system reached its minimum barometric pressure of 950 hPa (28.05 inHg), three days later, after passing through the Ryukyu Islands. As it entered the East China Sea, marginal conditions started to take their toll on the system, with In-fa weakening steadily and slowly, until it made its consecutive landfalls over Putuo District of Zhoushan and Pinghu on July 25 and 26, respectively, as a tropical storm. For the next couple of days, the storm slowly moved inland while gradually weakening, before turning northward on July 29. Later that day, In-fa weakened into a remnant low over northern China. The remnants continued their northward trek for another couple of days, before dissipating near North Korea on July 31.

Typhoon In-fa exacerbated and played a part in starting the 2021 Henan floods, a flooding event that killed at least 302 people and dealt upwards of 82 billion yuan (US$12.7 billion) in damage, while leaving at least 50 people missing. The typhoon itself killed 6 people and caused at least $2 billion in damages.

  • North Atlantic – The NHC started issuing tropical weather outlooks on May 15, before the Atlantic's first system, Tropical Storm Ana, formed on May 22. This continued the trend of systems forming, before the official start of the season on June 1, for the seventh year in a row. During June, three tropical cyclones developed in the basin: Tropical Storms Bill, Claudette, and Danny. Bill remained off the East Coast of the United States and had limited impacts. Claudette was designated as Potential Tropical Cyclone Three and organized into a tropical storm at landfall. The system subsequently moved through the Southeastern United States. Danny was a short-lived tropical storm that made landfall in South Carolina, before dissipating on the next day. On July 1, Hurricane Elsa developed east of the Lesser Antilles and rapidly intensified into a Category 1 hurricane in the Caribbean; however, due to the storm's rapid forward motion and wind shear, Elsa weakened back into a tropical storm. It passed just north of Jamaica and made landfall on Cuba, before emerging into the Gulf of Mexico. Elsa briefly regained Category 1 hurricane intensity, before weakening back into a tropical storm and making landfall on Florida on July 8. The storm moved up the East Coast of the US, becoming extratropical on July 9 and dissipating on July 14. In August, six tropical cyclones developed: Tropical Storm Fred, Hurricanes Grace, Henri, and Ida, Tropical Storms Kate and Julian (Kate was named later), and Hurricane Larry. Fred developed on August 11. The system impacted Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba, before degenerating back into a tropical wave on August 14. On August 15, Fred regenerated into a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico, before making landfall on the Florida Panhandle on August 16. The storm weakened into a remnant low on August 18, while moving through the Eastern United States, before dissipating on August 20. Hurricane Grace developed on August 13. The system took a westward track and affected much of the Caribbean, before strengthening into a Category 1 hurricane and making landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula on August 19. Afterward, Grace rapidly intensified in the Gulf of Mexico, before making landfall on Veracruz as a Category 3 major hurricane. Grace rapidly weakened afterward, degenerating into a remnant disturbance on August 21. Grace's remnants would later cross into the East Pacific and redevelop into Tropical Storm Marty. Henri developed to the east of Bermuda on August 16. The system made a slow counterclockwise loop off the East Coast of the US, before turning northward and developing into a Category 1 hurricane on August 21. On the next day, Henri weakened back into a tropical storm and made landfall on Rhode Island, before proceeding to make a slow westward loop over New England for a day, causing widespread flooding across the region. Henri subsequently turned eastward and weakened into a remnant low, before dissipating on August 24. On August 26, Hurricane Ida developed in the Caribbean. The system intensified into a Category 1 hurricane on August 27, before making landfall on western Cuba and emerging into the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequently, Ida began to undergo rapid intensification, as it moved northeastward. Ida peaked as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on August 29, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 929 millibars (27.4 inHg), making landfall in Louisiana at a similar intensity, becoming one of the most powerful hurricanes recorded making landfall on the state. Ida became extratropical on September 1, subsequently causing historic flooding and a tornado outbreak in the Northeastern United States. On September 3, Ida stalled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, before being absorbed into a developing low on the next day. The current death toll is at 71, and the damage total is estimated to exceed $50 billion (2021 USD), making Ida the sixth-costliest tropical cyclone on record. On August 28, Tropical Storm Kate developed over the Tropical Atlantic and proceeded to move northward. On the next day, Julian developed and tracked in a similar direction. On August 31, Hurricane Larry developed over the Tropical Atlantic, becoming a Category 3 major hurricane on September 2.
  • East Pacific – The East Pacific hurricane season officially started on May 15. The NHC issued its first advisory of the year on the first tropical system, Tropical Storm Andres, on May 9. Andres broke the record for the earliest named storm formation on record, beating 2017's Tropical Storm Adrian by about a day. Tropical Storm Blanca developed near the end of that month and remained offshore. Tropical Storm Carlos originated as a tropical disturbance near southern Mexico on June 2, though the system failed to coalesce into a tropical cyclone until June 12. The second half of the month saw the formation of Tropical Storm Dolores and Hurricane Enrique. Dolores made landfall in southwestern Mexico as a high-end tropical storm, while Enrique paralleled the southwestern coast of Mexico, before dissipating over the southern Baja California Peninsula. July saw the development of four systems: Hurricane Felicia, Tropical Storm Guillermo, Hurricane Hilda, and Tropical Storm Jimena. Felicia developed into a powerful Category 4 annular hurricane, and peaked with maximum sustained winds of 125 kn (145 mph; 230 km/h) and a minimum barometric pressure of 947 mbar (27.96 inHg). Guillermo and Hilda both remained offshore, with very little impacts. Jimena developed on August 30, and remained at sea. In August, five tropical cyclones developed in the basin, including: Tropical Storms Ignacio and Kevin, Hurricane Linda, Tropical Storm Marty, and Hurricane Nora. Both Ignacio and Kevin remained offshore and had minimal impacts. Hurricane Linda developed into a Category 4 hurricane and was a long-lived annular hurricane, peaking with maximum sustained winds of 115 kn (130 mph; 215 km/h) and minimum pressure of 950 mb (28.05 inHg). Linda gradually weakened as it moved westward, entering the Central Pacific on August 20 and becoming post-tropical shortly afterward. On August 21, the remnants of Hurricane Grace from the North Atlantic entered the basin, before regenerating into Tropical Storm Marty on August 23. Marty dissipated shortly afterward. On August 25, Nora developed to the south of Mexico. The storm eventually developed into a hurricane on August 28 and paralleled the western coast of Mexico.
  • Central Pacific – The Central Pacific hurricane season officially started on June 1. Hurricane Linda's post-tropical remnant entered the basin on August 20. On August 23, Linda's remnants struck Hawaii as a tropical storm-force low, before the remnants were last noted on the next day.
  • West Pacific – On May 11, Tropical Depression 02W (Crising) to the southeast of the Philippines, marking the formation of the third system in the basin. Crising moved across the southern Philippines, before dissipating. This was followed by another unnamed tropical depression and Tropical Storm Choi-wan later that month; the latter affected the Philippines and Taiwan. In June, three systems developed: Tropical Storm Koguma, Typhoon Champi, and another unnamed tropical depression. Koguma affected Hainan and northern Vietnam, while Champi passed to the east of Japan. Activity picked up in July, with 12 tropical cyclones developing, including: Tropical Depressions 07W (Emong) and 08W, Typhoon In-fa, Severe Tropical Storm Cempaka (known in China as "Typhoon Cempaka"), Tropical Storm Nepartak, and four other unnamed tropical depressions. Emong passed near southern Taiwan, before making landfall in China. 08W tracked through the Philippines, Hainan, and northern Vietnam, during its lifetime. Typhoon In-fa struck China in late July and slowly moved inland, exacerbating the already-devastating 2021 Henan floods. Cempaka slowly moved ashore in southern China and made a counterclockwise loop through southern China and the Gulf of Tonkin, before dissipating; Cempaka was classified as a typhoon at its peak intensity by both the China Meteorological Agency (CMA) and the JTWC. Napartak exhibited subtropical characteristics for most of its lifetime and made landfall in northern Japan. Activity continued into August, with six more tropical cyclones developing. These included an unnamed tropical depression, Tropical Depression 12W, and Tropical Storms Tropical Storm Lupit, Nida, Mirinae, and Omais. 12W developed on August 1; the system eventually dissipated on August 6, near southern Japan. Lupit affected a large swath of areas, from southern China, to Taiwan, to Japan, before eventually dissipating. Nida developed to the east of Japan and remained offshore, before becoming extratropical on August 8. The storm's remnants accelerated northeastward, eventually making landfall on Alaska on August 10. Mirinae developed to the east of Taiwan, and tracked close to the east coast of Japan, before becoming extratropical on August 10. The storm's remnants accelerated eastward across the Pacific, making landfall in western Canada on August 15. Omais developed near the International Date Line on August 10, and the system tracked westward. Omais became extratropical on August 24, but its remnants went on to affect South Korea, northern Japan, and part of the Russian Far East, before dissipating. Despite the burst of storm formation in July and August, activity in the West Pacific has been below-average, as of this writing.
  • North Indian Ocean – The first cyclone of the year, Cyclone Tauktae, formed on May 14, and intensified into an Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm on the IMD scale, and a Category 4-equivalent tropical cyclone on the SSHWS scale. Tauktae made landfall in Gujarat on May 17, before dissipating two days later. The second cyclone of the season, Cyclone Yaas, formed on May 23, and made landfall along the Odisha coast on May 26, before dissipating on May 28.
  • South-West Indian Ocean – On May 15, the South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season officially ended for the region around Mauritius and Seychelles.
  • Australian region – On May 31, a tropical low, the last system of the season, formed to the west-northwest of the Cocos Islands. The tropical low continued moving southeastward, before it was last noted on June 3, bringing the 2020–21 tropical cyclone year to a close.
  • South Atlantic tropical cyclone – On June 29, Subtropical Storm Roani developed to the southeast of Brazil, just outside of the Brazilian Navy's area of responsiblity; as such, the storm went unnamed at the time. On the next day, the system entered the Brazilian Navy's area of responsibility and was assigned the name Raoni. The storm soon peaked as a powerful subtropical cyclone, with a minimum central pressure of 986 millibars (29.1 inHg) and maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 50 mph (85 km/h), according to the Brazilian Navy, making Roani the most powerful tropical or subtropical cyclone in the South Atlantic since Hurricane Catarina in 2004. Roani took a northeastward track while gradually weakening, before degenerating into a remnant low on July 2. Roani's extratropical precursor brought powerful gusts and heavy rain to parts of Brazil. From June 24 to July 2, Raoni contributed to an unusually-strong cold wave across portions of South America, setting record low temperatures and bringing rare snowfall to parts of the region.

Member of the month (edition) – Destroyeraa

Destroyeraa joined Wikipedia as an IP editor in 2018. His edits back then were sparse, mostly involving correcting typos and grammar articles in articles that he read. In 2019, he began editing more often, and he started editing articles on weather, especially those on storms in the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season. Although he contributed to those articles, his edits appeared to go unnoticed. On January 17, 2020 (January 18, UTC time), Destroyeraa created his user account on Wikipedia. In May of that year, he joined WPTC, though no one welcomed him for a month. Around this time, he co-created his first article, Tropical Storm Bertha (2020). He also began contributing larger amounts of contents to articles, in addition to creating new ones. In July 2020, Destroyeraa created an article for Hurricane Dolores (2015), which became his first GA later that month. By this time, he had become a regular WPTC editor and a key contributor, often updating the articles for various storms, such as Hurricane Isaias. As time went on, Destroyeraa contributed more content and built up his accomplishments. In October, he got Dolores's article posted to the Did You Know? section on the Main Page, and he got more articles promoted to GA status as well. He also started engaging in anti-vandalism activities, combatting multiple vandals and even some LTAs. However, he was blocked for a week for engaging in sockpuppetry.

Nevertheless, after his block, Destroyeraa resumed contributing to various articles, and he also helped out with the workings of WPTC. In January 2021, Destroyeraa created the Cyclone Cup, a fun competition based on the WikiCup for WikiProject Weather users to participate in, in order to help encourage more article creation and the improvement of article quality. However, by March 2021, his school work caught up with him, and he was forced to take a WikiBreak for the next few months. In early April, Destroyeraa made the decision to retire from Wikipedia, due to a recent spate of drama and negative behavior on WPTC; however, after some off-wiki persuasion, he was persuaded to change his mind. In June 2021, Destroyeraa officially returned to WPTC. While he was a lot more inactive, largely due to summer assignments and real-life activities, he still contributed to Wikipedia from time to time. As of the publication of this newsletter, Destroyeraa has created 24 articles and brought five articles to GA status. He has become one of the most accomplished WPTC users who joined post-2020, and he plans on continuing his work in the future. We wish him the best of luck in his future on Wikipedia and in his studies at school, and we hope to continue seeing him around here.

New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter

More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
  1. Sleepinthestars (talk · contribs)
  2. SR.1111111 (talk · contribs)
  3. BiddybudBoy (talk · contribs)
  4. CycloneEditor (talk · contribs)
  5. TheGreatSpring (talk · contribs) (Has since gone inactive)
  6. Kayree kh (talk · contribs)
  7. Destroyeraa (talk · contribs) (Rejoined)
  8. SolarisPenguin (talk · contribs)
  9. SsSsSølarRadia -75 (talk · contribs)
  10. Nakosi (talk · contribs)
  11. Kritphon (talk · contribs)
  12. FreeWikiFrog (talk · contribs)
  13. Drdpw (talk · contribs)
  14. André L P Souza (talk · contribs)
  15. HurricaneIcy (talk · contribs) (Rejoined)
  16. Kellis7 (talk · contribs)
  17. ElenaCyclone (talk · contribs)

To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!

Thank you, TropicalAnalystwx13, MarioJump83, DachshundLover82, and Cyclone Toby

TropicalAnalystwx13 left Wikipedia in September 2020 without notice. He was one of the most prominent content contributors within the past decade, and he also welcomed some of the other users when they joined. Within the past few months, MarioJump83 went into semi-retirement, and both DachshundLover82 (previously known as Robloxsupersuperhappyface) and Cyclone Toby decided to fully retire from Wikipedia. These users made their decisions after suffering from a lack of interest in editing, a variety of real-life issues (including health issues for DachshundLover82), and also a lack of time. MarioJump83 was an invaluable editor who had made many edits and written multiple aritcles and GAs, and they also brought new users to WPTC, in addition to mentoring Chicdat. DachshundLover82 and Cyclone Toby were both seasoned article writers, having authored multiple articles and even promoting some articles to GA status. Each of these users were MoTM picks in recent issues of The Hurricane Herald. We wish them the best in life and hope to see them again someday.

Featured Content

From May 1 to September 3, a featured list, a featured article, and a featured topic were promoted:

From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from May 1–September 3, 2021 in chronological order.

Today's Featured Article/List
Did you know...?

There is an article currently nominated for featured article status:

Article of the Month: 2018 Pacific hurricane season

The 2018 Pacific hurricane season was one of the most active Pacific hurricane seasons on record, producing the highest accumulated cyclone energy value on record in the basin. The season saw 26 tropical cyclones, 23 named storms – the fourth-highest value recorded, tied with 1982, 13 hurricanes, and 10 major hurricanes, in addition to one unofficial subtropical storm. The season also featured eight landfalls, six of which occurred in Mexico. The season officially began on May 15 in the Eastern Pacific, and on June 1 in the Central Pacific; they both ended on November 30. These dates conventionally delimit the period of each year when most tropical cyclones form in the Pacific basin. However, tropical cyclone formation is possible at any time of the year, as illustrated when the first tropical depression formed on May 10, five days prior to the official start of the season.

The accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) index for the 2018 Pacific hurricane season was around 316 units. Broadly speaking, ACE is a measure of the power of a tropical or subtropical storm multiplied by the length of time it existed. Therefore, a stronger storm with a longer duration contributes more to the seasonal total than several short-lived, weaker storms combined. 2018 had the highest total ACE of any Pacific hurricane season on record, having surpassed the 1992 Pacific hurricane season.

Tropical Cyclone Anniversary: August 29, 2005 – Hurricane Katrina

On Monday, August 29, 2005, at 6:10 a.m. CDT (11:10 UTC), Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Buras-Triumph, Louisiana, before making another landfall near the Louisiana–Mississippi border, a few hours later. The storm made landfall as a powerful high-end Category 3 hurricane, with maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (201 km/h) and a central pressure of 920 millibars (27 inches of mercury). The storm had weakened from its peak as a Category 5 hurricane, due to an eyewall replacement cycle. Katrina caused the levee system in New Orleans to fail, flooding the city, and causing enormous amounts of destruction. The floods also ended up killing many residents of the city. In all, Katrina killed 1,836 people and caused an estimated $125 billion (2005 USD) in damages, making the storm the costliest hurricane on record in the United States and also worldwide (tied with Hurricane Harvey, without factoring in inflation), and also making the storm one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the United States in the 21st century.

My Experience on Wikipedia, by LightandDark2000

I joined Wikipedia as an IP editor on May 1, 2009 (May 2, if you go by UTC time). Although a couple of users encouraged me to make an account early on, I decided to continue editing articles from my IPs for the next few years. I just felt that I wasn't ready for a user account yet. In 2010–11, I experienced hounding from another user on some TV show articles, which made me withdraw from those articles for a while and briefly consider quitting Wikipedia. I registered my user account in May 2012, but I spent another year on Wikipedia as an IP editor, before fully transitioning over to my account in the summer of 2013. I also created my first articles in 2012. I pretty much grew used to using my account and decided to stick with it. :) In March 2014, I received an invitation to join WPTC, which I obviously accepted. I had considered myself a member of WPTC since 2012, but I didn't really know about WikiProjects, much less how to join them (otherwise, I would've joined much earlier). Since 2010, I had regularly contributed to articles. While I didn't have a solid grasp of how to cite sources at the time, I managed to contribute a good a mount of content, in addition to cleaning up spelling and grammar errors. As time went on, my article-writing skills improved, and so did my knowledge of Wikipedia policies. I will admit: I did have difficulty at times, and my temper got me into trouble from time to time. However, these mistakes made me more determined to better myself, and avoid the same missteps in the future. I also engaged in anti-vandalism activities quite often, which brought me into conflict with IPhonehurricane95 and his copycap, Lightning Sabre, whom can be considered the two most vicious LTAs that WPTC has had to deal with. In late 2014–early 2017, I largely moved out of WPTC into MILHIST, due to my interest in the recent conflicts involving the terrorist organization ISIL in the Middle East. I contributed a lot to those articles, though I still contributed to tropical cyclone and other weather articles from time to time. I had made some friends on-wiki by this point, including Master of Time and EkoGraf. In early April 2016, a small number of users were fed up with some of my edits and decided to launch a witchhunt in order to get me topic banned (or even completely banned, for some). While the case was eventually dropped, it was very disturbing to me and made me consider permanently retiring from Wikipedia. In August 2016, the combination of college work and stress led me to take a 3-month WikiBreak. I pulled a full exit and considered never coming back.

However, I enjoyed contributing to Wikipedia too much (hehe), and during my winter break, I returned and resumed editing. In 2017, my editing activity gradually ramped up, and in September 2017, I returned to WPTC, following the devastating landfall of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. During my time in MILHIST, my citation skills had greatly improved. Once again, I regularly contributed to tropical cyclone articles, as well as articles on other storms and natural disasters, which I greatly enjoyed. I also observed the peak of the hyperactive 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, including the devastating landfalls of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. However, as I had noted before in some previous Op-Eds and elsewhere, I noticed that WPTC had stagnated, and had serious manpower issues. As we remained a rather small WikiProject for a while, it grew a little depressing at times. In December 2017, a combination of poor habits and overworking myself took its toll on my health and I suffered a severe burnout, and I was forced to leave Wikipedia until late January 2018 (a mistake I intend never to repeat). In 2017 through 2019, WPTC's membership slowly grew in size, a few of whom became very accomplished article-writers over time, and I met Hurricane Noah and others. I eventually acquired a number of user rights in order to help with my work on Wikipedia, including Pending Changes Reviewer, Rollbacker, and Page Mover. I continued tracking tropical cyclones and regularly contributing to those articles through the summer of 2019. However, in September 2019, I took an extended series of WikiBreaks through mid-2020, due to college work and real-life activities.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic went global, and lockdowns ensued. During this time, WPTC began seeing an explosion of new editors, though I remained inactive on-wiki for another several months and missed out the first part of this growth (much to my regret). In July 2020, I finally returned to Wikipedia, during the appearance of Comet NEOWISE and the impending landfall of Hurricane Isaias. Through the remainder of the year, I gradually increased my contributions, though I had to cut back on my editing activity until December, due to college. During this period, I met some of our new WPTC members, including Destroyeraa, HurricaneCovid, CodingCyclone, CycloneFootball71, and AC5230, and I made new friends, growing extremely close to some of them. I became more involved in WPTC's work, and I also helped out some of my fellow users when they needed it. In January 2021, I joined Destroyeraa's Cyclone Cup, a competition he made based on Wikipedia's WikiCup. In the past several months, I've witnessed and experienced several tumultuous episodes on WPTC, but I toughed them out. I continued contributing to various articles during this time, and I also got my first GA, Tropical Storm Rolf, with assistance from Destroyeraa. (Yeah, I didn't have the confidence to attempt a GA before then, even though I probably had the skills to do so since 2017.) In the summer of 2021, my activities began to wane once again, as I turned my attention more towards real-life activities, taking a break, and preparing for the upcoming school year. As of this writing, I am currently in college classes once again. I probably won't remain a regular editor for more than a year (since I will be searching for employment by then) and I will likely be forced into permanent Semi-Retirement then, but truly I appreciate my time here. I've created at least 26 articles and I have 3 GAs, and I'm looking forward to more content creation in the near future.

In closing, I'd like to thank my fellow editors for everything. When I first joined, I was unaware of the existence of this WikiProject (much less WikiProjects in general). I've had a rough start, but I've grown a lot during my time here, both as a writer and as a person. (I have to say, my time editing on Wikipedia really improved my writing and typing skills, which really helped me in school.) I've also made some good friends here. WPTC was also kind enough of a WikiProject for me to feel comfortable retreating to during times of trouble. I've experienced a lot here during my 12 years on Wikipedia, and looking back on it, it was worthwhile. Thank you all for everything, ~ LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk)

My experience on Wikipedia, by codingcyclone

I first joined Wikipedia on May 15, 2020. It's been over a year since then, and I've definitely learned a lot and will continue to learn more about contributing here. When I first joined, I never thought that I would be where I am today. To those who have given me advice and support, and been all around lovely people throughout my journey here (you know who you are), to name a few, hehe, your generosity means a lot to me. You have seen me at my best and at my worst, and you've been there for me through it all. You're all very sweet. codingcyclone advisories/damages 05:59, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To start off, my wikistory isn't all that interesting, and I'm not as experienced or accomplished as the other members of WPTC, but I've been wanting to write an opinion piece, so here we go. I made my first edit the day I joined. I didn't understand the concept of WP:BOLD, so my first few edits were to talk pages to discuss what to do. I also did not know how to sign my posts. LOL. I was a bit naïve, and in retrospect, I did some stuff prematurely. Luckily, I never did anything that was too damaging to the encyclopedia at this stage. At this point, my 'better' edits were mainly typo correcting, and copyediting. My activity was sparse due to IRL stuff from May to September 2020, but by October 2020, I had found out about Twinkle, and was making more edits, mostly to revert vandalism. This led to a minor dispute with an IP after I reverted their edit, which, to me, looked like blanking. I was wrong in classifying it as vandalism, and I violated WP:DEADHORSE when replying a month later. I do think that both the IP and I were wrong in some respects, but they were certainly more experienced than me, and I was definitely mistaken in trying to continue the argument. I continued to fix typos and revert vandalism, until I saw all the neglected tropical cyclone season timelines on Wikipedia, and I started to fix them. I created Timeline of the 2013 North Indian Ocean cyclone season (very incomplete still, I'll get to it soon™) and brought Timeline of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season to FLC (still needs a bit of work, though), leading to its promotion and my first little bronze star. I did my first GAR and helped out with the GANs of Tropical Storm Fay (2020) and Hurricane Paulette. I also helped start off 2021's Atlantic and Eastern Pacific timelines, and actually guided a new editor a bit. As of this edition's release, I'm helping the 2018 FT with timelines for the Southern Hemisphere. My activity is starting to lessen, since I'm going to be kind of busy IRL and I'm trying to manage my life more efficiently and other personal stuff, but I won't forget about Wikipedia. I'll always be here, fixing the timelines up.

Semi-retirement, by MarioJump83

Hi! MarioJump83 here. You know by this point that I'm semi-retired, and you can see the farewell message above by fellow members. I won't give much clarification on why I have semi-retired in this newsletter, but I'm not fully gone just yet.

As I am making this piece, I have removed the DachshundLover82 farewell message which I made by myself as they are strongly reconsidering retirement and became much more active recently, as well as changing some of my farewell message, but as you can tell from these, retirement isn't a sure thing. You can still edit anywhere at any time.

I've got plans to work on Wikipedia in my semi-retirement like Cyclone Cup stuff and Spoken Wikipedia but here's a catch with a little bit of clarification (that's why I said "I won't give much" - that means I still give some clarification eventually): I feel much more restricted than I have ever was since I got my laptop on September 2020 (which led to the peak of my activity next month). I tried to sleep by day and night, but my sleep attempts keep getting disturbed thus leading to lack of sleep. And many more I won't tell for now - there's a lot more than this, but it is more private. I'll can give more about why I semi-retired, but only on WPTC IRC or contact me directly on Discord (you can search SMB99thx on WPTC Discord).

By the way, this will be my final OP on Hurricane Herald, but probably not the final edit on Hurricane Herald yet. Thanks for giving me support, though, for helping me cope through mental stresses for all this time, which my family didn't give much thought about it, if not truly helping at all, since they are all about their business, AND as well as trying to get me regain interest on Wikipedia, but I don't feel like I'm going to come back on full speed this year. Not sure about next year, though.

Tropical cyclone infobox images, by LightandDark2000

In 2016–2018, WPTC experienced a serious of vicious edit wars involving the main infobox image on numerous tropical cyclone articles, the most vicious of which was the Hurricane Ophelia (2017) image war. Most of them were visible satellite images Vs. Infrared satellite (IR) images that were slightly closer to the peak. This series of edit wars affected numerous articles, and they continued until the edit-warriors either stopped with their attempts at changing images or ended up getting blocked (most of those blocked were IPs who continued the edit wars). In August 2020–August 2021, a new series of edit-wars erupted over tropical cyclone infobox images once again. The largest of these newer wars was one that involved Hurricane Delta's infobox image. While many of those conflicts involved the same issue of visible satellite image Vs. IR images seen in the 2016–2018 edit wars, the newer wars also included competing visible satellite images that editors thought looked better than the original, for one reason or another. I have seen these edit wars affect multiple articles (though not as many as the older wars from a few years ago), but after all this warring, multiple WPTC users have grown fed up with it, including me. After various discussions on- and off-wiki, as a project, we have successfully moved more towards discussions first instead of edit-warring, though image-warring still crops up occasionally. First of all, I will say this to those who have participated in the image wars, and those who are inclined to do so in the future: knock it off. Consider this your only warning: If you have image-warred and you have been told to stop, if you do it again, there will be consequences. It does not matter who "started it" or who was "wrong". Edit-warring, especially image wars, are completely unacceptable. Not only are they unacceptable, but they are extremely stupid. WPTC has a set of image policies that dictate what kinds of images should be used in the infoboxes of tropical cyclone articles. While there is some wiggle room for interpretation, these guidelines should be followed regarding the infobox images. You can see the linked page for the image policies themselves, but I will list the most important points here:

  • Quality First: Low-quality images are completely unacceptable for use in tropical cyclone infoboxes. If another image is of significantly higher quality than an older one, the older one should be replaced.
  • Use the most iconic image whenever possible: The most well-known or famous image of a storm should be used, if it exists. Even if it is not the peak intensity image. An image of the storm at its peak intensity is usually the most iconic image; however, this isn't always the case. The image used should always be the best option for representing the storm. If there is no "most iconic image" in existence, then the most representative visible satellite image should be used.
  • Visible satellite images beat non-visible satellite images: Visible satellite images should be used whenever possible. As long as a high-quality visible satellite image exists for a storm and accurately represents it, it should be used over all the other options. And as stated above, this image should be the most representative one of the storm. If there are no high-quality visible satellite images available, or if all of the existing visible satellite images fail to accurately portray the storm, then a high-quality Infrared satellite image may be used instead. And if an IR image is used, it should be colored in.
  • Colored images are preferred to non-colored ones: After considering all of points previously listed, a good colored image should be used, if possible. If there is no colored visible satellite image available, then a greyscale image can be used instead. Edited color images made to resemble visible satellite images are acceptable for use, but those should be used with caution, and they should be well-done.
  • Discuss First, Don't War: If you want to change an image that has been maintained for a long time on an article, or if you want to change the image for a storm that has a history of edit-warring, please discuss it on the talk page first. DO NOT edit war. A refusal to abide by Wikipedia's policy will have consequences, and these can include topic bans, blocks, or other types of sanctions.

Please consider these guidelines in the future regarding tropical cyclone images and any changes made to them. Editing on Wikipedia should not be stressful or filled with conflict. Instead, editing should be productive, and even enjoyable. We should all keep a level head and take a mature approach in all matters. Hopefully, together, we can make these image wars a thing of the past. ~ LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk)

LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

June 2022 Good Article Nominations backlog drive

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Good article nominations | June 2022 Backlog Drive
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(t · c) buidhe 04:26, 28 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Hurricane Rick (1985)

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Hurricane Rick (1985) has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Dylan620 (he/him • talk • edits) 19:56, 23 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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