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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ealdgyth via FACBot (talk) 27 April 2020 [1].

Racer's hurricane

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Nominator(s): – Juliancolton | Talk 02:56, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a multi-faceted hurricane that proved one of the most severe of its time. It's among the earliest storms for which we have anything resembling a comprehensive record. Along its 2000+ mile track, it ensnared meteorologists, tossed ships ashore in droves, inundated barrier islands, and, as its last act, caused one of the great maritime tragedies of the 19th century. Using a variety of both contemporary and modern sources, I've created what I'm certain is the most comprehensive story ever told about this fascinating storm. With thanks to my long-term mentor Hurricanehink for his multiple reviews during the three-year improvement process, I humbly submit the article for FAC's consideration. – Juliancolton | Talk 02:56, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

==== Oppose by JavaHurricane: ==== I'm sorry Julian, but this article is not in a good shape. Hence, I must oppose.

  • "Racer's hurricane was a destructive tropical cyclone that had severe effects [...]": "destructive" and "severe" seems somewhat redundant to me. I would suggest changing "had severe effects" to "affected" or "impacted".
  • "It takes its name from [...]": change to "The hurricane is named after [...]".
  • "[...] the storm first affected Jamaica with flooding rainfall and strong winds [...]": what is "flooding rainfall"? Change to "heavy rainfall".
  • "[...] it slowed to a crawl [...]": could we use a better term than "crawl"?
  • "[...] it emerged into the Atlantic shipping lanes off the Carolinas by October 9.": change to "[...] on October 9".
  • "The effects of the tropical cyclone were far-reaching." A very ugly sentence in my opinion. I would advise changing it to "The tropical cyclone caused heavy damage (throughout/across) its path."
  • "[...] faced hurricane conditions for several days, [...]": could be changed to "was affected by [...]"
  • "Many towns along the Texas shoreline were inundated by storm surge, which flooded the coastal plains for many miles inland." This sentence could be restructured as follows: "The hurricane's storm surge flooded the Texan coastal plains for many miles inland, inundating many towns."
  • "[...] a water level rise of 8 ft (2.4 m) [...]": Could we simply use "storm surge" instead?
  • " Storm surge and wind damage extended into Mississippi and Alabama, but to a lesser degree of severity." Sentence could be restructured for a better reading experience.
  • "[...] which had a dramatic encounter with the hurricane [...]": "dramatic" is unencyclopaediac and should be axed.
  • The MH is well-written, and I don't have any problems about it. Good job!
  • "Haiti and the southern shores of Cuba also experienced the storm." Rewrite as "The hurricane also impacted Haiti and the southern coast of Cuba."
  • "[...] the storm produced an 8 ft (2.4 m) storm surge on Lake Pontchartrain [...]": A storm surge cannot be produced "on" a lake. Please use another term, like "along the shore of".

These are the concerns that I could identify in my first reading. If I find any more, I will post them below. -- JavaHurricane 08:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with nearly all of these suggested changes. – Juliancolton | Talk 14:25, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have struck out all of my concerns as it seems that they are being considered as "technically wrong" and are not being addressed as to why they are wrong except in the two cases where Hink has taken the pain of explaining the problems. -- JavaHurricane 15:01, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
JavaHurricane, I hope that you will consider reinstating your review. Hurricanehink's responses are very much correct, and if given the opportunity I'd like to address the remainder of your concerns one-by-one. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:31, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Juliancolton, a small question: can we add a reference to the fact that this is in the pre-HURDAT era? -- JavaHurricane 03:51, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
How's that? – Juliancolton | Talk 04:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good! -- JavaHurricane 04:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support/Image review from Hurricanehink

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Thanks for the shoutout Julian. I respectfully disagree with some of Java's comments. I came here because I've been watching Julian's edits to the article, and was hoping this would go up on FAC soon. I did a review before Julian nominated it, and I found the prose engaging.

  • The first image is in the public domain, as the author died back in 1888. The track map is also public domain, as it's from the Weather Prediction Center. lastly, the map of Texas was from the 1830s (good find), so that's good to use.

Therefore, I'm happy to support the article's candidacy. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 14:43, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the image check, and, once again, for your prior reviews. In the interest of transparency, I have replaced the attractive but rather unhelpful Texas map with what I believe to be a simpler, more informative illustration. It is the work of a Wikimedia Commons user. Best, – Juliancolton | Talk 16:31, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The new image checks out, it's good to use. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:34, 25 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Hurricane Noah

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I will review the rest of this in due time, but one comment as of now..

Drive by comment

JavaHurricane is right about at least one thing, the use of "dramatic". It's an opinion not a fact that it was dramatic, obvious WP:EDITORIALIZING. You could axe or change to "described as dramatic" or something to that effect. Furthermore, the word "dramatic" is only in the lede and not even directly cited to any source—therefore possibly constituing original research. buidhe 09:01, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I removed that phrase based on these objections. It seems to be a matter of fact that nearly capsizing twice, having your masts blown off, and losing two men overboard would count as a "dramatic" experience – and there's no evidence that "dramatic" is inherently unencyclopedic, a stock market crash being a "a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices", for instance – but I won't die on this hill. – Juliancolton | Talk 13:28, 26 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • @Nikkimaria: I don't have the particulars, as this is among Currier's more obscure works, but Schurre's "Currier & Ives prints" relays that the print was listed for sale and run as an extra in The Sun "more than two years" before Currier's breakthrough Lexington print in 1840... that would make this contemporaneous with the hurricane. The Currier and Ives current-event lithographs were generally published or offered for sale within a few days of the breaking news, to capitalize on public interest. – Juliancolton | Talk 21:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie

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I copyedited as I read through; please revert anything you don't like.

  • The image of the track is nice to have, but the resolution is horrible (and I see that the source is no better). Not a requirement for FAC, but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to redraw this with a decent resolution, so that the dates are more readable.
  • As the hurricane approached northern Tamaulipas and southern Texas, it slowed to a crawl and turned sharply northeastward. Looking at the track, wouldn't it be more accurate to say "reached" instead of "approached"?
  • Due to the tight pressure gradient between the storm and the expansive high pressure area centered over the Ohio Valley, damaging winds extended far to the north of the hurricane's track. Since we haven't mentioned the high pressure area before, shouldn't this be "an expansive..", rather than "the"?
  • American meteorologist William Charles Redfield concluded in 1846 that the gale over the eastern U.S., which he had been studying: suggest "that the gale in late 1837 over the eastern U.S"; but even that gives the reader the initial impression that it's a different storm, before correcting it. I know that's how Redfield thought of it initially as well, but would the sources support recasting this in something like this form: "The part of the storm's track across the northeastern U.S. was thought by Redfield to be a different storm, until in 1846 he concluded on the basis of Reid's work that it was a continuation of the track of Racer's hurricane."?
  • Since the cyclone occurred outside the purview of the official Atlantic hurricane database (1851–present), some details about its history are uncertain. I don't really follow this thought. After looking at the linked article, it seems the database was not assembled till the late 20th century, so why would it make a difference to the amount of information known about this hurricane? If you're implying that there is data available that the NHC might add to HURDAT if Racer's hurricane were to be included, then sure, but why would they have access to information about an 1837 hurricane that nobody else has access to? And if that's not the case, then why does it make a difference that the hurricane's not in the database?
  • It may not be so much that the NHC has info nobody else does – although it's very likely they do – but more that the experts would be able to use their models and methodologies to synthesize an authoritative, final-say reconstruction of the track. Based on existing sources, we can't say, for instance, exactly when it hit Matamoros, or how strong it was at its peak – these are questions HURDAT would answer with precision (even if false precision; verifiability over truth and all that). That said, if the line in question raises more questions than it answers, I have no objections to removing it; it was only added recently upon the suggestion of a previous reviewer who is intimately familiar with hurricane climatology. – Juliancolton | Talk 15:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, that explanation is interesting enough to add, even if just in a footnote. Can you source it without OR? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • This work seems the closest to what I'd like to say, although I'm not sure about reliability – how do we feel about citing textbooks for this sort of material? – Juliancolton | Talk 15:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems fine to me. I will have a bit more time to look through the source this evening but I don't see a problem with it if it supports what you want. I love the term "palaeotempestology"; I have a reference on palaeoclimatology but never thought to check it for this sort of thing. Now I look it does have a chapter on the use of historical records, but nothing on palaeotempestology. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:53, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • On further review, the publisher (InTech Open Access) is blacklisted as a predatory publisher by multiple organizations. I'm starting to run out of ideas for viably sourcing this footnote. (And yes, paleotempestology is as much fun to say as it is to learn about! As it happens, Jo-Jo Eumerus just recently put a tremendous amount of work into that article for its run-up to GAN. It's worth the read.) – Juliancolton | Talk 03:17, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(I know this ping isn't technically about this FAC, but anyhow) I don't think this footnote can be sourced. It's more the lack of a source - the absence of the Racer's Hurricane in the HURDAT database - that underpins this footnote. But I don't think we can use the lack of a source as a source for a footnote, under WP:OR. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:36, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The problem I originally had was that I couldn't understand the connection between the first and second part of the sentence. I think if we can't come up with a source that supports the thought, it should be cut. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:26, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
← I went ahead and removed the HURDAT mention. Jo-Jo's "lack of a source" comment is important, I think; at the most basic level, the only purpose of that line was to tell people about the absence of a particular source. So what? There was no tropical cyclone report either, although the implications are the same: there's less, and less precise, info. I think that a better HURDAT article would be able to answer some of these questions more broadly, so make it a priority to recruit the help of some editors more familiar with that project. – Juliancolton | Talk 14:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the settlement known then as Port Pontchartrain: suggest a parenthetical "(now part of New Orleans)", or perhaps a footnote.
  • If the Enterprise and Cumberland were lost along the Outer Banks, and 90 lives were lost with the breaking up of the SS Home, it seems implausible that only 105 lives were lost in total. Are the Enterprise and Cumberland not included in that total?
  • legislation was eventually passed requiring commercial vessels to carry enough life preservers for all passengers: that's an interesting tid-bit. Any chance of a link (even a red link) to the relevant legislation? If Fraser doesn't specify, you may not be able to either, of course.

This is in excellent shape; just a few points above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:02, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the helpful review. Some points addressed so far; a couple more to tend to this evening.– Juliancolton | Talk 15:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Perhaps the best hurricane article I've read here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's very gratifying to hear, thank you! I find that 19th-century storms lend themselves to more engaging storytelling. The lack of minutiae and stiff analytics that come with modern-day meteorology is as much a freedom as a handicap. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:31, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That does sound plausible. This article reads like a narrative, rather than a collection of facts, and I think if you were burdened with all that data you'd have had a harder time making that happen. Still, a very well-written article, and a pleasure to read. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from TropicalAnalystwx13

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I ran through this article a while back and expressed my concerns then. The prose is excellent as always. This article represents the best source for information on the hurricane in its totality either online or in literature. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk · contributions) 21:05, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the support, and more importantly for your help in fine-tuning the article prior to its arrival at FAC! – Juliancolton | Talk 15:31, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

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Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Check alphabetization of Sources
  • Wordpress is a platform not a publisher
  • FN31: given title is not a title. Same with FN33
  • You have a couple of options: you could use something like [untitled] (note single square brackets) in the title field, you could use the first few words of the piece followed by an ellipsis, or you could do a descriptive title as recommended by some external style guides (eg MLA). Nikkimaria (talk) 03:07, 26 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Date ranges should use endashes
  • Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. I went ahead and figured the source review was good since the corrections were minor - if @Nikkimaria: thinks they weren't taken care of, I trust Juliancolton and Nikkimaria to resolve the issue on the talk page of the article. --Ealdgyth (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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