Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Archive 3

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Images for each storm

Storm track seasons completed

Storm track seasons completed

NAtlantic	EPac
1950-2004 2005 (some based on forecast data)	1997-2004

No!

NO!

Time out for a second. We don't need images for every freaking storm back to the days of Donna! Let's not do this, it clogs the page with unhelpful images. Many of them suck so bad it's hard to tell what it is. Some are spectacular. But regardless of their quality, so many of them distract the reader from the article and all they do is think about the pictures. Not to mention the fact that people with older, slower or crappier computers want to shoot themselves every time they try to load the page. The bytes add up my friend. That's just a fact. '05 and now '04 load slow for me and my computer is relatively cooperative. I could be talked into pics for every hurricane but not every storm of the season! And this is coming from an obsessive lover and collector of hurricane satellite photos (I have over 200!). My instincts tell me to just find better images to replace sucky ones and leave it at that. But I think it is detracting from the article and many should be removed. I don't know how many seasons you've done it for but please stop, at least for now. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 04:48, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. However this argument should be taken over to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones, where it is already being discussed. Jdorje 07:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Crap, I forgot about the slower computers. Perhaps they can have a subpage, like Images of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. This could solve the problem of slow computers, but also allows for more than one image for some storms. There could be a warning near the link warning slower computers about the size of the article. Would this be a better solution than removing them all? Some can probably stay, but even every hurricane could get a little much. In addition, this solves the problems for when images are too big for the paragraphs. E. Brown and Jdorje, is this a suitable compromise? Hurricanehink 21:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Technical limitations are a concern, but we cannot let them dominate - users with poor connections can always turn off images. Or to put it another way, technical limitations are the reason for the wikipedia guideline that pages should not be over 35k. If you violate this (which those two articles do), you cannot blame it on the pictures when the page loads slowly; the 35k limit is no doubt chosen in part because with a reasonable number of pictures pages larger than that will load slowly on poor connections. Jdorje 21:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Since I am fine with any way, I'll let you and Eric battle it out! I just don't want to see another button bar fiasco. Hurricanehink 22:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Jdorje, why do you want pictures for every storm? What value do they hold? If you want each hurricane season article to be a frigging picture gallery, that can be arranged! The text is and should be the most important part of the article. The text tells the story, the pictures tell little. I'm not saying remove all of them, I'm saying at least remove the ones for menial tropical storms. Also, you are basically telling people with sucky computers to go to Hell. The pictures are largely to blame for slow load time. The text is very light. The pictures ARE NOT the focus of the article. What about that fails to go through? Wikipedia is not a frigging picture book. Geez, this is ridiculous. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 22:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

For most storms the picture is more useful than the majority of the storm history. For the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and 2004 Atlantic hurricane season the amount of text is much larger than the pictures, so the text still does dominate. Including pictures to accompany the text performs many useful functions that make the article more enjoyable to read. And what's the disadvantage? As far as I can tell, the only drawback is that it makes the page load more slowly. But pages that are too big are going to load too slowly anyway, and you can't blame pictures for that. My question is: why wouldn't we want pictures for every storm??? This is an encyclopedia after all, and wikipedia is not paper. Jdorje 23:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

NCDC pictures

Good news! I have found a website that, provided no one is angry about it, allows me to get pics for every Atlantic tropical storm and hurricane back to 1983. The website, located here, has archived data of satellite imagery for 6 times a day, every day, for 22 years. It isn't limited to the Atlantic either. Most days have imagery of the Eastern Pacific, Eastern Atlantic, Western Pacific, and parts of the Indian Ocean. Hurricanehink 17:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Holy crap! That's amazing! That's really, really awesome. The point you should take away from this rant is that it's really cool!

Now, first of all I found and uploaded a pic for the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone: Image:Cyclone_1991_04_29_05_29.jpg. This image isn't that great, and it taught me that the false-color IR images (which are what you've been using) are a lot better than the visible-light images, since (1) they work at night and (2) they have less distortion from the high angle; compare the above image to the IR image. Secondly, I'll note that because all the satellites are geosynchronous, many storms will have a steep angle. However because they're geosynchronous, we can use some image magic (or ImageMagick) and create animated gifs really easily! I'll try to work up a system for doing so and get back to you. Jdorje 22:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Cool, and glad you liked it. Hopefully the gifs will work, cause that would be insane for any article! Got a bit of a problem, though. I am currently on 1998 for images for each storm, and there is an image of four simultaneoushurricanes. It works for the article, but what do we do with the image for each storm? Hurricanehink 16:49, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, either label them appropriately in the article (enough text in the caption to explain it), or we could even cut up the image and upload the individual parts of it. Jdorje 22:41, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

That archive isn't perfect by any means. GOES sometimes goes on vacation. I was looking up images for the 1992 East Pacific hurricane season and found, much to my dismay, that GOES images were not available from early September through the rest of the year! This leaves me without images for 8 of the last 9 storms. I DO have one of those nine (Tina) that I found on a different site. I also found another GOES archive, but the images are full disc and completely zoomed out, with the storm tiny and far away. So, every good thing has its drawbacks. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 05:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Pacific

Is this going to be done in the east Pacific as well, or perhaps only track maps? 2005, 1997, 1989, 1977, and 1976 have summaries for each storm. Perhaps we could restrict pictures to landfalls, perhaps? Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:02, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. This was just a mini-project of mine, though because I have trouble staying on one project, I may not finish the Atlantic to its entirety. If someone else does it, I would recommend just landfalls and Cat. 4+ hurricanes. Just landfalls would exclude powerful hurricanes that were impressive, like Linda. In case anyone cares, my current project is Mediterranean tropical cyclones. Hurricanehink 00:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Screw my previous suggestion. The 1997 season has a picture for each storm now. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 18:50, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

More Assessments

Wikipedia article assessments have begun. They are starting with Natural Disasters. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Sister project planned

I've decided to propose a new WikiProject for all weather-related topics called Meteorology and Weather Events. This would be a sister project to it. The proposal link is User:CrazyC83/Meteorology and the sign in and approval link is Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects#Meteorology_and_Weather_Events. CrazyC83 21:54, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I think there is already a weather wikiproject? Or am I confusing it with the weather portal? — jdorje (talk) 23:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably confusing with the portal, if that even exists (you may be thinking about the portal within this project). CrazyC83 01:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No, there is such a thing as Portal:Weather, although it isn't maintained much, by the looks of things. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 01:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

"Hurricane Huron"

I think we should create an article under the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season because clearly had the structure of a Tropical Cyclone and it also had an eye. Even though it formed in the Great Lakes, it should have an article. Funnybunny 22:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Having an eye does not mean it is a tropical cyclone. Unless it is warm-core, it was almost certainly a polar low or extratropical cyclone rather than a tropical cyclone, and should not have the term "hurricane" anywhere near it. For instance the Blizzard of 2006 had a very well-defined eye structure (see images in that article), but was certainly not tropical in nature. I suspect the 1996 Huron storm was the same. — jdorje (talk) 22:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is a warm core system. It used to be a cold-core system, like the blizzard of '06, but this one became a warm-core by staying over "warm" waters of the great lakes. Funnybunny 22:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

How do you know, for both of them? Hurricanehink 22:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

This system is mentioned in the Speculation subpage of the 2005 AHS article, heres a link confirming it - [1] -- Nilfanion 22:58, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, you're right! Of course, the blizzard of 2006 isn't confirmed, but that's surprising about the warm-core-ness of the Huron storm. Not sure what do make of it now, because there are no wind readings from it (at least none I can find). Hurricanehink 23:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The article refers to some readings from a buoy, and while there are no figures it says the "surface wind...briefly attained tropical storm force". The reading might not be valid - but does the fact they called it tropical storm and not gale force mean anything? Nilfanion 17:21, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yea, but we don't know if it was a hurricane or not. Hurricanehink 21:01, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but I feel that this system was tropical in nature. It definitely had characteristics of a tropical system, such as a well-defined eye, warm core, spiral bands of thunderstorms, structure, and possibly others. Funnybunny 17:49, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree it might be tropical in nature, but we don't know if it was a hurricane or not. Also, where should this storm go? It's hardly anything official. Hurricanehink 02:36, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Not bad

There was a recent assessment of Natural disasters articles, and we didn't do too bad. The listing shows that all of our articles had high scores, with no article being lower than a 6, and a couple of 9's. Also, we're the WikiProject with the most Featured articles and A-class articles in the science field: the listing can be seen here. Overall, we're tied for 5th for the WikiProject with most FAs, and several of our articles are slowly being improved from B's to A's and finally to FAs. A few Wiki-projects have all their articles listed; in that case, we would have to include an extra 83 articles, and that would make us the WikiProject with the most articles assessed overall. Overall, it seems that we're doing a good job during the "offseason", don't you think? Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Completely agreed. Good work everyone! Now we got to beat the WP Elements, as we're tied with them for most FA's. Hurricanehink 14:28, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Hurricane 12 (1975)

Ive found info for Hurricane 12 (1975) Storm05 19:51, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen that. Great find. I thought all the Allenpress sites needed a password but I guess I was wrong. -- §HurricaneERIC§^Damagesarchive 00:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Hypothetical Hurricane

Ive created an article about a Hypothetical Hurricane, I did it to see how hurricane articles are structured and what info is needed for a good article, etc, etc. Storm05 19:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I posted my comments at its talk page. Hurricanehink 20:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

"Eye" as a separate page?

It may just be me, but does anyone else think that the eye of a tropical cyclone should have its own page? Currently it is redirected to eyewall, but it seems to me that it should be the other way around. Runningonbrains 12:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, maybe "Eye (cyclone)". --Golbez 13:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

That works. Hurricanehink 15:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Certainly. But we may not have abundant information about a tropical cyclone's eye. Funnybunny 21:41, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

So move eyewall over to "eye (tropical cyclone)" (or "eye (cyclone)" if it's that general) and restructure it a bit. — jdorje (talk) 02:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I have an eye_(cyclone) article up. Feel free to do what you will, I will be tidying it up over the coming days. Runningonbrains 04:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Storm boxes and Damage table

Not sure. I like the idea of having a meteorological statistics section with a damage table, but {{infobox hurricane small}}'s use is to stop the prose from becoming too statistics-oriented by putting the dates and other stats in the infobox, so the text can be more of an impact/aftermath summary. So, I'd say leave the infoboxes in, but add the table. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 21:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. For those interested, the damage table is now in the 2003 article. Hurricanehink 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The layout of the table seems US-centric with Florida and Mexico being listed in the same column. Probably best to have 2 columns one for countries and a second for subnational regions. Nilfanion 21:40, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I am against having more columns. I am in favor of having one row per Mexican state; however, I doubt we can find breakdowns that precise. — jdorje (talk) 21:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree getting more detailed info for Mexico is likely to be nigh on impossible, but it doesn't look right for Florida and Mexico to be treated equivalently. How about an empty row with 'USA' in it and the state infos beneath that? Nilfanion 22:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's keep the damage table in the talk page for 2003. Hurricanehink 22:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Somebody already moved it to the main page, and I made some fixes there. — jdorje (talk) 22:52, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I meant let's keep the discussion for the damage table in the 2003 talk page. Hurricanehink 02:26, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Tropical Cyclone Collaboration of the Fortnight

I've started this, and picked Hurricane Mitch to get started the collaboration, as it was the one that was on the top of the list and it only needs expansion of one section. Following the rest of the collaborations, it will have approval voting to pick an article for the period, and I've left instructions as to how to run it. Everyone is welcome to contribute to it, and let's get this article to Featured status! Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 21:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

100th featured list

As noted on the Signpost, we got a share of the 100th Featured list with List of 2005 Atlantic hurricane season storms. There's about 950 Featured articles - we can try to get the 1000th, right? Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Coincidentally, it was shared with List of Alberta premiers which is also heavily edited by Madeline. As for the 1,000th FA, what's our next FA candidate? — jdorje (talk) 05:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

IMO, Hurricane Wilma should be the next FA candidate. Reason: the records it broke and being the most powerful Atlantic storm ever deserve an FA-class article. CrazyC83 18:20, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Get it to A-class first, then we can talk... — jdorje (talk) 22:02, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

There's a bit of discussion at the Assessments talk page, but it's always the same people who frequent it... I'd like to see other people commenting too. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 08:26, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Discovery!

While working on the 1957 Pacific typhoon season article, I noticed something quite peculiar; there were two tropical cyclones with the same name (Della) existing in the same basin at the same time! Read the article for more detail. Is this notable? Icelandic Hurricane #12 11:37, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

What is confusing is that they come to a very close postion at the same time, but they can't be the same storm, can they? Icelandic Hurricane #12 20:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello, why isn't anybody answering me? Icelandic Hurricane #12 19:43, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Did you ask a question? I thought you were just pointing out this unusual occurrence. — jdorje (talk) 20:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

One, there are question marks in what I wrote, and two, I was just hoping someone would have something to say about it. Icelandic Hurricane #12 20:15, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, well...it's not "notable" exactly, it's trivia. But I would be interested in seeing a list of duplicate storms (2 storms in the same year with the same name). Hink made a partial list of such storms, and I was surprised at how many there were. — jdorje (talk) 20:28, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm still confused about how they could have been in almost the exact same place when they formed in completely different places and are not the same storm (I think). Icelandic Hurricane #12 20:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

How do you know they are different? The only link you provided that has some names only lists one Della. Hurricanehink 20:55, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Look at the east Pacific that year and you'll find a different Della. Icelandic Hurricane #12 01:07, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I think they might be the same storm. The EPAC Della moved across the dateline late on the 9th, the same time that the Digital Typhoon Track starts. After crossing the dateline, both move to the west-northwest, until the Unisys one stops on the 12th near the same location the Digital Typhoon track has Della on the 12th. They're probably the same storm. Hurricanehink 01:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

But Unisys has Typhoon Della starting in acompletely different area. Icelandic Hurricane #12 12:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

The unisys track crosses the dateline at 20N on the 9th; the same time and the same place as the Digital Typhoon Track. I think I can see what has happened; look at the Unisys track for (W Pac) typhoon #10 and compare it to Della. It looks like that the unisys track for #10 struggled with the dateline crossing - no storm would abruptly turn like that - and the early stage is a mirror image of Della's track. Therefore typhoon 10 and Della are one and the same (just a bug in the images from unisys... they happen) - and that track is identical to the Digital Typhoon Track for Della. They are one storm.--Nilfanion 12:45, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, now that we know they are one storm, why is Della considered used on the West Pacific name list that year? Icelandic Hurricane #12 13:10, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Prior to 1982, the Central Pacific used WPAC names. Hurricanehink 13:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Wow! That's cool. Icelandic Hurricane #12 13:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Should I write storm descriptions for storms in the central pacific then? Were they basically considered part of the West pacific? Icelandic Hurricane #12 14:06, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Hello! Can I please have an answer to my most recent question (sorry for being rude). Icelandic Hurricane #12 11:33, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

<--- You should only write central pacific storm descriptions if they were in the Central Pacific. They were not part of the CPAC. In fact, in 1978, I believe, there was a Hurricane Susan in the Central Pacific, though it used the WPAC naming. You could write descriptions if they are not there, however. Hurricanehink 15:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Satellite Images

When was the first satellite image of a tropical cyclone taken? The oldest on Wikipedia I can find is the Typhoon of 1944. But I find that odd because I would think that the first sattelite image would've been taken in the Atlantic. Icelandic Hurricane #12 14:41, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's not a satellite image. That is a radar image. The oldest satellite image, to my knowledge, is Donna, though I'm not positive. Hurricanehink 18:32, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

There can't be any satellite images before 1959, because that's when Sputnik I was launched. The first satellite image cannot be sooner than the first weather satellite, TIROS-1. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 18:48, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh. I meant radar image. Sorry. Icelandic Hurricane #12 20:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a hardcopy of the first satellite image of a tropical cyclone; a tropical depression that moved up the Rio Grande in October 1954. Remember, there were test rocket launches with cameras installed as far back at then. User Talk:thegreatdr 21:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

That would be a photo of a tropical cyclone from above, not a satellite image — you need a satellite for that....--Nilfanion 21:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Details, details. =) User Talk:thegreatdr 00:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

So am I gonna get the answer? (I hate to be rude, Sorry) Icelandic Hurricane #12 11:32, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I told you Hurricane Donna, but I wasn't sure. The oldest on Wikipedia is probably Esther from 1961. Hurricanehink 15:10, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

No. I said that I meant radar. I know I originally asked satellite, but then I changed my question to radar. Icelandic Hurricane #12 19:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

In that case, I don't know. Maybe it was because navy ships had the equipment before weather stations in the US did. Hurricanehink 20:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Who probably would know then? Icelandic Hurricane #12 21:31, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. Maybe you could try researching it. Hurricanehink 21:49, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

FAC

Not sure if anyone really saw it, but Hurricane Irene is up for FAC... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:05, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Also Hurricane Felix (1995) is up on the GA collaboration of the week. Perhaps we should support it or lend a hand.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.192.8.106 (talk • contribs)

And storm is up for the COTW; there are sections that you could write.--HereToHelp 20:57, 12 May 2006 (UTC)