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. The WikiProject has its own IRC channel.
Tropical cyclone activity
The Portal Portal:Tropical cyclones is designed as the entry point to the WikiProject's work and is recognised as a Featured Portal. The structure emulates that of Wikipedia's Main page and needs updating in a similar manner. The following are the key sections that need editorial attention:
Please keep all of these sections up-to-date and refresh them as new tropical cyclones develop and articles are created. Also please keep the suggestions to editors current and fresh.
New articles and improvements wanted
These tasks are those listed at Portal:Tropical cyclones/Things you can do:
Main Page content
New articles
Improved articles
Number 9, February 4, 2007
The Hurricane Herald
Storm of the month
Cyclone Clovis was named late on December 31 near to Tromelin Island. Clovis strengthened as it moved to the southwest reaching its peak the same day with 60 knot winds (according to Météo-France). The JTWC intensified Clovis more slowly, and assessed that it reached its peak with 65 knot winds on January 2, as it was nearing the Madagascar coast. The JTWC maintained this strength until it made landfall on the island on January 3. The resulting floods damaged a number of structures in Mananjary and about 1,500 people had to be evacuated. [2]Other tropical cyclone activity
The only activity during January was in the
Southern Hemisphere, with a total of 5 cyclones existing throughout the month.
New articles and improvements wanted
Member of the month
The January member of the month is Chacor, formerly known as NSLE. Chacor joined the project in November 2005, and has contributed to a wide variety of articles across the project. Recently he has generally focussed on the West Pacific and did most of the work on the first Good article in that basin: Typhoon Ewiniar (2006). He has also started the much needed process of splitting the Southern Hemisphere seasonal articles. Finally, Chacor is probably the user who maintains the quality of the most visible part of the project, the current activity.
Main Page content
New and improved articles
Storm article statistics
Grade | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 16 | 19 | 23 | 25 |
A | 7 | 6 | 2 | 2 |
GA | 48 | 57 | 74 | 75 |
B | 83 | 78 | 71 | 76 |
Start | 210 | 200 | 193 | 195 |
Stub | 11 | 15 | 16 | 16 |
Total | 375 | 375 | 379 | 389 |
percentage Less than B |
58.9 | 57.3 | 55.1 | 54.2 |
A quick note: When you create a new article please list it in the appropriate section on the project's page and add a fact from the article to the Portal. Thanks.
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.
Storm of the month
Cyclone Favio developed well to the east of northern Madagascar on February 12 and moved to the southwest as it developed. The storm did not significantly intensify until February 19 when it was just off the southern coast of Madagascar, but rapidly intensified soon after to its peak with 185 km/h (115 mph) winds. Favio turned to the northwest and hit Mozambique worsening the floods already occurring in the country. Favio claimed at least 4 lives and destroyed thousands of homes.
Other tropical cyclone activity
There were a total of 6 tropical cyclones in the
southern hemisphere during February. Five of these, including Favio, were in the South West Indian Ocean.
Member of the month
The February member of the month is Miss Madeline. Miss Madeline is responsible for many of the projects featured lists such as List of Category 5 Pacific hurricanes and List of California hurricanes. She has also put serious work into many of our Pacific hurricane articles since she joined the project as one of its founding members. Recently she has worked on 1996 Pacific hurricane season, bringing it from a stub-class article to a Good article candidate.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
New articles and improvements wanted
Storm article statistics
Grade | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 19 | 23 | 25 | 28 |
A | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
GA | 57 | 74 | 75 | 80 |
B | 78 | 71 | 76 | 78 |
Start | 200 | 193 | 195 | 194 |
Stub | 15 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
Total | 375 | 379 | 389 | 398 |
percentage Less than B |
57.3 | 55.1 | 54.2 | 52.8 |
Comments wanted on project talk Many discussions that potentially have far reaching impact for the whole project are carried out on the project's talk page. However, only a fraction of our active contributors actually engage in those discussions. If you add the project page to your Watchlist and keep an eye on discussions there to monitor upcoming changes, even if you don't participate in those discussions it would help both yourself and the project as a whole. For instance, at the moment the primary infobox templates such as {{ Infobox hurricane}} are in the process of being deprecated and replaced by new versions which do the role more effectively.
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.
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
Hurricane Will developed from a tropical wave to the east of the Caribbean Sea and intensified. It crossed over Jamaica and re-emerged over water a few days later. The storm intensified into a hurricane and an eye began to develop. Will became a major hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall on the vulnerable Gulf Coast of the United States soon after. To date, Hurricane Will has claimed over 350 lives and is directly responsible for about $5 billion of damages; of which an unknown amount was insured. Despite the damage, it is not expected that the name will be retired by WMO.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The April member of the month is HurricaneIrene. Irene began contributing to tropical cyclone articles on Wikipedia in August 2005, but ran out of steam and left after barely 2 weeks. However, Irene's influence on the project has been wide-reaching. Her efforts led directly to two articles attaining featured status and her legacy inspired many of our most active editors to write a plethora of good articles on a wide range of storms.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 23 | 25 | 28 | 29 |
A | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
GA | 74 | 75 | 80 | 82 |
B | 71 | 76 | 78 | 80 |
Start | 193 | 195 | 194 | 209 |
Stub | 16 | 16 | 16 | 17 |
Total | 379 | 389 | 398 | 419 |
percentage Less than B |
55.1 | 54.2 | 52.8 | 53.9 |
The Main Page
The WikiProject has a narrow scope, so it is not surprising that our articles are not frequently selected for Today's featured article. Most destructive cyclones are likely to be mentioned on the In the news column. We have no real control over that, but we should submit suggestions when appropriate.
However, we can do a more lot more to place our content in the other major section of the main page: The Did you know column. In the past month we created over 30 articles. Of these only 2 were even submitted as suggestions for DYK. We can do much better, please submit DYK entries for new articles when you do the initial assessment.
Number 13, February 2, 2008
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 of January 2008.
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
Cyclone Gene formed on January 26 over the open south Pacific Ocean. It drifted southward, and strengthened into Tropical Storm Gene on January 28 as it moved across the Fijian archipelago. There, it brought heavy rainfall, which caused the worst flooding in several years. Half of the country was left without power, and the cyclone killed seven people in Fiji. The storm turned southwestward, developing a cloud-filled eye and quickly strengthening by the end of the month.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The January member of the month is Ajm81. A tropical cyclone editor since he first joined in October 2005, Ajm81 plays a vital role in the project. Unlike other editors, who mainly edit articles, Ajm81 maintains and updates the track maps across the project. We thank Ajm81 for his timely contributions, and may he have some well-deserved downtime after the last tropical cyclone report is released.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 30 | 31 | 33 | 33 |
A | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
GA | 106 | 109 | 112 | 114 |
B | 78 | 82 | 86 | 99 |
Start | 212 | 211 | 208 | 214 |
Stub | 5 | 6 | 6 | 3 |
Total | 440 | 447 | 454 | 472 |
ω | 3.02 | 3.01 | 2.98 | 2.98 |
percentage Less than B |
49.3 | 48.5 | 47.1 | 46.0 |
Wikiwork and 1000 articles In January 2008, the WikiProject began using a system called Wikiwork, or ω. It weighs the overall quality of the project's articles, and a lower number means a greater total quality. The weighed ω, as used above, is a relative number that can be used to compare groups of this article. As of this publication, the relative ω of the project is 3.404, corresponding to between Start and B class. However, when limiting it solely to storm articles, the number drops to 2.98, which is slightly better than B class. During the month, a new statistics page was created.
Additionally, during the month, Mitchazenia pointed out that we received our 1,000th article with the creation of Cyclone Elita.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 16:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
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 of February 2008.
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
Cyclone Ivan formed on February 7 and subsequently executed a loop to the west-southwest. Encountering favorable conditions, it strengthened to attain peak winds on February 17 before striking northeastern Madagascar. It degenerated into a remnant low pressure area as it crossed the island, and briefly re-organized into a weak tropical depression before dissipating on February 22. Ivan caused heavy damage in Madagascar, leaving 190,000 people homeless and causing over 83 deaths.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The February member of the month is RattleMan, for his lasting dedication and continual support of the project. During February, the user worked on improving the timeline articles for the previous season. RattleMan often updates the sections on storms in season articles, and helps to maintain the southern hemisphere articles.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 31 | 33 | 33 | 36 |
A | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8 |
GA | 109 | 112 | 114 | 123 |
B | 82 | 86 | 99 | 96 |
Start | 211 | 208 | 214 | 216 |
Stub | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6 |
Total | 447 | 454 | 472 | 485 |
ω | 3.01 | 2.98 | 2.98 | 2.96 |
percentage Less than B |
48.5 | 47.1 | 46.0 | 45.8 |
percentage GA or better |
33.1 | 33.9 | 33.1 | 34.3 |
Improvements During the month, a total of 15 new articles were added, though the net increase in start or stub articles was only three. The highest quality set of articles for a basin is for the Eastern Pacific Ocean, of which half of its articles are either a good article or better; all of its retired storm articles are good or better. However, the basin has a lower total number of articles, and the Atlantic basin has a higher overall total of good articles.
There is a drive to increase the number of featured topics, which is located on the project talk page.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 05:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
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 of March 2008.
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
Cyclone Jokwe was the first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Mozambique since Cyclone Favio struck in the previous year. The tenth named storm of the 2007-08 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Jokwe was first classified as a tropical depression on March 2 over the open Southwest Indian Ocean. It tracked west-southwest, crossing northern Madagascar as a tropical storm on March 5 before intensifying into a tropical cyclone on March 6. Jokwe rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 195 km/h (120 mph), before weakening slightly and striking Nampula Province in northeastern Mozambique. It quickly weakened while paralleling the coastline, though the storm restrengthened as it turned southward in the Mozambique Channel. Late in its duration, it remained nearly stationary for several days, and steadily weakened due to wind shear before dissipating on March 16.
The storm caused minor damage in northern Madagascar. In Mozambique, the cyclone affected 165,000 people, and left at least sixteen fatalities. Cyclone Jokwe destroyed over 9,000 houses and damaged over 3,000 more, with the heaviest damage in Angoche and the Island of Mozambique in Nampula Province. The storm also caused widespread power outages and crop damages.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The March member of the month is CapeVerdeWave, whose first edit was to a tropical cyclone article, back in January 2006. CapeVerdeWave has been a steady and active member of the project, writing several articles on Category 5 hurricanes as well as working on the often forgotten older hurricanes. The user also has contributed to some older season articles, and recently helped update the project after the recent hurricane re-analysis. We thank him for his continued dedication.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 33 | 33 | 36 | 38 |
A | 9 | 9 | 8 | 8 |
GA | 112 | 114 | 123 | 130 |
B | 86 | 99 | 96 | 91 |
Start | 208 | 214 | 216 | 211 |
Stub | 6 | 3 | 6 | 9 |
Total | 454 | 472 | 485 | 487 |
ω | 2.98 | 2.98 | 2.96 | 2.94 |
percentage Less than B |
47.1 | 46.0 | 45.8 | 45.2 |
percentage GA or better |
33.9 | 33.1 | 34.3 | 36.1 |
Project News: Updates on the Best Track - Atlantic and North Indian Ocean, and more
In February, the
Hurricane Research Division released its reanalysis for the Atlantic Ocean from 1915 to 1920. Highlights include the addition of eight storms, as well as the removal of one storm. The winds in the
1919 Florida Keys Hurricane were increased to 130 knots, and the 1916 Texas hurricane was increased to a Category 4 hurricane.
According to an email sent to the India Meteorological Department, there will be an online version of the North Indian Ocean best track from 1877 to 2006, scheduled to be released in two months; it is unknown if it will cost money to access.
In unrelated news, the project was featured on the Signpost; Mitchazenia was interviewed, and talked about the past, present, and future of the project.
At the end of the month, there were five different Featured content candidates (FXC's) by five different editors; two were featured article candidates, two were featured list candidates, and one was a featured picture candidate. The have been a few times in which there were four FXC's from four different editors, most recently in February and early March of 2008.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 02:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
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 of April 2008.
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 Neoguri was the earliest tropical cyclone on record to strike China. It formed on April 13 to the east of the Philippines, and once entering the South China Sea, environmental conditions allowed for quick strengthening. Neoguri attained its peak intensity of 150 km/h (90 mph) as it approached the island of Hainan, though rapidly weakened due to unfavorable conditions. The system made landfall in southern China on April 19, causing three deaths and moderate damage totaling over ¥296 million (2008 RMB, $42 million 2008 USD). The typhoon left 40 fishermen missing in the South China Sea.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The April member of the month is VOFFA. Though not officially a project member, VOFFA is an important user to the project, having maintained and updated the talk page archives on tropical cyclones worldwide; activity includes adding warnings and discussions for all storms. The user is particularly active during the off-season of the Atlantic basin, when article activity on tropical cyclones typically declines.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 33 | 36 | 38 | 40 |
A | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
GA | 114 | 123 | 130 | 131 |
B | 99 | 96 | 91 | 103 |
Start | 214 | 216 | 211 | 208 |
Stub | 3 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
Total | 472 | 485 | 487 | 499 |
ω | 2.98 | 2.96 | 2.94 | 2.92 |
percentage Less than B |
46.0 | 45.8 | 45.2 | 43.5 |
percentage GA or better |
33.1 | 34.3 | 36.1 | 35.9 |
Project News
There is discussion on the status of articles on non-notable storms in the
Merging page of the project. Comments are welcome.
A Wikipedia traffic counter was launched earlier this year. In the month of February, the article on Hurricane Katrina was viewed just over 200,000 times, making the article the 496th most viewed article on the English Wikipedia during the month.
During the month, Hurricane Camille was demoted from GA status, continuing the trend of good articles degrading in status on notable storms; other occurrences include the FA removal of Cyclone Tracy and 1900 Galveston Hurricane. If anyone has any ideas how to fix the problem, feedback and ideas are appreciated.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 04:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
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 of May 2008.
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
Cyclone Nargis was the costliest and deadliest natural disaster in the history of Burma (Myanmar). It formed on April 27 in the central Bay of Bengal, and after initially tracking north-northwestward it turned to the east. Quickly strengthening to reach peak winds of at least 165 km/h (105 mph), Nargis made landfall in the Ayeyarwady Division of Burma on May 2 near peak intensity. The cyclone killed at least 80,000 people and potentially over 300,000. Passing near the metropolis of Yangon, the cyclone destroyed thousands of buildings, and damage was estimated at over $10 billion (USD). In the wake of the storm, the ruling military junta of Burma initially refused foreign aid, and after they allowed foreign assistance, the government was criticized for its poor handling of the aftermath of the storm.
Other tropical cyclone activity
New and improved articles
Project News
Several other languages are active in the realm of tropical cyclone articles, though as much as ours. The
French Wikipedia has 76 storm articles, the
Spanish Wikipedia has 99 storm articles, and the
Portuguese Wikipedia has 116 storm articles. Each of the projects have several storm articles we do not have, and the coverage on non-notable storms outside of the Atlantic is better, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.
During the month, User:Potapych finished working on Template:Infobox Hurricane Small, which is used for the small Infoboxes in season articles; he has updated several season article already with the changes.
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Feb | Mar | Apr | May |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 36 | 38 | 40 | 41 |
A | 8 | 8 | 8 | 17 |
GA | 123 | 130 | 131 | 129 |
B | 96 | 91 | 103 | 101 |
Start | 216 | 211 | 208 | 209 |
Stub | 7 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
Total | 487 | 487 | 499 | 506 |
ω | 2.96 | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.88 |
percentage ≥Less than B |
45.8 | 45.2 | 43.5 | 43.1 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
34.3 | 36.1 | 35.9 | 367.0 |
Member of the month
The May member of the month is Juliancolton. Joining the project in November 2007, Julian has become an active member of the project, working on new articles in the Atlantic basin. He has created two featured lists ( List of Maryland and Washington, D.C. hurricanes (1980–present) and List of New York hurricanes), and rewrote the article on 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, which became featured during May. Juliancolton is currently working on a featured topic for Hurricane Dennis and its effects by region.
New members
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 02:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
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 of June 2008.
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 Fengshen was the deadliest Pacific typhoon since Typhoon Durian in November of 2006. The sixth named storm of the 2008 Pacific typhoon season, Fengshen developed on June 18 to the east of the Philippines, and after attaining typhoon status it stuck the island of Samar. It intensified while passing through the archipelago, reaching winds of over 175 km/h (110 mph) before passing near Metro Manila. Fengshen later weakened in the South China Sea, and it dissipated on June 26 after moving ashore in China.
The typhoon killed over 1,300 people, including 800 when the MV Princess of the Stars capsized during the storm. Damage totaled $247 million (USD), with over 300,000 houses damaged or destroyed. The damage total included $70 million (USD) in crop damage.
Other tropical cyclone activity
New and improved articles
Addition of C-class
During the month, C-class
was added to the assessment scheme. The project has begun the process of integrating C-class, though as of this publication only 8 articles in the project are at that level. A preliminary solution would be to very strictly define B-class with
six criteria, with
one proposal to automatically re-assess all B-class articles as C-class until they are confirmed to have passed the criteria. Discussion and participation are welcome on the issue.
As a result of the addition of C-class, the ω ( WikiWork) rating for C-class is now 3.5, to keep in line with the previous system we used.
During the month, the project published a page on its style for articles. The purpose for the page, as quoted from the top of the page, is to document a few existing unwritten guidelines for Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones.
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Mar | Apr | May | Jun |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 38 | 40 | 41 | 41 |
A | 8 | 8 | 17 | 18 |
GA | 130 | 131 | 129 | 135 |
B | 91 | 103 | 101 | 96 |
C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Start | 211 | 208 | 209 | 208 |
Stub | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
Total | 487 | 499 | 506 | 510 |
ω | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
45.2 | 43.5 | 43.1 | 42.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
36.1 | 35.9 | 37.0 | 38.0 |
Member of the month
The June member of the month is User:Potapych. Though not officially a member of the project, Potapych is active on hurricane pages, having developed the new small infobox template introduced last month. After developing the new template, Potapych updated season articles across the board to accommodate the new template.
New members
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
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 of July 2008.
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
Hurricane Bertha was a rare early season Cape Verde-type hurricane and the easternmost forming July tropical storm on record. Bertha became the longest-lived pre-August Atlantic tropical cyclone on record and the longest-lived tropical cyclone in the Atlantic Basin since Ivan in 2004. The second named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, Bertha developed from a tropical wave that emerged off the coast of Africa on July 1. After initially remaining weak while tracking westward, Bertha began to strengthen on July 6, and the next day it quickly intensified to reach peak winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). The hurricane weakened during the day on July 8, and after turning to a northwest drift, it passed within 40 miles (64 km) of Bermuda on July 14 before moving northeast away from the island. Bertha became extratropical on July 20 to the east of Newfoundland, after causing minimal damage and three indirect drowning deaths.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The July member of the month is User:Plasticup. Joining the project in August of 2007, Plasticup first became an asset in working on the active article series on Hurricane Dean. After a period of inactivity, the user returned to produce two featured articles this month, both interesting meteorological histories. Additionally, Plasticup has focused some attention to articles in the 2005 season. Keep up the good work!
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics </noinclude>
Grade | Apr | May | Jun | Jul |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 40 | 41 | 41 | 42 |
A | 8 | 17 | 18 | 18 |
GA | 131 | 129 | 135 | 139 |
B | 103 | 101 | 96 | 15 |
C | 0 | 0 | 3 | 98 |
Start | 208 | 209 | 208 | 202 |
Stub | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 |
Total | 499 | 506 | 510 | 524 |
ω | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.94 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
43.5 | 43.1 | 42.5 | 40.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
35.9 | 37.0 | 38.0 | 38.0 |
Project News
During July, there were two large changes to the operations of the WikiProject. First, WPTC adopted and helped develop the
WP 1.0 B-Class criteria, and was among the first projects to use a "forced" B-Class rubric as part of their assessment schemes. This means that all the articles tagged with {{hurricane|class=B|...}}
are automatically reassessed as {{
C-Class}}, unless all the values in the
checklist are marked as passed. In other words, to mark an article as B-Class, the banner needs to be changed to
{{ hurricane |class=B |B1=yes |B2=yes |B3=yes |B4=yes |B5=yes |B6=yes | ... }}
B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6 stand for each of the six points in the WikiProject's rubric. The banner also has the capability to mark why an article doesn't meet the new B-Class standards: Typing the following in an article's talk page
{{ hurricane |class=B |B1=no |B2=yes |B3=yes |B4=yes |B5=yes |B6=yes | ... }}
will assess an article as C-Class, and mark that the article is not a B because of bad references.
Articles assessed as B's before the introduction of the forced checklist were automatically reassessed as C's, but they're awaiting new reviews to check if they still meet the new B criteria. These articles are listed on Category:Tropical cyclone articles with incomplete B-Class checklists. Currently, there's 117 articles in the category—let's try to shrink that number to zero before the next edition of the Herald!
The other major change to the WikiProject was the addition of three
task forces: the
storm articles task force,
season articles task force, and the
tropical meteorology articles task force. These three task forces allow WPTC to see the progress of the different areas of the WikiProject. Currently, all 1,076 WPTC articles have been assigned to one of the three task forces, but any unsorted articles will be placed in
Category:Unsorted tropical cyclone articles as they're tagged with {{
hurricane}}
.
In order to categorize an article, the banner needs to be modified from {{hurricane|...}}
to:
{{ hurricane |storms-task-force=yes | ... }} {{ hurricane |seasons-task-force=yes | ... }} {{ hurricane |meteo-task-force=yes | ... }}
which will sort the pages into the storms, seasons, and tropical meteorology task forces, respectively.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Number 20, September 6, 2008
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 of August 2008.
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
Hurricane Gustav was a deadly and damaging hurricane which formed late in the month in the Caribbean Sea. It first struck Haiti on August 26 as a minimal hurricane, where it killed 76 people and damaged or destroyed over 10,000 houses. Gustav turned to the southwest, moving over Jamaica where it killed 11 people. The hurricane rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) before making landfall on western Cuba; in the country, Gustav damaged or destroyed over 100,000 houses, though no deaths were reported due to well-executed evacuations. In the Gulf of Mexico, Gustav weakened due to its previous land interaction, and on September 1 it made landfall in south-central Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane, where it caused heavy damage. Across its path, the hurricane caused 101 deaths, with an initial damage total of $20 billion.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The August member of the month is Cyclonebiskit, who has been on Wikipedia since April. The user helped maintain the current season articles as well as storm articles. Cyclonebiskit has written one GA, and wrote much of one of the recent tropical cyclone articles.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 41 | 41 | 42 | 46 |
A | 17 | 18 | 18 | 18 |
GA | 129 | 135 | 139 | 147 |
B | 101 | 96 | 15 | 15 |
C | 0 | 3 | 98 | 99 |
Start | 209 | 208 | 202 | 197 |
Stub | 9 | 9 | 10 | 15 |
Total | 506 | 510 | 524 | 537 |
ω | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.94 | 2.92 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
43.1 | 42.5 | 40.5 | 39.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
37.0 | 38.0 | 38.0 | 39.3 |
Version 0.7
This month, several of the WikiProject's articles were selected for the
Version 1.0 Editorial Team's
Version 0.7 static release. The article selection occurs using an
automated process using WikiProjects' quality and importance assessments. For WPTC, this means that 29 articles will be part of this release, an increase from 13 in the
previous release. It should be noted that these numbers are based on preliminary data that can change based on updates to the database and corrections to the selection algorithm and WP:1.0's cut-off score.
The list of articles chosen for the release can be seen here. Of the selection, almost half of the articles are already featured, and eleven are good articles. There one B-Class article ( 1970 Bhola cyclone, two C-Class articles ( Hurricane Andrew, Cyclone Nargis), and two Start-Class articles ( Pacific typhoon, Hurricane Rita). As these articles will be published in a CD, it is imperative that the project improve them quickly.
The full list of all the WikiProject's articles is also available here. According to that list, WPTC's highest-scoring article— Tropical cyclone—has a score of 1969, which is very good as Canada, the selection's highest-scoring article, has a score of 2,409. That said, Extreme wind warning is the least important article we have, with a score of 227, so we may have to improve it a little bit so it isn't that low...
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 05:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
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 of September 2008.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles.
As a result of an extended Wikibreak, I will not be able to work on the next month's newsletter. Other users are welcome to get it together. ♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Storm of the month
Hurricane Ike was among the costliest Atlantic hurricanes on record, based on a preliminary damage estimate of $31.5 billion ( USD). The ninth named storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2008 season, Ike developed on September 1 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Maintaining a generally westward track throughout its duration, Ike reached Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale, moving across the Turks and Caicos Islands at that intensity before weakening and crossing Cuba; heavy damage was reported in Cuba, which was still recovering from Hurricane Gustav just weeks prior. Gustav later moved across the Gulf of Mexico and struck near Galveston, Texas, where its effects were estimated as the costliest hurricane in Texas history. Further inland, the storm brought high winds and widespread damage, and its impact reached as far as Canada. Throughout its path, Gustav caused over 100 deaths, mostly in Texas and Haiti, and several hundred remain missing.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The September member of the month is CrazyC83, who has been a steady editor within the project for the past few years. Lately, the user's contributions include maintaining the current season articles, which is the biggest workload for the project. In the past, however, CrazyC83 was very active in writing articles, and was a proponent for all storms in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season getting articles. Of note was his contributions to Hurricane Juan, which brought it to featured status and later to the main page.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 41 | 42 | 46 | 47 |
A | 18 | 18 | 18 | 19 |
GA | 135 | 139 | 147 | 161 |
B | 96 | 15 | 15 | 17 |
C | 3 | 98 | 99 | 107 |
Start | 208 | 202 | 197 | 201 |
Stub | 9 | 10 | 15 | 19 |
Total | 510 | 524 | 537 | 571 |
ω | 2.87 | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.92 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
42.5 | 40.5 | 39.5 | 38.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
38.0 | 38.0 | 39.3 | 39.8 |
Project News
Overall, the project has had a relatively uneventful month. One of the most noteworthy events was the selection of 32 tropical cyclone-related articles, that were
chosen as part of
Wikipedia 0.7. Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. While many of the selected articles are of featured or good quality, several require substantial cleanup and expansion.
In other news, a handful of changes to project standards have taken place. Per a consensus on the project's talk page, the section of each tropical cyclone article previously entitled "Storm history" has been changed to "Meteorological history", thanks in part to Plasticup's bot which preformed the hundreds of edits to execute the change. In addition, a discussion is ongoing regarding the necessity of List of storms in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and similar articles for other seasons.
New members
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Number 22, November 2, 2008
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 of October 2008.
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
Deep Depression ARB 02 caused the 2008 Yemen floods. On October 19 the IMD noted that an area of low pressure which located to the south east of Salalah, Oman had intensifed in to a tropical depression and was assigned the number ARB 02. On October 21 IMD updated the system to a Deep Depression while it lay 700 km south of Salalah, Oman near the east coast of Somalia. It lost its strength while crossing the Gulf of Aden due to entry of dry air and land interaction as it passed close to the northeastern coast of Somalia. It later was downgraded to a Depression, named TC 03B by the JTWC. On October 24 it made landfall on the south-eastern coast of Yemen, leaving at least 26 civilians and six soldiers dead while trapping hundreds of people due to flooding and torrential rainfalls. The latest figure of casualties is of 184 persons dead and 100 others missing, mostly from the region of Hadhramawt, where the storm made landfall. A total of 733 houses were destroyed in the governorates of Hadhramaut and Al Mahrah, while 22,000 people were displaced. The Yemeni Government declared the two aforementioned governorates as disaster zones.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The October member of the month is Hurricanehink. Since joining the project near its inception, Hurricanehink has been involved in bringing forty two articles, eighteen lists and six topics to featured status. Just this month, Hurricanehink was mentioned in the Signpost Dispatch. Hurricanehink has also been the regular distributor for this newsletter.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 42 | 46 | 47 | 48 |
A | 18 | 18 | 19 | 19 |
GA | 139 | 145 | 161 | 187 |
B | 15 | 14 | 17 | 12 |
C | 98 | 99 | 107 | 113 |
Start | 202 | 197 | 201 | 201 |
Stub | 10 | 15 | 19 | 20 |
Total | 524 | 537 | 571 | 600 |
ω | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.92 | 2.88 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
40.5 | 39.5 | 38.5 | 36.8 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
38.0 | 39.3 | 39.8 | 42.3 |
Project News
A
discussion concerning sandboxes for next year's articles has begun. Please consider working on sandboxes so they will be ready to publish. As tropical cyclones can form at any time in the western Pacific and northern Indian Oceans, these two season's should be made ready for cyclones by December. Ideally, due to the possibility of pre-season storms, the eastern Pacific and Atlantic seasons should also be ready by then, but they should at least be ready by the northern-Hemisphere antipeak in late February and early March. Seasons for the years 2010 to 2015 should be given the name "Post-2009 {ocean name} {cyclone term} seasons", as in "Post 2009 Atlantic hurricane seasons".
A category for tropical cyclone articles of very-low importance has been introduced. Although discussion is still ongoing, a rating of very-low-importance will generally be given to weak cyclones that do not have impact or set any sort of record.
Editorial
This month, our usual editor,
Hurricanehink, has been on a semi-wikibreak until further notice. I am filling in as editor and distributor on an interim basis. The newsletter will continue as normal during that time. Thank you.
Miss Madeline |
Talk to Madeline 00:49, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 01:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Number 23,
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 of November & December 2008.
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
Hurricane Paloma
Hurricane Paloma was the second most powerful November hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin, behind
Hurricane Lenny in 1999. It was the third and final major hurricane to hit Cuba in 2008, being the first time that three major hurricanes have struck Cuba in one season. It also marked the first time that at least one major hurricane formed in every month of the hurricane season from July to November, with only June not having a major hurricane this season.
Hurricane Paloma was also the last Tropical Depression of the 2008 season, and caused at least $1.4 billion in damage and was responsible for at least one direct death.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The November/December member of the month is Thegreatdr, who has been a steady editor within the project for the past few years. Lately, the user's contributions include improving some of the Pacific Typhoon season articles from the 1980s. Thegreatdr has also tipped us off about going on's at the National Hurricane Center and the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 47 | 49 | 49 | 50 |
A | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
GA | 161 | 187 | 198 | 202 |
B | 17 | 13 | 21 | 22 |
C | 107 | 119 | 118 | 122 |
Start | 201 | 204 | 210 | 210 |
Stub | 19 | 19 | 16 | 17 |
Total | 571 | 613 | 631 | 642 |
ω | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.87 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
38.5 | 36.4 | 35.8 | 35.4 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
39.8 | 42.1 | 42.2 | 42.2 |
Project News
During the last two months there have been several important discussions of which some are still seeking contributions from members. These include discussions about:
We discovered during December that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have started to designate the Tropical Lows that form within their region with letter U. It is unclear whether either TCWC Jakarta or TCWC Port Moresby assign any designations to lows that form within their Area of Responsibility.
– Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 03:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
You are receiving this message because you are listed as an active participant in WikiProject Meteorology, WikiProject Severe weather, and/or WikiProject Non-tropical storms. I have made a proposal to start an official assessment page for these three projects, under the WP:METEO banner. Since this would need significant participation to work properly, I'd like input from as many interested parties as possible (even those who may not watch the project pages), so please visit the discussion here and leave your thoughts/opinions. Thanks! - Running On Brains 02:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Number 24, March 7
The Hurricane Herald
This is the bi-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 of January 2009 and February 2009.
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
Cyclone Fanele was the first
cyclone of
tropical cyclone status to strike western
Madagascar since Cyclone Fame one year prior. It formed on January 18 in the
Mozambique Channel, and
rapidly organized, reaching peak winds of 185
km/h (115
mph). It weakened before moving ashore in
Menabe Region southwest of
Morondava, and rapidly deteriorated over land. Fanele briefly re-intensified after reaching open waters, only to become an
extratropical cyclone by January 23. The cyclone caused heavy damage near where it moved ashore and along its path, resulting in at least eight deaths. Fanele struck Madagascar just two days after
Tropical Storm Eric brushed the northeastern portion of the country. The two storms affected over 50,000 people, of which at least 4,000 were left homeless. Fanele struck the country during a series of
government protests, and consequentially relief efforts were hindered.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The member of the month is... HurricaneSpin HurricaneSpin is a relativly new member of the project who has helped the project out by finding photos of Tropical Cyclones and uploading them to Commons. He is still getting to grips with the project but is coming on in leaps and bounds thus we have decided to make him the Member of the Month, for January and February 2009.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Oct | Nov | Dec | Feb |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 49 | 50 | 50 | 56 |
A | 19 | 19 | 19 | 17 |
GA | 190 | 198 | 202 | 239 |
B | 13 | 21 | 22 | 14 |
C | 119 | 118 | 122 | 122 |
Start | 204 | 210 | 210 | 198 |
Stub | 19 | 16 | 17 | 28 |
Total | 613 | 631 | 642 | 669 |
ω | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.87 | 2.80 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
36.4 | 35.8 | 35.4 | 33.0 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
42.1 | 42.2 | 42.2 | 46.6 |
Project News
The project reached a milestone in the last two months in terms of article quality for all articles within the project. For the first time, the percentage of
Good articles or better reached more than 1/3, and at the same time, the percentage of Start or Stub articles totaled less than 50%. In the previous twelve months, the overall project grew by 262 articles, of which 204, or 78%, were GA or better. Additionally, in terms of only storm articles, the project now has 46.6% of its articles as GA or better, and only 1/3 are Start or Stub. Unfortunately, much of that is due to newly-created articles easily attaining GA status. For storm articles, the total number of Start or Stub articles, currently 226, is about the same as it was a year ago. The lack of work on older articles is especially noticeable on season articles, where more than 75% of articles are still Stub or Start.
In an attempt to improve articles, there is talk of forming a collaboration between a few Wikipedians. The current project is to improve Hurricane Camille to FA status in time for its 40th anniversary this August. There is still plenty of work to be done, so if you're interested, any help would be appreciated.
Additionally, there is a recent discussion on the WPTC talk page about establishing a notability criteria. There was talk in the past of instating one, although this time the proposal is backed up by interpretations of existing Wikipedia policy. The proposal would limit articles to tropical cyclones that have at least one independent, reliable source other than any warning centers. Excluding cross-basin, off-season, or 64+ knot cyclones, the proposal would affect 26 articles, none of which affected land or lasted for an appreciable amount of time.
Jason Rees ( talk) 01:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Number 25, April 4 The Hurricane Herald This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to provide a summary of both the activities of the WikiProject and global tropical cyclones. 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 March 2009. 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 Hamish indirectly caused a major environmental disaster along the Queensland coastline, when strong waves from the cyclone damaged the hull of a cargo ship, spilling 260 tonnes of fuel and oil into the ocean. The oil washed onto the coastline, endangering the environment prompting a costly cleanup. Offshore, the fishermen went missing after the boat was lost; one person was found, although the other two remained missing and were presumed dead. As the storm remained offshore, overall damage directly from the storm was minor, primarily from strong waves. Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month The member of the month is... Ramisses, has been a member of the Project since January 2008. He is a usefull editor who helps to make the trackmaps for the current season articles, as well as numerous other storms, from previous seasons. We just hope he is able to keep on top of the trackmaps when the busy part of the year comes! New members New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Project News As part of the above discussion, there is a request for all active members to sign a list to affirm they are still active members in the project. If you don't sign the list, or if you don't consider yourself active anymore, your name will be placed on the inactive members list on May 1st. Hurricanehink has organised a challenge to try and improve some of the Tropical cyclone articles. The rules are that you must take either an seasonal or a storm article from one of the eight basins we have, that is either a Stub, Start class or a brand new article and improve it to at least GA status. However to avoid several articles on cyclones that did not affect land, Hurricanehink has limited the challenge to storms/seasonal articles of Mid-importance or higher. Their is an exception to this rule for the Central Pacific as Cyclones rarely form in this basin. - For full details of the challenge see the Project's Talkpage Project member list |
Jason Rees ( talk) 01:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Number 23, June 7
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 of April and May 2009.
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
Cyclone Aila was the second
tropical cyclone to form within the Northern
Indian Ocean during 2009. The disturbance that was to become Cyclone Aila formed on 21 May 2009 about 950 kilometres (590 mi) to the south of
Kolkata, in
India. Over the next couple of days the disturbance slowly developed before a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert was issued by the
Joint Typhoon Warning Center early on 23 May 2009 and being designated as a depression by
RSMC New Delhi. As of 27 May 2009
[update], 330 people have been killed by Aila and at least 8,208 more are missing, while about 1 million are homeless. Health officials in
Bangladesh confirmed a deadly outbreak on diarrhea on 29 May, with more than 7,000 people being infected and four dying. In Bangladesh, an estimated 20 million people were at risk of post-disaster diseases due to Aila. Damage totaled $40.7 million (USD).
Other tropical cyclone activity
Tropical Depression One was the first tropical cyclone to develop during the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season. The depression formed on May 28, out of a disorganized area of low pressure off the coast of North Carolina. However after attaining its peak strength the depression began to weaken due to increasing wind shear and cooling sea surface temperatures with the final advisory being issued on May 29.
Member of the month
The member of the month is Jason Rees, who joined Wikipedia in 2007, and has written nine tropical cyclone GA's. Jason primarily focuses on Southern Hemisphere storms, as well as the Western Pacific. He has plans for featured topics for several seasons, but for now, he is a regular member of the project who adds his input in discussions on the talk page. We thank Jason for his work, and we look forward to more articles!
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 47 | 49 | 49 | 50 |
A | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
GA | 161 | 187 | 198 | 202 |
B | 17 | 13 | 21 | 22 |
C | 107 | 119 | 118 | 122 |
Start | 201 | 204 | 210 | 210 |
Stub | 19 | 19 | 16 | 17 |
Total | 571 | 613 | 631 | 642 |
ω | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.87 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
38.5 | 36.4 | 35.8 | 35.4 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
39.8 | 42.1 | 42.2 | 42.2 |
Project News
There is debate as usual with regards to notability, as well as the status of the project in general, but nothing new is going on.
During the last week, some editors have organized a page — Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Viewed stats — that has a listing of monthly page views within the project. It is under construction, although it is complete for all Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones, as well as all Atlantic tropical cyclones from 1979 to the present. Interestingly, the top 6 viewed EPAC articles are all featured, and all of the top 16 in the basin are GA's. Unfortunately, the Atlantic, at least from 1979 to the present, is much worse, despite being viewed much, much more. The top eight-viewed Atlantic articles all are viewed more than 10,000 times per month, for a total of 363889 views per month, but only two of them are featured, and none of the others are GA. As always, any help in the retired storms would be greatly appreciated.
Somewhat tying into the bettering of project articles, the basin article challenge is still ongoing. Hurricanehink is currently in the lead with a GA in 2 basins. Cyclonebiskit is in 2nd, with one GA in the EPAC. The challenge is still open to anyone, and it is not so much a race, rather a challenge just to get a fairly important GA in each basin.
Thanks for uploading File:B1Rtiny.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 20:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Rockfang ( talk) 20:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
The Hurricane Herald This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary of the WikiProject's progress 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 June 2009. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From the editors
In recent months, the project has become increasingly inactive; with only a few active participants, we need your help for the upcoming hurricane season! Feel free to contact Hurricanehink ( talk · contribs), Juliancolton ( talk · contribs), Jason Rees ( talk · contribs), or Cyclonebiskit ( talk · contribs) for more information. Thanks! Storm of the month Tropical Storm Linfa formed out of an area of low pressure on June 14, the storm briefly attained tropical depression status before degenerating. By June 17 the system regenerated in the South China Sea. Slowly tracking northward, the storm intensified, attaining severe tropical storm status on June 19 and peaking in intensity the following day. On June 21, Linfa made landfall in Fujian Province, China as a tropical storm before weakening to a tropical depression. In Taiwan, outer bands of the storm produced significant amounts of rain over southeastern areas of the island. Along the western coast, rip currents resulted in the drowning of one person. Six hikers also were reported to be missing. In China, torrential rains triggered flooding that destroyed 100 homes, killed one person and left six others missing. In all, seven people were killed by Linfa, with another 12 missing, damages in mainland China were estimated at ¥655 million (US$95.8 million) and agricultural losses in Taiwan reached NT$400 million (US$12.1 million). Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month The member of the month is Cool3 ( talk · contribs). Though only a new member, Cool3 has contributed hundreds of sources and hours of research to several articles, two of which are now featured. The project thanks him for his high-quality work. New members In addition, three users re-joined the project after being listed as inactive:
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Article statistics
Project News As of 01:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC), there are three featured article candidates; see the noticeboard for more info. A discussion is ongoing at the project talk page ( link) regarding the naming of unnamed tropical cyclones, such as 1978 January subtropical storm and 1975 Pacific Northwest hurricane. While more descriptive titles often constitute original research, official designations are sometimes ambiguous. Comments are welcome. There is also a discussion on how the project rates its articles on the importance scale. Tropical cyclones at associated Wikimedia projects
|
– Juliancolton | Talk 02:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
The Hurricane Herald This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary of the WikiProject's progress 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 July 2009. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From the editors
In recent months, the project has become increasingly inactive; with only a few active participants, we need your help for the upcoming hurricane season! Feel free to contact Juliancolton ( talk · contribs), Jason Rees ( talk · contribs), or Cyclonebiskit ( talk · contribs) for more information. Thanks! Storm of the month Hurricane Carlos was the third named storm of the 2009 Pacific hurricane season. Tropical Depression Four-E formed on July 10, and was quickly upgraded to Tropical Storm Carlos. On July 11, the storm strengthened into a minimal Category 1 hurricane. Following a series of intensity fluctuations, Carlos peaked as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h). The storm subsequently began to weaken, and on July 16, Carlos degenerated into a remnant low. The cyclone had no known effects on land. Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month The member of the month is Plasticup ( talk · contribs). Plasticup was inactive for most of the winter; however, upon returning this month, he quickly resumed work. Among his recent works are Meteorological history of Hurricane Gustav, a Good Article, and Tropical Storm Gamma (2005), a Good Article nominee. Plasticup was also designated member of the month in July 2008. New members There were no new members in July. However, four users re-joined the project after being listed as inactive:
New and improved articles
Main Page content Hurricane Ioke appeared on the main page in the Today's Featured Article section on July 22. Tropical Storm Dottie (1976) and Tropical Storm Hallie (1975) appeared on the main page in the Did You Know? section on July 13 and July 24, respectively. Article statistics
Project News SchuminWeb ( talk · contribs) pointed out towards the end of the month that hurricane disambiguation pages are often over-categorized. Efforts are currently underway to address this. A discussion is underway at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Timeline of the 1987 Atlantic hurricane season/archive1 regarding the use of HURDAT as a reference. Input is appreciated. Tropical cyclones at associated Wikimedia projects
|
– Juliancolton | Talk 02:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for uploading File:Messenger Logo.png. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 23:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. -- C. A. Russell ( talk) 23:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
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. The WikiProject has its own IRC channel.
Tropical cyclone activity
The Portal Portal:Tropical cyclones is designed as the entry point to the WikiProject's work and is recognised as a Featured Portal. The structure emulates that of Wikipedia's Main page and needs updating in a similar manner. The following are the key sections that need editorial attention:
Please keep all of these sections up-to-date and refresh them as new tropical cyclones develop and articles are created. Also please keep the suggestions to editors current and fresh.
New articles and improvements wanted
These tasks are those listed at Portal:Tropical cyclones/Things you can do:
Main Page content
New articles
Improved articles
Number 9, February 4, 2007
The Hurricane Herald
Storm of the month
Cyclone Clovis was named late on December 31 near to Tromelin Island. Clovis strengthened as it moved to the southwest reaching its peak the same day with 60 knot winds (according to Météo-France). The JTWC intensified Clovis more slowly, and assessed that it reached its peak with 65 knot winds on January 2, as it was nearing the Madagascar coast. The JTWC maintained this strength until it made landfall on the island on January 3. The resulting floods damaged a number of structures in Mananjary and about 1,500 people had to be evacuated. [2]Other tropical cyclone activity
The only activity during January was in the
Southern Hemisphere, with a total of 5 cyclones existing throughout the month.
New articles and improvements wanted
Member of the month
The January member of the month is Chacor, formerly known as NSLE. Chacor joined the project in November 2005, and has contributed to a wide variety of articles across the project. Recently he has generally focussed on the West Pacific and did most of the work on the first Good article in that basin: Typhoon Ewiniar (2006). He has also started the much needed process of splitting the Southern Hemisphere seasonal articles. Finally, Chacor is probably the user who maintains the quality of the most visible part of the project, the current activity.
Main Page content
New and improved articles
Storm article statistics
Grade | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 16 | 19 | 23 | 25 |
A | 7 | 6 | 2 | 2 |
GA | 48 | 57 | 74 | 75 |
B | 83 | 78 | 71 | 76 |
Start | 210 | 200 | 193 | 195 |
Stub | 11 | 15 | 16 | 16 |
Total | 375 | 375 | 379 | 389 |
percentage Less than B |
58.9 | 57.3 | 55.1 | 54.2 |
A quick note: When you create a new article please list it in the appropriate section on the project's page and add a fact from the article to the Portal. Thanks.
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.
Storm of the month
Cyclone Favio developed well to the east of northern Madagascar on February 12 and moved to the southwest as it developed. The storm did not significantly intensify until February 19 when it was just off the southern coast of Madagascar, but rapidly intensified soon after to its peak with 185 km/h (115 mph) winds. Favio turned to the northwest and hit Mozambique worsening the floods already occurring in the country. Favio claimed at least 4 lives and destroyed thousands of homes.
Other tropical cyclone activity
There were a total of 6 tropical cyclones in the
southern hemisphere during February. Five of these, including Favio, were in the South West Indian Ocean.
Member of the month
The February member of the month is Miss Madeline. Miss Madeline is responsible for many of the projects featured lists such as List of Category 5 Pacific hurricanes and List of California hurricanes. She has also put serious work into many of our Pacific hurricane articles since she joined the project as one of its founding members. Recently she has worked on 1996 Pacific hurricane season, bringing it from a stub-class article to a Good article candidate.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
New articles and improvements wanted
Storm article statistics
Grade | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 19 | 23 | 25 | 28 |
A | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
GA | 57 | 74 | 75 | 80 |
B | 78 | 71 | 76 | 78 |
Start | 200 | 193 | 195 | 194 |
Stub | 15 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
Total | 375 | 379 | 389 | 398 |
percentage Less than B |
57.3 | 55.1 | 54.2 | 52.8 |
Comments wanted on project talk Many discussions that potentially have far reaching impact for the whole project are carried out on the project's talk page. However, only a fraction of our active contributors actually engage in those discussions. If you add the project page to your Watchlist and keep an eye on discussions there to monitor upcoming changes, even if you don't participate in those discussions it would help both yourself and the project as a whole. For instance, at the moment the primary infobox templates such as {{ Infobox hurricane}} are in the process of being deprecated and replaced by new versions which do the role more effectively.
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.
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
Hurricane Will developed from a tropical wave to the east of the Caribbean Sea and intensified. It crossed over Jamaica and re-emerged over water a few days later. The storm intensified into a hurricane and an eye began to develop. Will became a major hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico and made landfall on the vulnerable Gulf Coast of the United States soon after. To date, Hurricane Will has claimed over 350 lives and is directly responsible for about $5 billion of damages; of which an unknown amount was insured. Despite the damage, it is not expected that the name will be retired by WMO.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The April member of the month is HurricaneIrene. Irene began contributing to tropical cyclone articles on Wikipedia in August 2005, but ran out of steam and left after barely 2 weeks. However, Irene's influence on the project has been wide-reaching. Her efforts led directly to two articles attaining featured status and her legacy inspired many of our most active editors to write a plethora of good articles on a wide range of storms.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 23 | 25 | 28 | 29 |
A | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
GA | 74 | 75 | 80 | 82 |
B | 71 | 76 | 78 | 80 |
Start | 193 | 195 | 194 | 209 |
Stub | 16 | 16 | 16 | 17 |
Total | 379 | 389 | 398 | 419 |
percentage Less than B |
55.1 | 54.2 | 52.8 | 53.9 |
The Main Page
The WikiProject has a narrow scope, so it is not surprising that our articles are not frequently selected for Today's featured article. Most destructive cyclones are likely to be mentioned on the In the news column. We have no real control over that, but we should submit suggestions when appropriate.
However, we can do a more lot more to place our content in the other major section of the main page: The Did you know column. In the past month we created over 30 articles. Of these only 2 were even submitted as suggestions for DYK. We can do much better, please submit DYK entries for new articles when you do the initial assessment.
Number 13, February 2, 2008
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 of January 2008.
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
Cyclone Gene formed on January 26 over the open south Pacific Ocean. It drifted southward, and strengthened into Tropical Storm Gene on January 28 as it moved across the Fijian archipelago. There, it brought heavy rainfall, which caused the worst flooding in several years. Half of the country was left without power, and the cyclone killed seven people in Fiji. The storm turned southwestward, developing a cloud-filled eye and quickly strengthening by the end of the month.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The January member of the month is Ajm81. A tropical cyclone editor since he first joined in October 2005, Ajm81 plays a vital role in the project. Unlike other editors, who mainly edit articles, Ajm81 maintains and updates the track maps across the project. We thank Ajm81 for his timely contributions, and may he have some well-deserved downtime after the last tropical cyclone report is released.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 30 | 31 | 33 | 33 |
A | 9 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
GA | 106 | 109 | 112 | 114 |
B | 78 | 82 | 86 | 99 |
Start | 212 | 211 | 208 | 214 |
Stub | 5 | 6 | 6 | 3 |
Total | 440 | 447 | 454 | 472 |
ω | 3.02 | 3.01 | 2.98 | 2.98 |
percentage Less than B |
49.3 | 48.5 | 47.1 | 46.0 |
Wikiwork and 1000 articles In January 2008, the WikiProject began using a system called Wikiwork, or ω. It weighs the overall quality of the project's articles, and a lower number means a greater total quality. The weighed ω, as used above, is a relative number that can be used to compare groups of this article. As of this publication, the relative ω of the project is 3.404, corresponding to between Start and B class. However, when limiting it solely to storm articles, the number drops to 2.98, which is slightly better than B class. During the month, a new statistics page was created.
Additionally, during the month, Mitchazenia pointed out that we received our 1,000th article with the creation of Cyclone Elita.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 16:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
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 of February 2008.
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
Cyclone Ivan formed on February 7 and subsequently executed a loop to the west-southwest. Encountering favorable conditions, it strengthened to attain peak winds on February 17 before striking northeastern Madagascar. It degenerated into a remnant low pressure area as it crossed the island, and briefly re-organized into a weak tropical depression before dissipating on February 22. Ivan caused heavy damage in Madagascar, leaving 190,000 people homeless and causing over 83 deaths.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The February member of the month is RattleMan, for his lasting dedication and continual support of the project. During February, the user worked on improving the timeline articles for the previous season. RattleMan often updates the sections on storms in season articles, and helps to maintain the southern hemisphere articles.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 31 | 33 | 33 | 36 |
A | 8 | 9 | 9 | 8 |
GA | 109 | 112 | 114 | 123 |
B | 82 | 86 | 99 | 96 |
Start | 211 | 208 | 214 | 216 |
Stub | 6 | 6 | 3 | 6 |
Total | 447 | 454 | 472 | 485 |
ω | 3.01 | 2.98 | 2.98 | 2.96 |
percentage Less than B |
48.5 | 47.1 | 46.0 | 45.8 |
percentage GA or better |
33.1 | 33.9 | 33.1 | 34.3 |
Improvements During the month, a total of 15 new articles were added, though the net increase in start or stub articles was only three. The highest quality set of articles for a basin is for the Eastern Pacific Ocean, of which half of its articles are either a good article or better; all of its retired storm articles are good or better. However, the basin has a lower total number of articles, and the Atlantic basin has a higher overall total of good articles.
There is a drive to increase the number of featured topics, which is located on the project talk page.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 05:05, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
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 of March 2008.
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
Cyclone Jokwe was the first tropical cyclone to make landfall in Mozambique since Cyclone Favio struck in the previous year. The tenth named storm of the 2007-08 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season, Jokwe was first classified as a tropical depression on March 2 over the open Southwest Indian Ocean. It tracked west-southwest, crossing northern Madagascar as a tropical storm on March 5 before intensifying into a tropical cyclone on March 6. Jokwe rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 195 km/h (120 mph), before weakening slightly and striking Nampula Province in northeastern Mozambique. It quickly weakened while paralleling the coastline, though the storm restrengthened as it turned southward in the Mozambique Channel. Late in its duration, it remained nearly stationary for several days, and steadily weakened due to wind shear before dissipating on March 16.
The storm caused minor damage in northern Madagascar. In Mozambique, the cyclone affected 165,000 people, and left at least sixteen fatalities. Cyclone Jokwe destroyed over 9,000 houses and damaged over 3,000 more, with the heaviest damage in Angoche and the Island of Mozambique in Nampula Province. The storm also caused widespread power outages and crop damages.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The March member of the month is CapeVerdeWave, whose first edit was to a tropical cyclone article, back in January 2006. CapeVerdeWave has been a steady and active member of the project, writing several articles on Category 5 hurricanes as well as working on the often forgotten older hurricanes. The user also has contributed to some older season articles, and recently helped update the project after the recent hurricane re-analysis. We thank him for his continued dedication.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 33 | 33 | 36 | 38 |
A | 9 | 9 | 8 | 8 |
GA | 112 | 114 | 123 | 130 |
B | 86 | 99 | 96 | 91 |
Start | 208 | 214 | 216 | 211 |
Stub | 6 | 3 | 6 | 9 |
Total | 454 | 472 | 485 | 487 |
ω | 2.98 | 2.98 | 2.96 | 2.94 |
percentage Less than B |
47.1 | 46.0 | 45.8 | 45.2 |
percentage GA or better |
33.9 | 33.1 | 34.3 | 36.1 |
Project News: Updates on the Best Track - Atlantic and North Indian Ocean, and more
In February, the
Hurricane Research Division released its reanalysis for the Atlantic Ocean from 1915 to 1920. Highlights include the addition of eight storms, as well as the removal of one storm. The winds in the
1919 Florida Keys Hurricane were increased to 130 knots, and the 1916 Texas hurricane was increased to a Category 4 hurricane.
According to an email sent to the India Meteorological Department, there will be an online version of the North Indian Ocean best track from 1877 to 2006, scheduled to be released in two months; it is unknown if it will cost money to access.
In unrelated news, the project was featured on the Signpost; Mitchazenia was interviewed, and talked about the past, present, and future of the project.
At the end of the month, there were five different Featured content candidates (FXC's) by five different editors; two were featured article candidates, two were featured list candidates, and one was a featured picture candidate. The have been a few times in which there were four FXC's from four different editors, most recently in February and early March of 2008.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 02:45, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
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 of April 2008.
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 Neoguri was the earliest tropical cyclone on record to strike China. It formed on April 13 to the east of the Philippines, and once entering the South China Sea, environmental conditions allowed for quick strengthening. Neoguri attained its peak intensity of 150 km/h (90 mph) as it approached the island of Hainan, though rapidly weakened due to unfavorable conditions. The system made landfall in southern China on April 19, causing three deaths and moderate damage totaling over ¥296 million (2008 RMB, $42 million 2008 USD). The typhoon left 40 fishermen missing in the South China Sea.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The April member of the month is VOFFA. Though not officially a project member, VOFFA is an important user to the project, having maintained and updated the talk page archives on tropical cyclones worldwide; activity includes adding warnings and discussions for all storms. The user is particularly active during the off-season of the Atlantic basin, when article activity on tropical cyclones typically declines.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 33 | 36 | 38 | 40 |
A | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
GA | 114 | 123 | 130 | 131 |
B | 99 | 96 | 91 | 103 |
Start | 214 | 216 | 211 | 208 |
Stub | 3 | 6 | 9 | 9 |
Total | 472 | 485 | 487 | 499 |
ω | 2.98 | 2.96 | 2.94 | 2.92 |
percentage Less than B |
46.0 | 45.8 | 45.2 | 43.5 |
percentage GA or better |
33.1 | 34.3 | 36.1 | 35.9 |
Project News
There is discussion on the status of articles on non-notable storms in the
Merging page of the project. Comments are welcome.
A Wikipedia traffic counter was launched earlier this year. In the month of February, the article on Hurricane Katrina was viewed just over 200,000 times, making the article the 496th most viewed article on the English Wikipedia during the month.
During the month, Hurricane Camille was demoted from GA status, continuing the trend of good articles degrading in status on notable storms; other occurrences include the FA removal of Cyclone Tracy and 1900 Galveston Hurricane. If anyone has any ideas how to fix the problem, feedback and ideas are appreciated.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 04:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
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 of May 2008.
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
Cyclone Nargis was the costliest and deadliest natural disaster in the history of Burma (Myanmar). It formed on April 27 in the central Bay of Bengal, and after initially tracking north-northwestward it turned to the east. Quickly strengthening to reach peak winds of at least 165 km/h (105 mph), Nargis made landfall in the Ayeyarwady Division of Burma on May 2 near peak intensity. The cyclone killed at least 80,000 people and potentially over 300,000. Passing near the metropolis of Yangon, the cyclone destroyed thousands of buildings, and damage was estimated at over $10 billion (USD). In the wake of the storm, the ruling military junta of Burma initially refused foreign aid, and after they allowed foreign assistance, the government was criticized for its poor handling of the aftermath of the storm.
Other tropical cyclone activity
New and improved articles
Project News
Several other languages are active in the realm of tropical cyclone articles, though as much as ours. The
French Wikipedia has 76 storm articles, the
Spanish Wikipedia has 99 storm articles, and the
Portuguese Wikipedia has 116 storm articles. Each of the projects have several storm articles we do not have, and the coverage on non-notable storms outside of the Atlantic is better, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.
During the month, User:Potapych finished working on Template:Infobox Hurricane Small, which is used for the small Infoboxes in season articles; he has updated several season article already with the changes.
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Feb | Mar | Apr | May |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 36 | 38 | 40 | 41 |
A | 8 | 8 | 8 | 17 |
GA | 123 | 130 | 131 | 129 |
B | 96 | 91 | 103 | 101 |
Start | 216 | 211 | 208 | 209 |
Stub | 7 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
Total | 487 | 487 | 499 | 506 |
ω | 2.96 | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.88 |
percentage ≥Less than B |
45.8 | 45.2 | 43.5 | 43.1 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
34.3 | 36.1 | 35.9 | 367.0 |
Member of the month
The May member of the month is Juliancolton. Joining the project in November 2007, Julian has become an active member of the project, working on new articles in the Atlantic basin. He has created two featured lists ( List of Maryland and Washington, D.C. hurricanes (1980–present) and List of New York hurricanes), and rewrote the article on 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, which became featured during May. Juliancolton is currently working on a featured topic for Hurricane Dennis and its effects by region.
New members
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 02:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
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 of June 2008.
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 Fengshen was the deadliest Pacific typhoon since Typhoon Durian in November of 2006. The sixth named storm of the 2008 Pacific typhoon season, Fengshen developed on June 18 to the east of the Philippines, and after attaining typhoon status it stuck the island of Samar. It intensified while passing through the archipelago, reaching winds of over 175 km/h (110 mph) before passing near Metro Manila. Fengshen later weakened in the South China Sea, and it dissipated on June 26 after moving ashore in China.
The typhoon killed over 1,300 people, including 800 when the MV Princess of the Stars capsized during the storm. Damage totaled $247 million (USD), with over 300,000 houses damaged or destroyed. The damage total included $70 million (USD) in crop damage.
Other tropical cyclone activity
New and improved articles
Addition of C-class
During the month, C-class
was added to the assessment scheme. The project has begun the process of integrating C-class, though as of this publication only 8 articles in the project are at that level. A preliminary solution would be to very strictly define B-class with
six criteria, with
one proposal to automatically re-assess all B-class articles as C-class until they are confirmed to have passed the criteria. Discussion and participation are welcome on the issue.
As a result of the addition of C-class, the ω ( WikiWork) rating for C-class is now 3.5, to keep in line with the previous system we used.
During the month, the project published a page on its style for articles. The purpose for the page, as quoted from the top of the page, is to document a few existing unwritten guidelines for Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones.
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Mar | Apr | May | Jun |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 38 | 40 | 41 | 41 |
A | 8 | 8 | 17 | 18 |
GA | 130 | 131 | 129 | 135 |
B | 91 | 103 | 101 | 96 |
C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Start | 211 | 208 | 209 | 208 |
Stub | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
Total | 487 | 499 | 506 | 510 |
ω | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
45.2 | 43.5 | 43.1 | 42.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
36.1 | 35.9 | 37.0 | 38.0 |
Member of the month
The June member of the month is User:Potapych. Though not officially a member of the project, Potapych is active on hurricane pages, having developed the new small infobox template introduced last month. After developing the new template, Potapych updated season articles across the board to accommodate the new template.
New members
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
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 of July 2008.
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
Hurricane Bertha was a rare early season Cape Verde-type hurricane and the easternmost forming July tropical storm on record. Bertha became the longest-lived pre-August Atlantic tropical cyclone on record and the longest-lived tropical cyclone in the Atlantic Basin since Ivan in 2004. The second named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, Bertha developed from a tropical wave that emerged off the coast of Africa on July 1. After initially remaining weak while tracking westward, Bertha began to strengthen on July 6, and the next day it quickly intensified to reach peak winds of 120 mph (195 km/h). The hurricane weakened during the day on July 8, and after turning to a northwest drift, it passed within 40 miles (64 km) of Bermuda on July 14 before moving northeast away from the island. Bertha became extratropical on July 20 to the east of Newfoundland, after causing minimal damage and three indirect drowning deaths.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The July member of the month is User:Plasticup. Joining the project in August of 2007, Plasticup first became an asset in working on the active article series on Hurricane Dean. After a period of inactivity, the user returned to produce two featured articles this month, both interesting meteorological histories. Additionally, Plasticup has focused some attention to articles in the 2005 season. Keep up the good work!
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics </noinclude>
Grade | Apr | May | Jun | Jul |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 40 | 41 | 41 | 42 |
A | 8 | 17 | 18 | 18 |
GA | 131 | 129 | 135 | 139 |
B | 103 | 101 | 96 | 15 |
C | 0 | 0 | 3 | 98 |
Start | 208 | 209 | 208 | 202 |
Stub | 9 | 9 | 9 | 10 |
Total | 499 | 506 | 510 | 524 |
ω | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.94 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
43.5 | 43.1 | 42.5 | 40.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
35.9 | 37.0 | 38.0 | 38.0 |
Project News
During July, there were two large changes to the operations of the WikiProject. First, WPTC adopted and helped develop the
WP 1.0 B-Class criteria, and was among the first projects to use a "forced" B-Class rubric as part of their assessment schemes. This means that all the articles tagged with {{hurricane|class=B|...}}
are automatically reassessed as {{
C-Class}}, unless all the values in the
checklist are marked as passed. In other words, to mark an article as B-Class, the banner needs to be changed to
{{ hurricane |class=B |B1=yes |B2=yes |B3=yes |B4=yes |B5=yes |B6=yes | ... }}
B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6 stand for each of the six points in the WikiProject's rubric. The banner also has the capability to mark why an article doesn't meet the new B-Class standards: Typing the following in an article's talk page
{{ hurricane |class=B |B1=no |B2=yes |B3=yes |B4=yes |B5=yes |B6=yes | ... }}
will assess an article as C-Class, and mark that the article is not a B because of bad references.
Articles assessed as B's before the introduction of the forced checklist were automatically reassessed as C's, but they're awaiting new reviews to check if they still meet the new B criteria. These articles are listed on Category:Tropical cyclone articles with incomplete B-Class checklists. Currently, there's 117 articles in the category—let's try to shrink that number to zero before the next edition of the Herald!
The other major change to the WikiProject was the addition of three
task forces: the
storm articles task force,
season articles task force, and the
tropical meteorology articles task force. These three task forces allow WPTC to see the progress of the different areas of the WikiProject. Currently, all 1,076 WPTC articles have been assigned to one of the three task forces, but any unsorted articles will be placed in
Category:Unsorted tropical cyclone articles as they're tagged with {{
hurricane}}
.
In order to categorize an article, the banner needs to be modified from {{hurricane|...}}
to:
{{ hurricane |storms-task-force=yes | ... }} {{ hurricane |seasons-task-force=yes | ... }} {{ hurricane |meteo-task-force=yes | ... }}
which will sort the pages into the storms, seasons, and tropical meteorology task forces, respectively.
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:35, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Number 20, September 6, 2008
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 of August 2008.
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
Hurricane Gustav was a deadly and damaging hurricane which formed late in the month in the Caribbean Sea. It first struck Haiti on August 26 as a minimal hurricane, where it killed 76 people and damaged or destroyed over 10,000 houses. Gustav turned to the southwest, moving over Jamaica where it killed 11 people. The hurricane rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) before making landfall on western Cuba; in the country, Gustav damaged or destroyed over 100,000 houses, though no deaths were reported due to well-executed evacuations. In the Gulf of Mexico, Gustav weakened due to its previous land interaction, and on September 1 it made landfall in south-central Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane, where it caused heavy damage. Across its path, the hurricane caused 101 deaths, with an initial damage total of $20 billion.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The August member of the month is Cyclonebiskit, who has been on Wikipedia since April. The user helped maintain the current season articles as well as storm articles. Cyclonebiskit has written one GA, and wrote much of one of the recent tropical cyclone articles.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | May | Jun | Jul | Aug |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 41 | 41 | 42 | 46 |
A | 17 | 18 | 18 | 18 |
GA | 129 | 135 | 139 | 147 |
B | 101 | 96 | 15 | 15 |
C | 0 | 3 | 98 | 99 |
Start | 209 | 208 | 202 | 197 |
Stub | 9 | 9 | 10 | 15 |
Total | 506 | 510 | 524 | 537 |
ω | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.94 | 2.92 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
43.1 | 42.5 | 40.5 | 39.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
37.0 | 38.0 | 38.0 | 39.3 |
Version 0.7
This month, several of the WikiProject's articles were selected for the
Version 1.0 Editorial Team's
Version 0.7 static release. The article selection occurs using an
automated process using WikiProjects' quality and importance assessments. For WPTC, this means that 29 articles will be part of this release, an increase from 13 in the
previous release. It should be noted that these numbers are based on preliminary data that can change based on updates to the database and corrections to the selection algorithm and WP:1.0's cut-off score.
The list of articles chosen for the release can be seen here. Of the selection, almost half of the articles are already featured, and eleven are good articles. There one B-Class article ( 1970 Bhola cyclone, two C-Class articles ( Hurricane Andrew, Cyclone Nargis), and two Start-Class articles ( Pacific typhoon, Hurricane Rita). As these articles will be published in a CD, it is imperative that the project improve them quickly.
The full list of all the WikiProject's articles is also available here. According to that list, WPTC's highest-scoring article— Tropical cyclone—has a score of 1969, which is very good as Canada, the selection's highest-scoring article, has a score of 2,409. That said, Extreme wind warning is the least important article we have, with a score of 227, so we may have to improve it a little bit so it isn't that low...
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 05:15, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
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 of September 2008.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles.
As a result of an extended Wikibreak, I will not be able to work on the next month's newsletter. Other users are welcome to get it together. ♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Storm of the month
Hurricane Ike was among the costliest Atlantic hurricanes on record, based on a preliminary damage estimate of $31.5 billion ( USD). The ninth named storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2008 season, Ike developed on September 1 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Maintaining a generally westward track throughout its duration, Ike reached Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson scale, moving across the Turks and Caicos Islands at that intensity before weakening and crossing Cuba; heavy damage was reported in Cuba, which was still recovering from Hurricane Gustav just weeks prior. Gustav later moved across the Gulf of Mexico and struck near Galveston, Texas, where its effects were estimated as the costliest hurricane in Texas history. Further inland, the storm brought high winds and widespread damage, and its impact reached as far as Canada. Throughout its path, Gustav caused over 100 deaths, mostly in Texas and Haiti, and several hundred remain missing.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The September member of the month is CrazyC83, who has been a steady editor within the project for the past few years. Lately, the user's contributions include maintaining the current season articles, which is the biggest workload for the project. In the past, however, CrazyC83 was very active in writing articles, and was a proponent for all storms in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season getting articles. Of note was his contributions to Hurricane Juan, which brought it to featured status and later to the main page.
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 41 | 42 | 46 | 47 |
A | 18 | 18 | 18 | 19 |
GA | 135 | 139 | 147 | 161 |
B | 96 | 15 | 15 | 17 |
C | 3 | 98 | 99 | 107 |
Start | 208 | 202 | 197 | 201 |
Stub | 9 | 10 | 15 | 19 |
Total | 510 | 524 | 537 | 571 |
ω | 2.87 | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.92 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
42.5 | 40.5 | 39.5 | 38.5 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
38.0 | 38.0 | 39.3 | 39.8 |
Project News
Overall, the project has had a relatively uneventful month. One of the most noteworthy events was the selection of 32 tropical cyclone-related articles, that were
chosen as part of
Wikipedia 0.7. Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. While many of the selected articles are of featured or good quality, several require substantial cleanup and expansion.
In other news, a handful of changes to project standards have taken place. Per a consensus on the project's talk page, the section of each tropical cyclone article previously entitled "Storm history" has been changed to "Meteorological history", thanks in part to Plasticup's bot which preformed the hundreds of edits to execute the change. In addition, a discussion is ongoing regarding the necessity of List of storms in the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and similar articles for other seasons.
New members
♬♩ Hurricanehink ( talk) 03:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Number 22, November 2, 2008
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 of October 2008.
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
Deep Depression ARB 02 caused the 2008 Yemen floods. On October 19 the IMD noted that an area of low pressure which located to the south east of Salalah, Oman had intensifed in to a tropical depression and was assigned the number ARB 02. On October 21 IMD updated the system to a Deep Depression while it lay 700 km south of Salalah, Oman near the east coast of Somalia. It lost its strength while crossing the Gulf of Aden due to entry of dry air and land interaction as it passed close to the northeastern coast of Somalia. It later was downgraded to a Depression, named TC 03B by the JTWC. On October 24 it made landfall on the south-eastern coast of Yemen, leaving at least 26 civilians and six soldiers dead while trapping hundreds of people due to flooding and torrential rainfalls. The latest figure of casualties is of 184 persons dead and 100 others missing, mostly from the region of Hadhramawt, where the storm made landfall. A total of 733 houses were destroyed in the governorates of Hadhramaut and Al Mahrah, while 22,000 people were displaced. The Yemeni Government declared the two aforementioned governorates as disaster zones.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The October member of the month is Hurricanehink. Since joining the project near its inception, Hurricanehink has been involved in bringing forty two articles, eighteen lists and six topics to featured status. Just this month, Hurricanehink was mentioned in the Signpost Dispatch. Hurricanehink has also been the regular distributor for this newsletter.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 42 | 46 | 47 | 48 |
A | 18 | 18 | 19 | 19 |
GA | 139 | 145 | 161 | 187 |
B | 15 | 14 | 17 | 12 |
C | 98 | 99 | 107 | 113 |
Start | 202 | 197 | 201 | 201 |
Stub | 10 | 15 | 19 | 20 |
Total | 524 | 537 | 571 | 600 |
ω | 2.94 | 2.92 | 2.92 | 2.88 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
40.5 | 39.5 | 38.5 | 36.8 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
38.0 | 39.3 | 39.8 | 42.3 |
Project News
A
discussion concerning sandboxes for next year's articles has begun. Please consider working on sandboxes so they will be ready to publish. As tropical cyclones can form at any time in the western Pacific and northern Indian Oceans, these two season's should be made ready for cyclones by December. Ideally, due to the possibility of pre-season storms, the eastern Pacific and Atlantic seasons should also be ready by then, but they should at least be ready by the northern-Hemisphere antipeak in late February and early March. Seasons for the years 2010 to 2015 should be given the name "Post-2009 {ocean name} {cyclone term} seasons", as in "Post 2009 Atlantic hurricane seasons".
A category for tropical cyclone articles of very-low importance has been introduced. Although discussion is still ongoing, a rating of very-low-importance will generally be given to weak cyclones that do not have impact or set any sort of record.
Editorial
This month, our usual editor,
Hurricanehink, has been on a semi-wikibreak until further notice. I am filling in as editor and distributor on an interim basis. The newsletter will continue as normal during that time. Thank you.
Miss Madeline |
Talk to Madeline 00:49, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 01:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Number 23,
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 of November & December 2008.
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
Hurricane Paloma
Hurricane Paloma was the second most powerful November hurricane on record in the Atlantic Basin, behind
Hurricane Lenny in 1999. It was the third and final major hurricane to hit Cuba in 2008, being the first time that three major hurricanes have struck Cuba in one season. It also marked the first time that at least one major hurricane formed in every month of the hurricane season from July to November, with only June not having a major hurricane this season.
Hurricane Paloma was also the last Tropical Depression of the 2008 season, and caused at least $1.4 billion in damage and was responsible for at least one direct death.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The November/December member of the month is Thegreatdr, who has been a steady editor within the project for the past few years. Lately, the user's contributions include improving some of the Pacific Typhoon season articles from the 1980s. Thegreatdr has also tipped us off about going on's at the National Hurricane Center and the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 47 | 49 | 49 | 50 |
A | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
GA | 161 | 187 | 198 | 202 |
B | 17 | 13 | 21 | 22 |
C | 107 | 119 | 118 | 122 |
Start | 201 | 204 | 210 | 210 |
Stub | 19 | 19 | 16 | 17 |
Total | 571 | 613 | 631 | 642 |
ω | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.87 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
38.5 | 36.4 | 35.8 | 35.4 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
39.8 | 42.1 | 42.2 | 42.2 |
Project News
During the last two months there have been several important discussions of which some are still seeking contributions from members. These include discussions about:
We discovered during December that the Australian Bureau of Meteorology have started to designate the Tropical Lows that form within their region with letter U. It is unclear whether either TCWC Jakarta or TCWC Port Moresby assign any designations to lows that form within their Area of Responsibility.
– Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 03:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
You are receiving this message because you are listed as an active participant in WikiProject Meteorology, WikiProject Severe weather, and/or WikiProject Non-tropical storms. I have made a proposal to start an official assessment page for these three projects, under the WP:METEO banner. Since this would need significant participation to work properly, I'd like input from as many interested parties as possible (even those who may not watch the project pages), so please visit the discussion here and leave your thoughts/opinions. Thanks! - Running On Brains 02:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Number 24, March 7
The Hurricane Herald
This is the bi-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 of January 2009 and February 2009.
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
Cyclone Fanele was the first
cyclone of
tropical cyclone status to strike western
Madagascar since Cyclone Fame one year prior. It formed on January 18 in the
Mozambique Channel, and
rapidly organized, reaching peak winds of 185
km/h (115
mph). It weakened before moving ashore in
Menabe Region southwest of
Morondava, and rapidly deteriorated over land. Fanele briefly re-intensified after reaching open waters, only to become an
extratropical cyclone by January 23. The cyclone caused heavy damage near where it moved ashore and along its path, resulting in at least eight deaths. Fanele struck Madagascar just two days after
Tropical Storm Eric brushed the northeastern portion of the country. The two storms affected over 50,000 people, of which at least 4,000 were left homeless. Fanele struck the country during a series of
government protests, and consequentially relief efforts were hindered.
Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month
The member of the month is... HurricaneSpin HurricaneSpin is a relativly new member of the project who has helped the project out by finding photos of Tropical Cyclones and uploading them to Commons. He is still getting to grips with the project but is coming on in leaps and bounds thus we have decided to make him the Member of the Month, for January and February 2009.
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Oct | Nov | Dec | Feb |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 49 | 50 | 50 | 56 |
A | 19 | 19 | 19 | 17 |
GA | 190 | 198 | 202 | 239 |
B | 13 | 21 | 22 | 14 |
C | 119 | 118 | 122 | 122 |
Start | 204 | 210 | 210 | 198 |
Stub | 19 | 16 | 17 | 28 |
Total | 613 | 631 | 642 | 669 |
ω | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.87 | 2.80 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
36.4 | 35.8 | 35.4 | 33.0 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
42.1 | 42.2 | 42.2 | 46.6 |
Project News
The project reached a milestone in the last two months in terms of article quality for all articles within the project. For the first time, the percentage of
Good articles or better reached more than 1/3, and at the same time, the percentage of Start or Stub articles totaled less than 50%. In the previous twelve months, the overall project grew by 262 articles, of which 204, or 78%, were GA or better. Additionally, in terms of only storm articles, the project now has 46.6% of its articles as GA or better, and only 1/3 are Start or Stub. Unfortunately, much of that is due to newly-created articles easily attaining GA status. For storm articles, the total number of Start or Stub articles, currently 226, is about the same as it was a year ago. The lack of work on older articles is especially noticeable on season articles, where more than 75% of articles are still Stub or Start.
In an attempt to improve articles, there is talk of forming a collaboration between a few Wikipedians. The current project is to improve Hurricane Camille to FA status in time for its 40th anniversary this August. There is still plenty of work to be done, so if you're interested, any help would be appreciated.
Additionally, there is a recent discussion on the WPTC talk page about establishing a notability criteria. There was talk in the past of instating one, although this time the proposal is backed up by interpretations of existing Wikipedia policy. The proposal would limit articles to tropical cyclones that have at least one independent, reliable source other than any warning centers. Excluding cross-basin, off-season, or 64+ knot cyclones, the proposal would affect 26 articles, none of which affected land or lasted for an appreciable amount of time.
Jason Rees ( talk) 01:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Number 25, April 4 The Hurricane Herald This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to provide a summary of both the activities of the WikiProject and global tropical cyclones. 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 March 2009. 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 Hamish indirectly caused a major environmental disaster along the Queensland coastline, when strong waves from the cyclone damaged the hull of a cargo ship, spilling 260 tonnes of fuel and oil into the ocean. The oil washed onto the coastline, endangering the environment prompting a costly cleanup. Offshore, the fishermen went missing after the boat was lost; one person was found, although the other two remained missing and were presumed dead. As the storm remained offshore, overall damage directly from the storm was minor, primarily from strong waves. Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month The member of the month is... Ramisses, has been a member of the Project since January 2008. He is a usefull editor who helps to make the trackmaps for the current season articles, as well as numerous other storms, from previous seasons. We just hope he is able to keep on top of the trackmaps when the busy part of the year comes! New members New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Project News As part of the above discussion, there is a request for all active members to sign a list to affirm they are still active members in the project. If you don't sign the list, or if you don't consider yourself active anymore, your name will be placed on the inactive members list on May 1st. Hurricanehink has organised a challenge to try and improve some of the Tropical cyclone articles. The rules are that you must take either an seasonal or a storm article from one of the eight basins we have, that is either a Stub, Start class or a brand new article and improve it to at least GA status. However to avoid several articles on cyclones that did not affect land, Hurricanehink has limited the challenge to storms/seasonal articles of Mid-importance or higher. Their is an exception to this rule for the Central Pacific as Cyclones rarely form in this basin. - For full details of the challenge see the Project's Talkpage Project member list |
Jason Rees ( talk) 01:31, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Number 23, June 7
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 of April and May 2009.
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
Cyclone Aila was the second
tropical cyclone to form within the Northern
Indian Ocean during 2009. The disturbance that was to become Cyclone Aila formed on 21 May 2009 about 950 kilometres (590 mi) to the south of
Kolkata, in
India. Over the next couple of days the disturbance slowly developed before a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert was issued by the
Joint Typhoon Warning Center early on 23 May 2009 and being designated as a depression by
RSMC New Delhi. As of 27 May 2009
[update], 330 people have been killed by Aila and at least 8,208 more are missing, while about 1 million are homeless. Health officials in
Bangladesh confirmed a deadly outbreak on diarrhea on 29 May, with more than 7,000 people being infected and four dying. In Bangladesh, an estimated 20 million people were at risk of post-disaster diseases due to Aila. Damage totaled $40.7 million (USD).
Other tropical cyclone activity
Tropical Depression One was the first tropical cyclone to develop during the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season. The depression formed on May 28, out of a disorganized area of low pressure off the coast of North Carolina. However after attaining its peak strength the depression began to weaken due to increasing wind shear and cooling sea surface temperatures with the final advisory being issued on May 29.
Member of the month
The member of the month is Jason Rees, who joined Wikipedia in 2007, and has written nine tropical cyclone GA's. Jason primarily focuses on Southern Hemisphere storms, as well as the Western Pacific. He has plans for featured topics for several seasons, but for now, he is a regular member of the project who adds his input in discussions on the talk page. We thank Jason for his work, and we look forward to more articles!
New members
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Storm article statistics
Grade | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
---|---|---|---|---|
FA | 47 | 49 | 49 | 50 |
A | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
GA | 161 | 187 | 198 | 202 |
B | 17 | 13 | 21 | 22 |
C | 107 | 119 | 118 | 122 |
Start | 201 | 204 | 210 | 210 |
Stub | 19 | 19 | 16 | 17 |
Total | 571 | 613 | 631 | 642 |
ω | 2.92 | 2.88 | 2.87 | 2.87 |
percentage ≥Less than C |
38.5 | 36.4 | 35.8 | 35.4 |
percentage ≥GA or better |
39.8 | 42.1 | 42.2 | 42.2 |
Project News
There is debate as usual with regards to notability, as well as the status of the project in general, but nothing new is going on.
During the last week, some editors have organized a page — Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Viewed stats — that has a listing of monthly page views within the project. It is under construction, although it is complete for all Eastern Pacific tropical cyclones, as well as all Atlantic tropical cyclones from 1979 to the present. Interestingly, the top 6 viewed EPAC articles are all featured, and all of the top 16 in the basin are GA's. Unfortunately, the Atlantic, at least from 1979 to the present, is much worse, despite being viewed much, much more. The top eight-viewed Atlantic articles all are viewed more than 10,000 times per month, for a total of 363889 views per month, but only two of them are featured, and none of the others are GA. As always, any help in the retired storms would be greatly appreciated.
Somewhat tying into the bettering of project articles, the basin article challenge is still ongoing. Hurricanehink is currently in the lead with a GA in 2 basins. Cyclonebiskit is in 2nd, with one GA in the EPAC. The challenge is still open to anyone, and it is not so much a race, rather a challenge just to get a fairly important GA in each basin.
Thanks for uploading File:B1Rtiny.jpg. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 20:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Rockfang ( talk) 20:17, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
The Hurricane Herald This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary of the WikiProject's progress 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 June 2009. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From the editors
In recent months, the project has become increasingly inactive; with only a few active participants, we need your help for the upcoming hurricane season! Feel free to contact Hurricanehink ( talk · contribs), Juliancolton ( talk · contribs), Jason Rees ( talk · contribs), or Cyclonebiskit ( talk · contribs) for more information. Thanks! Storm of the month Tropical Storm Linfa formed out of an area of low pressure on June 14, the storm briefly attained tropical depression status before degenerating. By June 17 the system regenerated in the South China Sea. Slowly tracking northward, the storm intensified, attaining severe tropical storm status on June 19 and peaking in intensity the following day. On June 21, Linfa made landfall in Fujian Province, China as a tropical storm before weakening to a tropical depression. In Taiwan, outer bands of the storm produced significant amounts of rain over southeastern areas of the island. Along the western coast, rip currents resulted in the drowning of one person. Six hikers also were reported to be missing. In China, torrential rains triggered flooding that destroyed 100 homes, killed one person and left six others missing. In all, seven people were killed by Linfa, with another 12 missing, damages in mainland China were estimated at ¥655 million (US$95.8 million) and agricultural losses in Taiwan reached NT$400 million (US$12.1 million). Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month The member of the month is Cool3 ( talk · contribs). Though only a new member, Cool3 has contributed hundreds of sources and hours of research to several articles, two of which are now featured. The project thanks him for his high-quality work. New members In addition, three users re-joined the project after being listed as inactive:
New and improved articles
Main Page content
Article statistics
Project News As of 01:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC), there are three featured article candidates; see the noticeboard for more info. A discussion is ongoing at the project talk page ( link) regarding the naming of unnamed tropical cyclones, such as 1978 January subtropical storm and 1975 Pacific Northwest hurricane. While more descriptive titles often constitute original research, official designations are sometimes ambiguous. Comments are welcome. There is also a discussion on how the project rates its articles on the importance scale. Tropical cyclones at associated Wikimedia projects
|
– Juliancolton | Talk 02:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
The Hurricane Herald This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary of the WikiProject's progress 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 July 2009. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From the editors
In recent months, the project has become increasingly inactive; with only a few active participants, we need your help for the upcoming hurricane season! Feel free to contact Juliancolton ( talk · contribs), Jason Rees ( talk · contribs), or Cyclonebiskit ( talk · contribs) for more information. Thanks! Storm of the month Hurricane Carlos was the third named storm of the 2009 Pacific hurricane season. Tropical Depression Four-E formed on July 10, and was quickly upgraded to Tropical Storm Carlos. On July 11, the storm strengthened into a minimal Category 1 hurricane. Following a series of intensity fluctuations, Carlos peaked as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h). The storm subsequently began to weaken, and on July 16, Carlos degenerated into a remnant low. The cyclone had no known effects on land. Other tropical cyclone activity
Member of the month The member of the month is Plasticup ( talk · contribs). Plasticup was inactive for most of the winter; however, upon returning this month, he quickly resumed work. Among his recent works are Meteorological history of Hurricane Gustav, a Good Article, and Tropical Storm Gamma (2005), a Good Article nominee. Plasticup was also designated member of the month in July 2008. New members There were no new members in July. However, four users re-joined the project after being listed as inactive:
New and improved articles
Main Page content Hurricane Ioke appeared on the main page in the Today's Featured Article section on July 22. Tropical Storm Dottie (1976) and Tropical Storm Hallie (1975) appeared on the main page in the Did You Know? section on July 13 and July 24, respectively. Article statistics
Project News SchuminWeb ( talk · contribs) pointed out towards the end of the month that hurricane disambiguation pages are often over-categorized. Efforts are currently underway to address this. A discussion is underway at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Timeline of the 1987 Atlantic hurricane season/archive1 regarding the use of HURDAT as a reference. Input is appreciated. Tropical cyclones at associated Wikimedia projects
|
– Juliancolton | Talk 02:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for uploading File:Messenger Logo.png. I noticed that the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you did not create this file yourself, you will need to specify the owner of the copyright. If you obtained it from a website, then a link to the website from which it was taken, together with a restatement of that website's terms of use of its content, is usually sufficient information. However, if the copyright holder is different from the website's publisher, their copyright should also be acknowledged.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following this link. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If the image is copyrighted under a non-free license (per Wikipedia:Fair use) then the image will be deleted 48 hours after 23:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC). If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. -- C. A. Russell ( talk) 23:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)