Talk:Tropical Storm Allison/Archive 1

Archive 1

Talk text from December 2005 through June 2006:

List 5 "A" name and Houston

What is it that makes the List 5 (1983-1989-1995-2001-2007...) "A" names such attractive targets to Houston? Except for Allison (1995), all of them have been destructive there...and what were thinking in choosing Andrea as a replacement name, as it already has notority there! It's like she is already planning a rampage there for mid-2007... CrazyC83 16:58, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

True. The only one that did nothing to Texas was Allison in 1995. This is very strange that every other one was very damaging to Texas. Hurricanehink 17:20, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Todo

copyedit, references Jdorje 23:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

A major thing needed is impact outside of Texas. Hurricanehink 19:24, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Dropped it to Start, for now. This will be my next personal project. Hurricanehink 00:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

1995 Dollars?

Why is the cost listed in 1995 dollars? Should that be 2005 dollars or 2001 dollars? —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 22:03, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Deaths

Can we have a deaths by region (state/county?) table? Were all the deaths in Houston, or all over Texas, or all over the south? — jdorje (talk) 05:12, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

How bout death and damage rates for New England? Cyclone1 18:29, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Acording to this site, Allison caused $126,000 in damage in Alabama, $112,000 in Connecticut, $20 million in Florida, $1.3+ million in Georgia, $27 million in Louisiana, $10,000 in Maryland, $400,000 in Massachusettes, $1.3 million in Mississippi, unknown in New York, $200,000+ in North Carolina, $35 million in Pensylvania, and $5.1 billion in Texas. There's probably some more in there but that's all I got on the damage. The NHC report has deaths state by state. Hurricanehink 02:53, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Images

Here's some MODIS imagery of Allison.

• Allison at peak strength
• Allison over the MS/AL border
• Allison over SC

They might be potentially useful for the article, personally I favor true color visible images over false color ones.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:05, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh and another issue I've noticed with quite a few storms lately. The (TX-only) rainfalls pic is really hard to see as a thumbnail, is there any way we could make it visible in the article, as opposed to having a very nearly black thumbnail.--Nilfanion (talk) 10:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Good pictures. The one over south Carolina would definetly replace the current NC one, though I'm not sure about the others. I love the pic with the eyewall. Also, the MODIS one of the peak intensity is awesome, but it would be hard to get a big picture from it. No idea how to fix the Texas ones. Maybe someone could brighten them up with photoshop? Hurricanehink (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Photoshopping is definitely the solution to the rainfall pics, thicken the lines maybe?. Agree on the eyewall pic, three visible light images is excessive, if theres more it should be IR/Radar (like that one). As for the peak strength images, the MODIS one actually has a slightly larger image of Allison than the infobox one, cropping that image will sort that.--Nilfanion (talk) 14:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Allison at its peak

Hmm, you're right about the peak pic. On the right is a cropped version of the peak pic. That could be better than the existing one. This doesn't have the NOAA symbol, and gives a wider view. It might have to be cropped a bit more, but that one is probably better than the existing one. Hurricanehink (talk) 20:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Err, maybe not. Seeing it small like that makes me not so sure. It could go either way. Hurricanehink (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, its hard to judge; the top left could be removed which would improve the image a bit. The differences are subtle enough, either image works doesnt it?--Nilfanion (talk) 20:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

There is talk of providing the rainfall images on a white background. Would that be helpful? Thegreatdr 01:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if changing the background to white might make a difference for how the images are utilised here, depends how else the colors get adjusted (Personally I like the black background in the HPC reports). The problem when the images are made into thumbnails (as in the TC articles) they become less useful. I can think of two things which could help with the images as they are used here: Using different background colors for land and sea, is one - a subtle difference is all that would be needed. The other is making the data "thicker". Making the lines thicker would lose detail in the HPC report which isn't good for your real purpose, but if instead of using contours to represent the data you use solid areas instead that might work.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Contours are an idea. There are two ways they can be drawn. One is time consuming and would be virtually exact; the other simple and paint over a grid, which wouldn't be able to depict localized maxima. I'll consider the more exacting method on a couple of storms and see how they turn out. Thegreatdr 22:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Anon addition

An anonymous editor added a lot to the Texas section. However, none of it was sourced. Rather than trying to find the source, I'll just paste it here until we an find the source.

It is important to note that Allison affected Houston and southeast Texas in two distinct and separate occurrences over a 4 day period. The first being the immediate effects, mostly minor street flooding and wind damage, that were felt immediately following landfall on Tuesday, June 5th, and the second being the instances of catastrophic flooding that occurred later in the week, on Thursday and Friday, June 7th and 8th, when the storm system returned to the area. It is the second instance that is most commonly associated with popular images of the storm.

Allison made landfall with a storm surge of two to three feet. Combined with waves on top, areas of Galveston Island experienced a wall of water 8 feet in height, creating overwash along the coastline. The storm caused winds of up to 43 mph (69 km/h) at the Galveston Pier. While Allison was stalling over Texas, it dropped heavy rainfall across the state, including 9.77 inches in Galveston, 12.13 inches in Jamaica Beach, Texas, and other similar totals along the coast. Minimal beach erosion was reported. Impact was minimal near the coast.

While moving northward through Texas as a minimal tropical depression, Allison produced minor winds, typically of only tropical storm force. Shortly after making landfall, the storm spawned a tornado in Manvel in Brazoria County, causing damage to one home. Within hours of making landfall, rainfall totals of 8 to 12 inches were common in Galveston and Harris County.

Following landfall, the storm slowly moved northeastward into East Texas and stalled just south of Lufkin causing large amounts of flash flooding with rainfall amounts across the state peaking at just over 40 inches in northwestern Jefferson County.

Late on Wednesday, June 6th, the center of circulation began to move slowly back towards the southwest where it eventually stalled a second time over Wharton County and reconnected with moisture flow from the Gulf of Mexico. In the early morning hours of Thursday, June 7th, major street flooding occurred in Sugar Land and southeast Houston with heavy rain and flash flooding occurring over the same areas throughout the next two days. In the late afternoon of Friday, June 8th, the center of circulation moved again, this time slightly to the east over Fort Bend County and heavy rain began to fall in a narrow line roughly from Sweeny to Kingwood. This line of heavy rain continued throughout the night and early morning hours and covered the cities of Bellaire and West University Place and most of the city of Houston inside of Loop 610, including downtown.

Please expound on what needs to be "sourced"? I wrote it all from memory. I was living in Bellaire at the time and my house flooded. I still live in Houston and remember all of that like it was yesterday.

My addition didn't come from any other source, I wrote it extemporaneously one day last week when I was bored at work and noticed that the article could be made a bit more accurate. Sorry it's not cut and paste from some "official" source and that I'm just a guy without any sort of credentials, but that's all I can say. If you would rather the article be vague but still "sourced" that's fine with me. I'm not going to get into any Wikigeek wars beyond this one statement (hence I would rather remain anonymous). Do with it what you want.

I'm really sorry, but personal narratives aren't allowed on Wikipedia, as we don't know if they're true. That is fine here on the talk page. Featured articles, which is what I would like this to be someday, need every last statement in the article to be sourced. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Glad you've chosen yourself to be the guardian. Perhaps you need to look up what a "personal narrative" really is, but that's fine with me. Cheers. Perhaps this article should go into the "cut-and-paste-ipedia" instead?

Yea, I'm working on this article personally. OK, it's not exactly a personal narrative, but it is a personal comment. I'm not exactly sure what cut-and-paste-ipedia is, but I'm glad you understand. Hurricanehink (talk) 15:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)