Talk:2004 Atlantic hurricane season/Archive 1

Comment edit

<!-- Please do not link names until a storm has been given that name. And please include the year in parenthesis when you do, hurricane names are recycled and can therefore be ambiguous. Ex: [[Hurricane Alex (2004)|Alex]] -- [[User:Cyrius]]|[[User talk:Cyrius]] 23:27, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC) -->

Just curious: When DOES a storm warrant a page? Should Tropical Storm Alex (2004) exist? Or do we wait until it makes landfall? Or do we wait until it makes hurricane? Or, if it doesn't make landfall at all, do we still make a page on it, just to note its existence, or should that simply redirect back to this article? --Golbez 04:46, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure, I'm making this up as I go. That commented message was mostly to try to avoid the slim risk of people trying to write articles about storms that go nowhere and do nothing.
My current opinion on a 2004 Alex article is that it should not exist even if it does make landfall. Alex may do something justifying a real article, but right now it looks like it's not going to be a terribly significant storm.
Question, though: Perhaps all storms should be linked, and have them all redirect to their appropriate year page, unless it's a major one like Hurricane Andrew. For example, once it exists, using Alex as an example, perhaps Hurricane Alex (and Tropical storm Alex (s or S?) should be made that redirects here, since not everyone will go straight for 2004 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Likewise, if there's more than one, Hurricane Alex should redirect to a disambig page, which will simply send people to the appropriate year page. What do you think? --Golbez 06:18, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
That's pretty much the disambig page idea I've got on the back burner. I've created Hurricane Alex as I saw it happening for storms without their own articles. This page should not link to Hurricane Alex, as it would send people right back here. If Alex does something justifying an article of its own, we can start worrying about moving the disambig page or naming it Hurricane Alex (2004) or whatever.
As far as capitalizing the S goes, the three tropical storms with articles all have them capitalized, and that's how the NHC does it. -- Cyrius| 06:30, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
One of the few examples of existing articles we have to work with is Hurricane Isabel. That article was started on September 14 when the storm was well away from land but at just under Category 5 strength (see the NHC archive). The strike map is useful in figuring out the thought processes of the anonymous user that created it. Reading through the discussions reveals that forecasters considered it a near-certainty that Isabel was going to hit the east coast as a strong storm.
As usual, it comes down to a judgement call. I'm feeling a bit conservative on creating storm pages, and so will probably wait until a storm's practically on land at Category 4 or better before making an article without the benefit of hindsight (that's a feeling, not a promise). Just remember that we've got this big open talk page here
As to the issue of linking storm names, I've been thinking up a variation on the standard disambiguation page, but don't consider it a priority at the moment.
And now I'm off to note the upgrade of Alex to hurricane strength as of ~15 minutes ago. -- Cyrius| 06:13, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Or not, looks like you beat me to it. -- Cyrius| 06:14, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Tee hee. :D I'd been watching the clock. ;) --Golbez 06:18, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)


Accessibility edit

Currently active storms are marked in bold. Names that have not yet been assigned are marked in gray: that won't work for people using a text reader; or a Braille dislay. Please find an alternative, such as listing them separately, or marking with, say, an asterisk. Andy Mabbett 13:05, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If you'd like to suggest a solution, feel free. Listing them separately is not an option. The list of names is linear and needs to stay that way (bar folding for compactness). -- Cyrius| 13:33, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Observant readers will notice that I suggested two possibilities. Regarding your comment "try something ugly to make accessibility people happy. sigh."; there are no "accessibility people"; or, rather, we are all "accessibility people". Unless, of course, you know that you and all those you may at some time care for will always have perfect sight, hearing, cognition and mobility... Andy Mabbett 13:59, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Don't take grump to be intolerance. It was 8:30am here in the Central time zone, and I wasn't happy at being awake. My eyes are far from perfect, just correctable. I fully understand the reasoning behind wanting it, which is why I reacted within minutes of seeing your complaint. Less-ugly solutions are still invited. -- Cyrius| 18:36, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Andy Mabbett, do you know much about accessibility? Is it possible to hide a tag from seeing users, but have it read to Braille or reader users? Like an alt-tag for images, those are a primary tool for visually impaired visitors. Does such a thing exist for text? That way, we could have our cake (the pretty table) and eat it too (alt-text tags that explain which ones are used and which aren't). I'll do a little browse on this and see what I can come up with. --Golbez 14:44, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Heh, I like this, from the w3 at [1]: "Required: Avoid using tables to arrange text documents in columns." Whoops. But I just remembered that we have to take into account Lynx users, too. Hm. Maybe the best thing to do is put an asterisk by ones that have been used? So it's not so, er, ugly. --Golbez 14:57, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
CSS and span tags would allow for show/hide for different types of readers, solving most of the problem in an utterly wonderful manner. Unfortunately span is not allowed to us. As far as the W3C and tables for columns goes, screw them :). It looks fine in Lynx, it just falls back to vertical columns, with a gap between each. Not ideal, but nothing that needs working around. I'm assuming that braille or audio readers will produce something equivalent to Lynx's output, which may not be safe, but assumptions are all I have to work with. -- Cyrius| 18:50, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, those were two different thoughts... I meant about Lynx being able to render colored text, which it probably can't in most circumstanced. I've voted against being able to use span directly, but I would certainly support a wikitax method of using it... could be useful. --Golbez 19:15, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Compromise: Bold current storms, italicize past storms, and gray out future storms? That way, future storms would look normal, but people who could see the colors would still benefit from that. Does accessibility rule out using bold and italics in a tabular fashion such as this? And these can be explained in the paragraph... --Golbez 21:29, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'd like past storms to be plain text. Once this is all over, we're going to have just two groups, used and unused. -- Cyrius| 00:03, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Tropical depressions and the storm list edit

In an edit summary, Golbez asked if TD2 should get an entry in the Storms list. IMO, it shouldn't. Tropical depressions as such are rarely notable in themselves. I'm not actively opposed to the idea, but I'd recommend just waiting and seeing what they do. In the case of TD2, it looks like it's going to be Tropical Storm Bonnie in less than 24 hours. -- Cyrius| 19:02, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough. A TD really is not notable, except in the Events list, until it becomes a storm. (Of course, if a TD manages to do hurricane-style damage, it should be mentioned.) --Golbez 19:08, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Of course if it does something noteworthy, it should be mentioned. I recall putting a couple of tropical depressions in on the historical pages because they killed people. -- Cyrius| 19:25, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Looks like TD2 just proved my point by falling apart. (It is now going to make me look like a fool by restrengthening into a hurricane in the next 30 minutes) -- Cyrius| 01:58, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Teehee. I love hurricane season. Er, except, like, when it kills people, and makes me evacuate. (Hi, Hugo) :) But yeah, that was a good call. Only named storms and notable TDs. --Golbez 02:55, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Disambiguation edit

I think we've got a good test case for a disambiguation page with the newly-written Hurricane Isidore. Originally User:BigT27 (the author) put the disambiguation information straight on Hurricane Isidore. I've since moved the info to Hurricane Isidore (disambiguation). Thoughts? -- Cyrius| 02:51, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In the case of storms major enough to cause the names to be retired, like Isodore, Hugo and Andrew, I think the main page should be for the particular storm, and a disambig page added to it like you did. In the case of Alex, the main page itself should be the disambig page. (Does this make sense?) This should probably only be done for retired-name storms. They retire the names for a reason, and it's usually 2 or 3 a season, so the threshhold isn't too high. --Golbez 02:58, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It does make sense to me, because it's what I think I did in these two cases. -- Cyrius| 03:25, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bolding events edit

I agree with the bolding of landfall dates and names of the storm in question. Landfall (or close to it in the case of Alex) is the most important event we're tracking. I know nobody needs (or wants, or even cares about) my approval on this, I'd just like it written down somewhere that we're doing it so things stay consistent. -- Cyrius| 03:34, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

There's just something about the current style that irks me, but I'm not sure how to fix it. So here's a few options:

Current:

Bold the whole thing:

Bold the description:

I'm leaning somewhat towards the last one. Not bolding the date means that the left side lines up with other events of the day. -- Cyrius| 06:38, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'll go with the last one; the only reason I didn't bold it before was I thought it would be too much, but since these are supposed to be the 5-10 most notable events in a half-year-long season, they should stand out. --Golbez 07:27, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Guidelines edit

A quick attempt at some guidelines:

  1. Events
    1. TD formation should be mentioned.
    2. TDs growing into TSs and TDs growing into hurricanes should be mentioned.
    3. A hurricane strengthening to a new category should be mentioned.
      • However, if it's wobbling between cat 2 and cat 3, don't note it. But if it was cat 4, drops to cat 1 for a few days, then back to cat 3, this may be notable if it's still heading for populated areas.
    4. A hurricane dropping in strength should not be mentioned unless landfall is imminent (12 hours or so)
    5. Landfall, or skirting land, should always be mentioned.
      • Landfall should be accompanied by the exact time; but a separate event should be made, for the whole day (i.e. without a timestamp) about the storm interacting with a populated area. Like how I did with it skirting the Outer Banks; I would have added the day-long event, PLUS an event for the exact time of landfall.
        • If two landfalls are made in quick succession, mention them in the same event, like if it wobbles. If they are separated by over an hour, use separate events.
  2. Storms
    1. Once a storm is named, it should get a mention in this, or if it's a numbered TD that impacts a populated area, or sinks a ship or something.
    2. Every NHC update should be noted.
    3. Once a storm ceases to be a concern, the data should be concatenated into notable events; "Storm formed on X, hit land on Y, wandered towards Z until W, and died on V", not quite as terse though. You know what I mean.
    4. This is a personal suggestion - instead of "Alex was moving 45mph (x kph) 500 miles (1000 km) south of whatever", let's change it to "Alex was 500 miles (1000km) south of whatever, moving NE at 45mph (x kph)". Having the 500 miles trapped between parentheses is slightly confusing.
  3. AST (Atlantic Standard Time) = EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). Watch out when Eastern switches back to Standard, though, then they'll be an hour apart. Notable for growing and dying storms.

Draft by Golbez 00:49, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC). What can I say, I had a few minutes to kill. :) Just edit it if you have clarifications/additions, little need to discuss.

What's funny is I put together a similar list almost a month ago in my user space as a possible "WikiProject Atlantic Hurricanes". There were only minor differences, mostly in marking strength changes. -- Cyrius| 06:24, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Haha, then let's go with that. :) Maybe we should make a wikiproject on this. Because I was just thinking, it might be nice to have images showing the paths of storms, once they're past. It'd be a small line image, shouldn't be hard to whip one up. (famous last words...)
I might try my hand on it tonight. It'd be just large enough to be legible, and thumbnailed. It wouldn't clutter the page up at all, and it'd be nice to have some color on here. --Golbez 15:25, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and by the way - what differences did you have regarding strength changes? --Golbez 15:25, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Nothing important, really. -- Cyrius| 16:16, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject edit

I updated my half-assed WikiProject concept at User:Cyrius/WikiProject Atlantic Hurricanes based on some of the discussion here. It's useful as a condensing of the formatting and policy discussion here if nothing else. -- Cyrius| 04:47, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Tropical Storm Bonnie edit

Looking at the satellite view, I can't help but wonder if the folks over at the NHC have been taking trips to Margaritaville. It's a terribly disorganized system at the moment. -- Cyrius| 20:58, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

My affiliate is saying that it'll hit Pensacola by the end of the week. Bitch, it better not; I have to pack up and leave for college on Friday. Mike H 21:15, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Gets worse, some of the NHC models have it going up to hurricane strength while doing so. They'll probably know more at the 10pm CDT update. -- Cyrius| 00:58, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Update: According to Bonnie's 3 day map, it will be passing directly over me at roughly 4am Friday morning. ... cool, we need rain. :) Last tropical storm I was in when TS Fran blew through Washington in 1996. Destroyed my umbrella. Last one before that was evacuating from Hugo in 1989. (Lived in Savannah, Georgia then) --Golbez 06:26, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We didn't get any rain here (Bonnie passed over Apalachicola and I'm in Pensacola). It's sunny and partly cloudy. Mike H 18:28, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Lots of rain here near Charlotte, not sure if it's related. Sure will be tomorrow. --Golbez 18:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Colliding storms edit

This is just personal, but I'd like to point out that while Florida gets hit twice, it's in different places; Bonnie and Clyde (better name than Charley)'s paths intersect at a spot about 50 miles east of here. Yay for North Carolina. :P Hey, I know it's a very low chance (one's going to move faster than the other, they'll be about 12 hours apart), but ... what would happen if two hurricanes met? Superhurricane Zoltar the Magnificent? --Golbez 05:25, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

They'd likely interfere with each other's circulation. At least, that's what's happened with storms that come near each other in the past.
A direct collision would result in a giant mess, which could potentially sort itself out if it happened over open water. If it happened over land, I think all the water hanging in the air would lose its reason for defying gravity and there'd be an even more serious flooding problem than with one following the other. But that's just speculation. -- Cyrius| 06:35, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Strikes edit

Just curious, Cyrius, what's your news source for when the storm is over where? I've only been using the NHC advisories, which don't go into that much detail, and news sites are usually hours behind. Maybe it's just common sense but I don't want to guess on things like that. This is useful for stuff like noting events; I'm not sure, for example, if we should note that Jamaica was skirted because I don't know how close it got or how much damage was done. Sounds like the Caymans will be worth an event, though. --Golbez 15:29, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

BTW, the reason I ask is that I avoided doing the 2pm update because I just didn't have the information on when landfall occured. Then I started adding in the basic information and you beat me to it. ;) --Golbez 18:26, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
"ca" is an abbreviation for "circa", that is, approximately or about. They're educated guesses at the moment, which is why the exact times are marked as being inaccurate, although we do know them to within the three hours between advisories. When a more accurate time is available, it can be put in and the "ca" removed. As far as hitting Jamaica goes, I'm considering it similar to Hurricane Alex and North Carolina.
If you'd like a source for my educated guess on Bonnie, the Tallahassee NWS office issued a local statment at 11:15 EDT that Bonnie was landfalling. At 10 am, the NHC said it was 20 miles SW of Apalachicola, and moving NE at 28 mi/h, putting landfall around 10:45. 11 am EDT is a reasonable round number estimate (although I incorrectly marked it as CDT, whoops!). -- Cyrius| 20:01, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hurricane Charley and the Chocolate Factory separate article edit

Given that Charley looks like it's going to make a name for itself by hitting Tampa at a significant strength, it's probably time to think about giving it its own article. Already had someone ask on IRC asking if it had its own article. I'm going to do it myself in a few hours if there's no objections (we need to move a little more rapidly than with most articles). -- Cyrius| 02:33, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Go for it, you seem to be better with describing actions than me. I'm best at parroting the NHC. :P Incidentally, with the NHC now ignoring TD Bonnie, what's the best source of info? How long do we note Bonnie? Also, the last time Tampa/Clearwater was hit by a hurricane was, IIRC, 1912. So that alone makes this notable. Here's to landfall. --Golbez 05:07, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm parroting the NHC as well, with a few other NWS sources, and occasionally whatever pops up elsewhere (Jimbo's been tracking the storm and providing some local news links on IRC). As far as Bonnie goes, the NHC has had the decency to provide a copy of the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center's advisory. Some stats on hurricanes hitting Tampa are available elsewhere [2] -- Cyrius| 05:40, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It has been done. The intro could use some work. Now it needs an image! -- Cyrius| 05:58, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I like this article edit

Good work, creators! Pcb21| Pete 16:21, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! I claim full ownership of this article, I simply let Cyrius edit it when I'm sleeping or otherwise indesposed. ... ;) Anyway, I have to congratulate him on keeping it up to date and doing a typically better job than me of describing what's actually going on with the storm. I'll catch up with Danielle, though! :) --Golbez 17:05, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
You did a good job of catching me with my metaphorical pants down when Charley decided to go nuts, hit Category 4, and turn east. The historical season articles are still all mine though (except 1995 and 1992) :). -- Cyrius| 19:16, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Damn you, Cyrius. You beat me. ;) Not only that, but have the exact same edit, except I wikified Windward Islands. For the record, my summary was "TD5; are we having fun yet? Is it unusual to have five TDs in a two week span?" Well? Is it? :) --Golbez 21:09, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't have an official cite on it, but I'd say it's unusual. What would be more unusual is if TD4 and TD5 get named by tonight, as is possible. -- Cyrius| 21:11, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If this season can't do it, then no one can! I should point out that Dr. Gray predicted 3 major storms, and we've already had two. Incidentally, what's your interest in this? Purely academic and curiosity, or do you live on the eastern seaboard/gulf coast? --Golbez 21:17, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Upper Texas gulf coast. Three storms so far, and none have posed a real threat to me. Yay. (Although TD5 could eventually become a problem for me) -- Cyrius| 21:45, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You can predict it that far out? Is it simply a matter of history for storms forming in that sector that they end up where you are? --Golbez 21:48, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Matter of history combined with the current prediction. Storms that take a track across the Caribbean south of the Greater Antilles can potentially pose a threat to my area. Charley concerned me a little until the NHC started solidly forecasting a northward turn, and Charley started following it. Take a look at the 11am August 10 forecast track for Charley to see what I'm talking about [3].
It's likely enough that keeping an eye on them is a good idea, but unlikely enough that it's not worth actually worrying about. Not until they get near the Gulf and are still headed this way, at least. -- Cyrius| 21:54, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Probability edit

"50% probability of above-normal activity" is completely useless. If "normal" is defined by an average, then this is true by definition. The statement needs clarification. -- Taral 17:25, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I've changed the definition to the range definition. -- Cyrius| 18:37, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pages for Bonnie and Alex? edit

Do we really need pages for non-notable storms like Bonnie and Alex? No deaths (well, 3 from Bonnie, but that was hours after landfall), minimal damage? I prefer a more consolidated approach, having the information on this page until the storm is notable enough to warrant an article of its own. I particularly disagree with splitting Danielle off into its own page. I'm reverting the changes but won't VfD the particular articles until we reach some sort of consensus on this page.

Even if the pages are split off (And Danielle certainly does not warrant it), some description of the storms needs to remain on this page, if truncated.

Please comment. --Golbez 20:17, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Alex and Bonnie are kind of borderline cases as they hit (more or less) land, and their descriptions are relatively large. Danielle most certainly does not justify a separate article at the present time, and the forecasts lead me to believe it likely will not in the future. -- Cyrius| 20:27, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
All named formations deserve their own article. These will help people who are looking for information regarding the formation, regardless if it hit land or not. For example, I have to pay attention to Danielle even when it has not reached land and forecasts expect not to. Having Danielle's information inside the 2004's season article is a pain in the ass when you want only the information about the storm. John | Talk 20:41, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
I don't see why; it's right there in the table of contents. All named systems do NOT require their own article because they may do nothing whatsoever. That's like saying every 5.0 earthquake or F5 tornado deserves an individual article. Furthermore, if you're going to do this for 2004 storms, why not for the other 40 years of named storms? The system we have in place now (Articles disambig or redirect to the article for the proper storm, if notable, or year) is working just fine, and makes things much more easier to manage. --Golbez 20:59, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If we let you continue on the track you're taking, all that's going to be left in this article is a list of the names used in the season and a one-paragraph description. The flipside of "Be bold" is "Don't be reckless". If you want to completely restructure things, you discuss first. -- Cyrius| 20:48, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, your separating out the articles generates a maintenance problem, spreading material over even more articles. -- Cyrius| 20:50, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

And, IMO, makes it more difficult to keep track of storms. Better to have one article on your watchlist than a half dozen. --Golbez 20:59, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Actually it makes it easier, because visitors don't have to download a big page instead of downloading a small page with the information they are looking for. If I want info about Danielle I want only the info about the storm, not about the season. John | Talk 21:08, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
Cropping information in just one place when storing is not a limit creates problems. There is no need to have a chronology of events in the season article. That same approach is used on many other articles, see Battle of Mogadishu for an example. The season's article should be about the season per-se, not about every formation that we had during that season. That is why the article should be splitted. You are putting information about storms on the season page. It is as we put every unit of the U.S. Army on the U.S. Army article: it makes no sense. Each storm is related to the season, as it is each event, but there is no need to have all that information cropped on the article. If I want to restructure things I don't have to discuss shit, Wikipedia articles have no owner. If you don't like the restructuration how about you discuss it with me first instead of reverting every change and complaining on this talk page? I feel like I'm in kindergarden again. Brb, Charley info on the news! John | Talk 21:08, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
"If I want to restructure things I don't have to discuss shit" runs both ways. You complain about us not discussing reverting your changes, but you did not discuss changing our work. How do you think that made us feel, to see you chopping the page we had worked on for two weeks (or more in my case) into little pieces without so much as a "I think the article is too big" beforehand?
Your active antagonism isn't winning you any friends. If you'd like to take part in a discussion, free of profanity and near-name calling, please feel free. -- Cyrius| 21:21, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm with Cyrius on that one, you're being very antagonistic. Personally, I'd rather we have more information in big articles like this, than have the information spread out among a half dozen stubs. --Golbez 21:35, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I can see moving Alex and Bonnie out into their own articles. The sections we have here are big enough to stand alone with a little work, and are rather large for a summary of the storm. The information for these two is no longer changig rapidly, so it's not a problem to have it mentioned in several places. -- Cyrius| 22:14, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Both Alex and Bonnie are only five paragraphs each, so maybe they aren't indpendently worthy of an article? Certainly Charley is, I doubt whether Bonnie and Alex are but I won't combat that. Maybe that's what should be done with all named storms, as John so elpqouently put. I don't know. There have been times I've browsed articles on previous years and wanted extra information on a particular storm, and was let down by the limited info in the article. Maybe making an article for all named storms is the Future.
Either way, imo, Danielle and Earl are unworthy of an article at this point. Especially Danielle. And I disagree with merging the events out at this time, this article is a nexus of all the information and all changes must be stated here first. I might support splitting out events after the season is over, but until then it should stay where it is. --Golbez 22:33, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If we just want to talk about size, the average English Wikipedia article is 2281 bytes. The Alex section is roughly 2000 bytes, and Bonnie's is around 1600. So they're short, but not exceptionally so. They're certainly longer than a lot of stubs I've seen (and occasionally written).
I don't think we need to wait until the end of the season to make these decisions, but waiting until the storm is over is definitely needed for storms whose notability is questionable. An article on Earl may be needed at some point in the future, but Danielle looks like it's going to be a go nowhere do nothing storm. -- Cyrius| 01:32, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
My "after the season" comment refered only to splitting events out into Events of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. I didn't mean that we need to wait until the end of the season to see if a storm needs its own article. I'm becoming more open to giving Alex and Bonnie (but not Earl and Danielle, not yet) their own articles, but not nearly in the scorched earth fashion that our friend John was doing. As I've said before, I'm a big fan of the present method - Disambig pages that go to the related year articles, instead of making a different article for each storm. It kind of divorces the storm from the season it was a part of, ya know? --Golbez 02:11, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I just condensed Alex's description down to the major stuff. Formation, almost landfall, unusual strengthening, sinking that rowboat. Does that work? -- Cyrius| 02:45, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
If we are to split the storm out, ... that's probably the best job that could be done with it. :) Looks very nice. I like it - Has the most pertinent info, then there was enough info overall to warrant another page, and much better than wholesale deletion. Now, question: Does Bonnie deserve similar treatment? --Golbez 03:02, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I don't think so. Bonnie's description is on the smallish side, and it wasn't really notable, aside from the freakish central organization it had for a couple of days. If it hadn't hit land, I don't think there'd be any question in my mind about it not deserving a separate article. -- Cyrius| 03:26, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hehe edit

Hey, Cyrius, remember when it was just you and me managing this article? Before Hurricane Charley made the season in vogue and everybody and his mother added it to their watchlists? ;) Just noting on all the new faces I'm seeing in History. Not that that's a bad thing, of course - it's just different. :) --Golbez 23:15, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I remember when it was just me! :)
Keith Edkins seems to be doing the most grunt work besides us. He deserves a cookie. -- Cyrius| 23:27, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Earl edit

From the 11pm August 15 discussion on Earl:

If not for the government of Venezuela this probably would have been the last advisory on Earl...at least for now. The reconnaissance aircraft scheduled to investigate Earl this evening was denied access to Venezuelan airspace. Had they been able to get to the storm...I doubt they would have found a closed circulation...

Best tropical cyclone discussion statement ever. -- Cyrius| 03:13, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Haha, that's awesome. --Golbez 05:32, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Whew. edit

Looks like we've got a break. THere's a couple of things out there that might develop, but it looks like we're without an active tropical system for the first time in 2.5 weeks. Time to sit back and refactor text in a no-stress period. -- Cyrius| 18:06, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pacific? edit

I'm just curious, is there an article for the Pacific typhoon/hurricane season? --Golbez 16:20, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not that I've seen. I've got my hands full enough with the Atlantic and other projects that I'm not going to start one either. -- Cyrius| 17:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'd remove Tropical Depression Six from the storms if it wasn't forecast to hit tropical storm strength in the morning. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with depressions, they often don't do anything (although you wouldn't know it from this season). -- Cyrius| 06:47, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I won't just remove it though, if it happens to do something (and actually, CNN said it probably would) then no harm done. But let's not let it create a precedent, shall we? --Golbez 14:31, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
See what I mean? ;) But still, TD7 shouldn't get its own section. Events yes, section no. Offhand, how many TDs don't make it to TS status in a typical year?
Don't know any averages, but there were 5 unnamed storms in 2003, 2 in 2002, 2 in 2001, 4 in 2000, 4 in 1999, none in 1998, 1 in 1997, none in 1996, and 2 in 1995. --Goobergunch 23:35, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Condensed discussions edit

The following discussions have been refactored. Some "chatty" discussions with no discussion within the last week have been simply removed for lack of long-term value. -- Cyrius| 22:25, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comment edit

Golbez asked when storms should have separate articles started about them. Cyrius was of the opinion that they should be started when sufficient notability can be determined. Simply making landfall is probably insufficient. Some storms can be judged notable before landfall, but this should be done cautiously as storm behavior is chaotic.

Accessibility edit

Because of non-screen displays, using only text formatting on the storms list is insufficient. Therefore "(active)" and "(unused)" should be appended to appropriate storm names.

Tropical depressions and the storm list edit

Tropical depressions generally shouldn't get an entry in the storms list until after the fact.

Disambiguation edit

Retired storms should have their articles go at their name with no qualifiers. Otherwise, a disambiguation page should go there.

Bolding events edit

Bolding style for landfalls in the events list was decided to be

Guidelines and WikiProject edit

Golbez proposed a large list of guidelines on what should be included in what sections. Cyrius said that he already had made such a list at a proposed User:Cyrius/WikiProject Atlantic Hurricanes. Cyrius incorporated some of the differences between the two into the proposed WikiProject guidelines, and discussion on the subject should be directed at that page's talk page.

Colliding storms edit

Golbez asked what would happen if two hurricanes collided. Cyrius made an educated guess that it would likely be bad for both storms, producing a large disorganized mess.

Strikes edit

Golbez asked where Cyrius was getting information on when and where storms were striking. Cyrius replied that they were generally approximations and were marked as such. These approximations were based on various data sources, including statements made by local National Weather Service offices.

Hurricane Charley and the Chocolate Factory separate article edit

Moved to Talk:Hurricane Charley.

TD5 edit

The formation of Tropical Depression Five prompted some discussion of whether having five tropical depressions form in two weeks was unusual. No decision was reached.

Probability edit

Taral found the description of the NOAA activity forecast to be useless. The description was corrected to make more sense.

Pages for Bonnie and Alex? edit

John began splitting the page up by giving Hurricanes Alex and Bonnie their own pages, and moving the Events list into its own article. Golbez and Cyrius objected, and re-merged the material. Some heated words were exchanged.

Shortly after, Cyrius re-split Hurricane Alex, after noting that its description was roughly 2000 bytes, about 90% of the size of the average Wikipedia article.

Hehe edit

Golbez noted that there was a lot more interest in the article after Hurricane Charley than at the start of the season. Cyrius proposed giving Keith Edkins a cookie for doing grunt work keeping the page up to date. No baking has yet occurred.



Pacific? edit

I'm just curious, is there an article for the Pacific typhoon/hurricane season? --Golbez 16:20, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not that I've seen. I've got my hands full enough with the Atlantic and other projects that I'm not going to start one either. -- Cyrius| 17:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Hurricane Frances edit

The section formerly known as "TD6"

I'd remove Tropical Depression Six from the storms if it wasn't forecast to hit tropical storm strength in the morning. Let's not get ahead of ourselves with depressions, they often don't do anything (although you wouldn't know it from this season). -- Cyrius| 06:47, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I won't just remove it though, if it happens to do something (and actually, CNN said it probably would) then no harm done. But let's not let it create a precedent, shall we? --Golbez 14:31, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
See what I mean? ;) But still, TD7 shouldn't get its own section. Events yes, section no. Offhand, how many TDs don't make it to TS status in a typical year?
Don't know any averages, but there were 5 unnamed storms in 2003, 2 in 2002, 2 in 2001, 4 in 2000, 4 in 1999, none in 1998, 1 in 1997, none in 1996, and 2 in 1995. --Goobergunch 23:35, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, TD6 became Frances, rendering the above moot. But does anyone else find something odd about the similarities between Frances's historical and forecast track and that of a certain 1992 hurricane? The other parameters are completely different, like speed and intensity, but it's still weird. -- Cyrius| 22:32, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Frances is likely to start justifying its own article around Tuesday, possibly earlier. If the NHC puts the 72 hour marker on Nassau, it's likely to plow into Miami, and we might have a reenactment of Andrew. I've started saving some satellite images for future use. -- Cyrius| 21:41, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are wise and smart. I wouldn't say it's justified an article until it's struck, though. That's just me. I don't know. Wow, the local news just came on (since Gaston may hit us) - Francis is already cat 4? sheesh. You might be right about an article. --Golbez 22:21, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)

The Cat 4 was a large part of why I said it'll probably need an article in a few days. The continued track towards Miami was the other. There's also an extremely long-range forecast available through other channels that shows it going into New Orleans after its Florida visit. Of course, that's probably got a 1500 mile error margin on it. -- Cyrius| 23:22, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I added a first satellite picture, that I find rather "nice". Hope you guys like it. Awolf002 13:03, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

By my reckoning, Hurricane Frances has offically made landfall at 11.46am EDT (1546 UTC) on September 4th 2004, when the eye of the hurricane reached the southwestern shores of Florida. I am tracking the conditions at Port Saint Lucie via Weatherbug and the conditions are (as of 11.50am EDT 09/04/04) 76°F with a 20mph windspeed averaging 14mph from the NNE with a gust of 51mph. Converting into Metric, 24°C with a 57kph wind averaging 23kph from the NNE with a 81kph gust

NEXRAD says the eye is still about 12 miles offshore at 12:09pm EDT. And please sign your posts. -- Cyrius| 16:16, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Agree, still a few hours to go, I think Awolf002 16:19, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hurricane Ivan edit

I'm gonna catch hell for this, but is it yet time for an article? Sure, I was wrong about TD6. And TD7. But.. ... Maybe I'll be right this time! Eh, probably not. NHC is already sending up signals that this going to be a monster. --Golbez 02:55, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)

Well, we can now see that it already is a monster, and that it now has it's own article.

When Tomf688 initially moved it, I thought it was quite premature. Now I am not so sure. I think a Cat 4 blowing through the Windward Islands has a good chance of justifying an article. Plus it's broken a record on low-latitude strength, which makes it interesting up front. -- Cyrius| 03:10, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Cat 5. Whooo-boy. -- Cyrius| 06:25, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Clearly, I should stop talking about making articles for storms. They inevitably become killers. :P First cat 5 since Isabel/2003, and my cursory research says Isabel was the first since Mitch/1998. Looks for now that it will hit Kingston, then Havana, then Tampa. Cuba might weaken it, but who knows. Incidentally, there's been no storm in the western Gulf all season - meaning that any storm that gets there will have abnormally warm water to fuel it. Ivan's going to hit America one way or another - let's hope it doesn't eat that water. --Golbez 06:48, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Time to possibly move it to Hurricane Ivan from Hurricane Ivan (2004)? It's getting to the point where I doubt it will eventually need to be disambiguated. --Goobergunch 20:58, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
There's no rush. We can wait for it to hit Jamaica and really justify it. -- Cyrius| 00:28, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

TD10 edit

I think this one justifies not giving entries to every tropical depression that arises. TD 10 was around for exactly 12 hours - I doubt even the NHC report will be more than a paragraph or two. --Goobergunch 00:19, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Two hurricanes in one season edit

Cyrius, a slight factcheck issue here. CNN said the last time three hurricanes hit Florida in a single season was 1964. You say the last time two hit Florida was 1950. I checked 1964 Atlantic hurricane season and indeed, two hurricanes are marked as hitting Florida. The third storm was unnamed Tropical Storm 1. So both you and CNN might be wrong.

In any case, do you know of a season where three hurricanes (and 4 tropical cyclones total) hit the same state? --Golbez 15:32, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Did I actually write that? I don't think I did. I can't keep track anymore with all the activity.
I apologize if I misattributed it, but it seemed in my memory to be by you, since you've been the scholar doing most of the work on the season pages. Sorry! --Golbez 18:49, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
Okay, went and checked Weather Underground's archives, because theirs are all nice and pretty and have intensity color coded into the tracks. Not only did two hurricanes strike Florida in 1964, it was three! That's probably what's causing the confusion here. The last time two and only two struck was probably 1950 (haven't done a thorough check).
Oh, okay. Heh. Funky. --Golbez 18:49, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
In 1964 Hurricane Cleo tracked into Miami at Cat 2, Dora hit near Jacksonville also at Cat 2, and they were followed by Hurricane Isbell striking the Everglades at Cat 3. Hurricane Hilda also tracked into the Florida panhandle at tropical storm strength, but that was an overland track.
I'm going to do a more thorough check for more recent years, then correct this stuff. I see at least two mentions on this page, and there's probably one on Hurricane Frances. -- Cyrius| 18:08, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Oh man, this is so stupid. The last time multiple hurricanes struck a single state was 1995 when Hurricanes Erin and Opal hit Florida. There were an additional two tropical storms, Allison and Jerry that hit the state. 1964 appears to be the last time three storms made landfall at hurricane strength. -- Cyrius| 18:21, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Fixed. Everybody remember that 1964 thing for if Ivan tracks into Florida like it's forecast to. -- Cyrius| 18:26, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And about 1964 Atlantic hurricane season, right now that page is just listing the most notable storms. Although Isbell was stronger than Cleo and Dora, it hit the relatively unpopulated area of the Everglades, then tracked quickly out to sea. It didn't cause significant damage, even compared to Tropical Storm One. -- Cyrius| 18:30, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)
So, to summarize: Two hurricanes hit Florida in 1995, three hurricanes hit in 1962, and four storms total hit Florida in 1995. I wonder if three hurricanes have ever hit the same state in the same month? Man, sports have all kind of useless statistics, where's our useless statistics guys when we need them? ;) --Golbez 18:49, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

And now for something completely different edit

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/carl_hiaasen/9592077.htm

They all want to be Dan Rather circa 1961. -- Cyrius| 19:17, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Averages edit

"NOAA forecasters predicted a 50% probability of above-normal activity,"

...and in other news, half of the population is below-average.

Average is defined as a range. 50% probability of activity being outside that range on the high side. 40% probability of being within the average range, and 10% of it being below that range. -- Cyrius| 04:11, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Uuhhh... If "above normal" means "above the median number" than this is no information at all, since this is the definition of the median in a distribution. If it stands for "above the mean number" than I don't quite know. But I suspect this distribution of "activity" (= number of hurricanes) is close to a Poisson distribution and so this still does not say that much. Awolf002 00:52, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
"Above normal" means "above the median range", not number. If you want to take issue with something, it's with NOAA calling 6-8 hurricanes above normal when they've defined 4-8 as normal. -- Cyrius| 02:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I corrected the statement assuming the above statement is true -- couldn't let it stand as it was. Tempshill 20:48, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Jeanne edit

As mentioned before, we should avoid making separated articles too early! It seems to encourage those storms to become notable :-) Awolf002 13:36, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yep, seems that way. It also appears Golbez helped out in that too (in the Hurricane Jeanne discussion). ;)

Landfall edit

What is the definition of landfall? I know it involves the *center* of the eye. Does it mean any landmass? Or only continental? Because I once read a hurricane went over Bermuda, but it wasn't technically landfall, so I took that to mean islands didn't count, but now I realize, maybe the center of the eye stayed just offshore. Anyone know? --Golbez 19:31, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that any land is considered a qualification for landfall. In the track table in the report on Tropical Storm Odette (2003) , "landfall near Cabo Falso, Dominican Republic" is listed. --Goobergunch 23:16, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Number of storms edit

So Bonnie, Charley and Frances all hit Florida directly. However, Ivan's official landfall was at Alabama; do we say that Florida was hit by three storms so far this year, or four, since Florida bore a good portion of the brunt of Ivan? --Golbez 19:04, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Seeing the damage in Pensacola, FL I would say it qualfies as a "hit". Awolf002 20:06, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes, but what's the threshold? Cyrius? --Golbez 22:15, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)
No clue. -- Cyrius| 22:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'd say if you had "hurricane strength wind" in the territory in question, it has been hit. Just found a paper that struggled with a definition like that [4], and they try to define it with wind strength. Since wind data is not always generally available, they estimate a hurricane being closer than 80 km to a certain land point does generated those winds. Awolf002 00:05, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Gulf Shores and Orange Beach are very close to the Florida state line...by mere miles. People who say that Ivan didn't hit Alabama that badly, and thus wasn't a bad storm...are just plain stupid and don't know a thing about geography. Mike H 18:09, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

Crowded edit

Right now we've got Jeanne, Karl, and tiny little Lisa. But the TPC/NHC is reporting that the cluster of thunderstorms over Florida (a remnant of Ivan) could generate a tropical something once in the Gulf, and there's another tropical wave moving off Africa that's expected to develop into something soon.

Too many storms! -- Cyrius| 03:25, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Moving timeline edit

If you recall, a month or two ago, someone wanted to move the timeline to another article. It wasn't appropriate then, and I don't think it's appropriate now, but it is presently half the length of the whole article. The opinion was wildly against moving it back then, but I wanted to know how people felt about possibly splitting it off after the season is over? Simply as an archive of activity. --Golbez 08:31, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

I was considering that myself now that it's sixish pages long and making up roughly a third of the article by byte count. An abridged version needs to remain, but what should go in it? -- Cyrius| 11:54, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think it's a good idea! I think landfalls and impacts (now in bold) could stay. Awolf002 13:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
k, maybe an update to the procedure is in order. I suggest removing the strengthening comments. If these are relevant, they will be mentioned in the storm section. This would leave the only comments in there as TD formation, TS and Hurricane naming, dying, and landfall. Maybe mention category 4 or 5 growth, but 2 and 3 isn't necessary. Maybe replacing it with a table in the long term would be useful as well, as removing growth doesn't seem to remove much space. The table could be sorted by day, time and storm # (by TD#, not by name). I dunno, just brainstorming. --Golbez 16:38, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Iceland! edit

Haha. When was the last time a tropical storm or hurricane hit Iceland? And I love this map from the NHC: [5]

I get the feeling the software they use to construct these maps isn't quite up to a range that big and that far north. Note the jumble of state abbreviations and the apparently emptiness that lies north of Greenland. --Golbez 20:05, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

The emptiness is an artifact of Mercator projection, although the map shouldn't be extending far enough north to see it. -- Cyrius| 20:44, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Featured article? edit

Once this stablizes, don't you think it could make a featured article?

Perhaps. I won't submit it though. And we should wait for the NHC's preliminary reports to solidify a bunch of numbers anyway, and that'll be into next year. -- Cyrius| 04:31, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

clarification needed edit

"Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley became the first storms to hit the same U.S. state (Florida) in a 24 hour period since 1906. Florida continued to be hit by hurricanes with Hurricane Frances, the first time two hurricanes have hit the same state since the 1995 season; and by Ivan, the first triple hit since 1964."

According to that, Bonnie and Charley both hit Florida. If so, then how can Frances spark the first occurrance of two hurricanes hitting the same state since 1995? Or does the writer mean, that Frances hit Florida twice? Then does that mean that Ivan hit the same state three times? If so, the grammar is completely wrong.

"Hurricane Alex was the strongest hurricane to intensify north of 38 degrees." The strongest ever recorded? Or the strongest in 2004?

Please clarify, Kingturtle 18:05, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bonnie was a tropical storm, not a hurricane. It says it right there in the text you quoted. I clarified the Alex issue by shoving "on record" into the sentence. -- Cyrius| 18:19, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Alex was the strongest ever recorded to intensify north of 38 degrees.

Stupid media! edit

The media's reporting that Texas was hit by four hurricanes in 1886. Unfortunately, the records don't match this. Only three hurricanes hit Texas in 1886, along with a tropical storm that appears to have gone in just on the Louisiana side of Sabine Pass [6].

Please, if you see people adding this again, remove it unless they can quote NOAA, the NWS, or the NHC as a source. The media's just repeating what the media's previously said. -- Cyrius| 05:23, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Turns out I'm wrong, but for the right reasons. Apparently in June 2003, NOAA's "Hurricane Research Division" released an updated version of their HURDAT (Hurricane Data) file. In previous versions of the file, used by several sites that provide tracks for old storms, a storm from June 1886 that struck near Sabine Pass was listed as a tropical storm. In the revised version, it's marked as a Category 2 hurricane.
I didn't expect information on a 118-year old hurricane to be out of date, yeesh. Oh well, they probably weren't checking their facts anyway. Thanks go to 12.144.5.2 for providing a link that pointed in the right direction to get this cleared up. -- Cyrius| 04:51, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Here's a question, Cyrius - what about five storms (tropical or hurricane) hitting the same state? We've had four hurricanes, but if you include all named storms, that gives us five. Do you know when the last time that happened was? Do you just browse the Wunderground maps when I give you these questions, or do you have other sources? :) --Golbez 21:33, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)
Yeesh, I don't know the answer to that one. Don't even know a good way to start looking. -- Cyrius| 23:37, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'd think it'd be the same as hunting for the hurricane stats, wouldn't it? Or can we safely assume that if 4 storms hit in 1896, that 5 storms have never hit, as far as records have been kept? --Golbez 23:44, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Two in same day edit

Did Bonnie and Charley really hit in the same day? Punta Gorda was hit 28 hours after Bonnie struck, but the Keys were hit earlier, but I don't know when; and does it count if Bonnie was still in the state? --Golbez 00:33, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

The Keys were hit around 9 AM EDT on the 13th, according to my advisory analysis, about 22 hours after Bonnie made landfall. --Goobergunch 20:03, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Links to disambiguation pages edit

MPS linked Lisa's name in the 2004 name list to the the Hurricane Lisa disambiguation page. Since this will point people right back to the main article if they want more Lisa information, it seems to be a pointless link and I've reverted it. --Goobergunch 20:27, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good decision. The links at the bottom shouldn't go to disambig pages, only to specific pages. However, a link under Tropical Storm Lisa to the disambig page, just to look up other Lisas, might be useful, though now that I type it, I don't see how. If someone types "hurricane lisa" into the search, they'll get the dab page, not a season page, so there's little reason they'd want to go from season to dab. --Golbez 21:31, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Silence... edit

For 74 hours and 45 minutes, there were no storms between August 6 and August 9. Again, for 72 hours, from August 21 to 24. Since then, there has been at least one storm in the Atlantic, from TD on up. Over a month. But now there is but one. It looks like Lisa will be moseying around for awhile, and even though formation isn't expected through Wednesday, Lisa looks to remain a tropical concern through Sunday. It almost feels quiet around here.

Incidentally, what what is an extratropical storm? It's still a storm with powerful winds - sometimes hurricane force - but it has lost certain tropical characteristics. Does this mean it's no longer cyclonic, it's just a really nasty storm? Or, if it's an "extratropical cyclone," then that implies it's still cyclonic ... so does that mean it's transformed from a heat engine into some other method? --Golbez 22:59, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Tropical cyclones are a vertical heat engine, their energy is derived from convection and condensation. An extratropical cyclone derives energy from horizontal temperature gradients, and are often found at the northern end of a cold front. "Cyclonic" basically just means "spinny low pressure system". -- Cyrius| 23:34, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"Spinny low pressure system." I'm gonna quote you on that one. So, an extratropical cyclone (like what Karl became) is just a strong storm that has shifted from being a vertical heat engine to a horizontal heat differential engine, but still remains a strong storm. But one type is warm water/tropical, the other type is colder/extratropical. Got it. Do you know how they tell the difference, or if extratropical storms .. nah, I guess they wouldn't maintain an eye; so if an 80mph hurricane loses its eye but maintains 80mph, and it's north, that's a good sign it's extratropical I guess. --Golbez 23:46, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Extratropical storms are roughly spiral shaped, whereas hurricanes are more or less circular. That's the big obvious observable difference for the layman. -- Cyrius| 02:04, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Saffir Simpson Scale edit

Is it really necessary for the saffir-simpson scale to be in every hurricane season's article? It would make more sense to have the finalized track map and a quick summary of # of TDs, # of named storms, # of category 1s, 2s, etc. Tom 01:37, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The problem with track maps is finding one that we can use that doesn't look terrible like NOAA's. I'd really like something along the lines of Wunderground.com's maps. I've got a friend who hacked together a simple mapping system, but I can't convince him to extend it to do hurricane plots. -- Cyrius| 01:52, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I might create one after the season ends, provided I get a bit of free time from school and homework. --Goobergunch 01:54, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You can always practice on one of the previous seasons. -- Cyrius| 02:04, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

138 Hours edit

138 hours between the death of Lisa and the birth of Matthew. Felt like an eternity.

According to the map, we could have the sixth impact of named storm on Florida this year. --Golbez 22:19, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

There's a decent chance Matthew won't make it to the coast in one piece. As to the almost six days, it felt gooood. -- Cyrius| 22:30, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I happened to check the hurricane center page about 15 min after they issued the public advisory and half expected there to be a wiki article up by the time I got here. I guess with the lull you guys don't check that page much anymore. ;) Tom 23:59, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
Nope... had dropped to only every other day. ;) --Golbez 00:49, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
I still check frequently, I just wasn't obsessively waiting for the 6 hour marks like I do when there's something out there. -- Cyrius| 03:02, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Knots edit

After working on the Pacific hurricanes, and adding the latest Nicole update, I realized that Pacific and Canada use nautical miles, but I've never seen "nautical" in an Atlantic advisory. They mention knots for speed, but never seem to use nautical miles for distance. I just wanted to confirm this. Are we sure they aren't using nautical miles in the Atlantic, only in the Pacific? --Golbez 01:08, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Atlantic advisories are issued in statute miles and km for easy public consumption. The marine advisories are issued using nautical miles. Remember the audiences. In the eastern Pacific, tropical systems are primarily a threat to maritime interests. I don't know what the Canadians are thinking, though. -- Cyrius| 05:41, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OK, that all makes perfect sense. Including not understanding what the Canadians are thinking. :D --Golbez 05:44, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Pacific edit

Well, I've done it. I'd like if some of y'all could check out my first draft at 2004 Pacific hurricane season and see if anything really needs to be improved. The NHC has a habit of not being nearly as verbose with Pacific hurricanes at it is with Atlantic, so I abandoned trying to describe them, except for the major ones. I'd love to hear feedback on it. --Golbez 00:58, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

I like the page, Golbez. Just a thought, you might want to point out in the June section that the last time no named storms formed in June was in 1969. Also, you said that you put descriptions only on the ones that threatened land. Darby was never close to land. Its remnants just caused a few rainy days in Hawaii. Howard was a stronger storm and came closer to land than Darby did.

By the way, have you seen the records on the 1992 Pacific season. Boy what a lot of storms. They use a longer list than the Atlantic does but that season cleaned right through the list. The Central Pacific was also abnormally active that year.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Then do it yourself. Be bold. --Golbez 22:41, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Well you asked for SUGGESTIONS so I gave you SUGGESTIONS.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast (Eric, face it, you don't have the guts to do anything)

Yes, yes, and I apologize, I was in a poor mood when I wrote that. Sorry. --Golbez 00:57, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

You know, the annual reports issued by the National Hurricane Center are very informative, even on the Pacific storms. Check this out: The Others. By the way, bravo on finding info on Lester, I'm still waiting on his report.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

AAAAAAAHHHHHH! Where did my page go?! I was going to show you that info I had collected on that page, Golbez, but the link isn't working. I spent a lot of time on that!

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Knots edit

After working on the Pacific hurricanes, and adding the latest Nicole update, I realized that Pacific and Canada use nautical miles, but I've never seen "nautical" in an Atlantic advisory. They mention knots for speed, but never seem to use nautical miles for distance. I just wanted to confirm this. Are we sure they aren't using nautical miles in the Atlantic, only in the Pacific? --Golbez 01:08, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Atlantic advisories are issued in statute miles and km for easy public consumption. The marine advisories are issued using nautical miles. Remember the audiences. In the eastern Pacific, tropical systems are primarily a threat to maritime interests. I don't know what the Canadians are thinking, though. -- Cyrius| 05:41, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OK, that all makes perfect sense. Including not understanding what the Canadians are thinking. :D --Golbez 05:44, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Hurricane track information edit

I'm posting this here because I think this is where it's got the best chance of being seen by interested parties.

I've recently started working on parsing NOAA's HURDAT file format. This would allow for the inclusion of tables of hurricane information similar to those found on other sites.

Now, this would be incredibly overwhelming on the season articles, so the question is, do we want this sort of thing on individual storm articles? It could also be used to start work on seasonal statistics. The problem is that it does not encode information about non-US landfalls, which limits its usefulness for that purpose. -- Cyrius| 06:55, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hm.. wouldn't an all-in-one map work for the season? And not sure how it would be useful for the individual articles... need time to think about it. --Golbez 17:14, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

I'm thinking of it like box scores for an article about a notable baseball game, or election results, or something like that. It's not enough to justify an article in and of itself, but it could add to the overall info. Getting actual maps is another thing entirely and will require a lot more work.

But...if we had maps, putting the numeric track info onto the image description page would make sense. The numerics describe the track, and the article could have "click for coordinate data" in the map's thumbnail description. Hmm... -- Cyrius| 18:51, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oh, duh, I see. You said tables and mentioned wunderground, I immediately thought of the maps wunderground has. Sorry. Hm.. if you could beautify the tables, that might work, but if not, and if they don't offer better info than we already have in the articles, it sounds best just to link directly to NOAA. I'll have to see what you can do with it first. --Golbez 19:33, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

The tables offer different information than is in the articles. As far as maps go, they're a long-term goal of this project, but I'm not going to be able to have them any time soon. Raw tabular data could happen fairly soon though, which is why I brought it up. I'll try to get it to the point where I have an example, so it's more clear exactly what's being talked about. -- Cyrius| 23:30, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

All right, here's an ugly-formatted version of what I've got so far, using 1980's Hurricane Allen as the test subject:

Hurricane Allen
 UTC       Date    Lat     Lon Winds Pressure Category            
1200 1980-07-31 11.0 N  30.0 W   30        ? Tropical Depression 
1800 1980-07-31 10.9 N  32.2 W   30        ? Tropical Depression 
0000 1980-08-01 10.8 N  34.3 W   35     1010 Tropical Depression 
0600 1980-08-01 10.7 N  36.4 W   35     1009 Tropical Depression 
1200 1980-08-01 10.7 N  38.6 W   35     1008 Tropical Depression 
1800 1980-08-01 10.7 N  40.7 W   35     1006 Tropical Depression 
0000 1980-08-02 11.0 N  42.8 W   40     1005 Tropical Storm      
0600 1980-08-02 11.4 N  44.8 W   50     1000 Tropical Storm      
1200 1980-08-02 11.9 N  46.9 W   65      995 Tropical Storm      
1800 1980-08-02 12.3 N  49.1 W   70      990 Tropical Storm      
0000 1980-08-03 12.4 N  51.4 W   75      985 Category 1          
0600 1980-08-03 12.6 N  53.6 W   80      980 Category 1          
1200 1980-08-03 12.8 N  55.6 W   90      975 Category 1          
1800 1980-08-03 12.9 N  57.5 W  110      965 Category 2          
0000 1980-08-04 13.3 N  59.1 W  125      950 Category 3          
0600 1980-08-04 13.6 N  61.0 W  130      948 Category 3          
1200 1980-08-04 14.0 N  63.0 W  145      945 Category 4          
1800 1980-08-04 14.4 N  64.9 W  150      930 Category 4          
0000 1980-08-05 14.8 N  66.7 W  160      911 Category 5          
0600 1980-08-05 15.4 N  68.6 W  165      916 Category 5          
1200 1980-08-05 15.9 N  70.5 W  180      932 Category 5          
1800 1980-08-05 16.5 N  72.3 W  170      940 Category 5          
0000 1980-08-06 17.8 N  73.8 W  160      945 Category 5          
0600 1980-08-06 18.3 N  75.9 W  130      955 Category 3          
1200 1980-08-06 19.2 N  78.0 W  130      955 Category 3          
1800 1980-08-06 20.0 N  80.1 W  145      955 Category 4          
0000 1980-08-07 20.1 N  81.9 W  155      945 Category 4          
0600 1980-08-07 20.4 N  83.6 W  165      935 Category 5          
1200 1980-08-07 21.0 N  84.8 W  180      910 Category 5          
1800 1980-08-07 21.8 N  86.4 W  190      899 Category 5          
0000 1980-08-08 22.2 N  87.9 W  180      920 Category 5          
0600 1980-08-08 22.8 N  89.2 W  150      945 Category 4          
1200 1980-08-08 23.4 N  90.5 W  130      960 Category 3          
1800 1980-08-08 23.9 N  91.8 W  150      940 Category 4          
0000 1980-08-09 24.5 N  93.0 W  165      912 Category 5          
0600 1980-08-09 25.0 N  94.2 W  180      909 Category 5          
1200 1980-08-09 25.2 N  95.4 W  160      916 Category 5          
1800 1980-08-09 25.4 N  96.1 W  145      925 Category 4          
0000 1980-08-10 25.8 N  96.8 W  125      935 Category 3          
0600 1980-08-10 26.1 N  97.2 W  115      945 Category 3          
1200 1980-08-10 26.7 N  98.1 W  100      960 Category 2          
1800 1980-08-10 27.3 N  99.0 W   80      970 Category 1          
0000 1980-08-11 27.7 N  99.8 W   70      990 Tropical Storm      
0600 1980-08-11 28.0 N 100.9 W   50     1000 Tropical Storm      
1200 1980-08-11 28.5 N 101.9 W   35     1005 Tropical Depression 
1800 1980-08-11 28.9 N 102.9 W   35     1008 Tropical Depression 

This is essentially the same as the table you'd find at Wunderground.com.

There's a bit more that I can pull out of it, but that's the bulk of the information. Other remaining information includes the number of the storm within the season, the storm's serial number, and the location and intensity of any US landfalls. Determining strikes outside the US from this data will be problematic, as it requires calculating intersections of the track segments against a map.

Statistical data could also be extracted as well, but I don't have that yet. -- Cyrius| 02:21, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if the table itself should be in the articles; perhaps a link back to the raw data. There's a line between "encyclopedia" and "google". :) However... perhaps using this data to pop it into EasyTimeline, and creating a timeline of it? It could actually work. If EasyTimeline worked in hours. But til then, we can work in days and see how it manages... --Golbez 07:51, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know that the NHC has track information easily available for all storms. I suppose we could link to Unisys's archive, but they're evil. Wunderground's is too advertising-laden to point at as a piece of reference material. -- Cyrius| 11:23, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

LOL, "but they're evil." Yeah, but it's a great warning archive. Hm. As it is, this charge would be as large as the whole of the rest of the Hurricane Allen article, so that alone is a red mark, IMO, but then again, it might be useful in this form. I just don't know. Yes, we are an encyclopedia, but we're also an almanac, to collect bits of info like this... --Golbez 18:28, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Looks like holding off is probably the thing to do. If I ever get a track plotter working, that'd be a good place to put the information. -- Cyrius| 22:21, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Preliminary reports edit

The NHC has released their preliminary reports for most of this year's storms. Time to go through and update stuff. -- Cyrius| 20:44, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Gaston was posthumously upgraded to a hurricane; the information has already been updated (it didn't have a separate page, as despite causing some damage and loss of life, it is not likely to be retired)

They're all in! Every single one of them. Now all we need is the annual track map and we'll be golden.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Most bizarre season ever. edit

Here we are, end of November, and there hasn't been a tropical system since the second week of October. Only a few days left in the season, and what comes up in the Tropical Weather Outlook? "If current trends continue...a subtropical or tropical cyclone could form Saturday or Sunday..." This is just weird. -- Cyrius| 08:04, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lol, I don't even read those anymore. Have come to expect nothing. :) --[[User:Tomf688|tomf688]] 05:53, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
Nice jinx, Cyrius - when they mentioned the end of the season on the radio, I went to the NHC to see if they had any update, and they did... Otto! --Golbez 21:09, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
I smell Paula in December being an unprecedented major hurricane...also what happens if a tropical or subtropical storm develops in January, would it be named Arlene even though it is 4-5 months from the start of the official hurricane season, just because it is 2005? Also should they extend the official season, since this would be two years in a row (and 4 years out of the last 7) that a storm lasted into or formed in December (and one year had an early storm!)...possibly from May 15 to December 15?
I believe the term "wholly unprecedented" would be used. And there would probably be an animated discussion about it at the NHC, just as there was between the NHC and HPC if Ivan Reborn should be named Matthew. Frankly, I'd say it would use the 2004 list; the 2005 Hurricane Season does not begin until June 2005, so the 2005 list wouldn't be used til then. I'm guessing. The way I see it, the 2004 season officially lasts from June 1 2004 to November 30 2004, but can unofficially last until May 31 2005, at which point it becomes the 2005 season. That's just my thought.

Hey, guys, you know this has happened before. In 1954 (Hazel's year) a hurricane formed on December 29th! It persisted as a hurricane until January 4 or 5. They named it Alice, from the next year's list. That made it the second Alice that year (they used the same list each year back then). It is extremely unlikely that this will happen again. While storms and hurricanes do occur outside of the normal hurricane season, they are rare events. A Category 2 hurricane in March of 1908 was one for the record books, as was the second Alice and the Groundhog Day storm of 1952. Conditions are simply too unfavorable for them to occur.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Frankly, however, when you get to January, you're talking really cold oceans, and so far as I know, a tropical storm has never formed in the north Atlantic in January. December, yes, but never January. South Atlantic, well, that's another story.
As for extending the season, I dunno; they'll want to see a definite trend to do that. So far as I know, Otto will be only the third December tropical storm in a very long time, and it probably doesn't count as a December storm because it formed in November. --Golbez 22:38, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
The 1952 season opened with a tropical storm forming off Cuba on February 2. -- Cyrius| 00:07, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
You think you have all the answers, don't you. --Golbez 08:42, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

I think the best boundary would be March 1, since that is the midpoint of the offseason and when waters are the coldest, plus it validates the use of Ana in April 2003...anyway, I see another wild year in 2005...

Oh yeah, I forgot about Ana. Oh well. I would wager this problem falls well into the category of "we'll worry about it when it happens." --Golbez 23:01, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
Meh, I'd say redefine a season as Jan 1 - Dec 31, but state that the most activity is usually between June and November. :) --[[User:Tomf688|tomf688]] 01:52, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
Four hurricanes (along with one tropical storm) striking Florida, Ivan respawning in the Gulf of Mexico after making a loop, and now, for the second season in a row, a storm lasting into December! Alex was the strongest hurricane to intensify north of 38 degrees North, and Ivan was the strongest hurricane to intensify south of 10 degrees South! Yes, this is definitely one of, if not THE, most bizarre season ever. bob rulz 08:59, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Bob, excuse me while I be annoying for a moment. Hurricane Ellen of 1973(?) strengthened farther north than Alex. (Ugh, whatever, Eric). Not that Alex wasn't cool and all, but I just thought I'd clear that up. You were right about Ivan though! (Thank you, Eric. The Ever Bountiful Source of Useless Info strikes again) Ivan was also the sixth most intense storm ever measured in the Atlantic Basin. (If anyone cares, Ivan is behind Gilbert of '88, the Labor Day storm of '35, Allen of '80, Mitch, and Camille.) Also, I thought that the South Atlantic stuff is facinating. Aside from the hurricane, there is evidence to suggest that a strong low pressure system in January of this year was tropical storm or depression. Two in the SAME YEAR!! I need a Coke, this is crazy. (All right, breathe Eric, breathe)

"Told you I'd return, ha! ha!" Okay Eric, time to shut up now.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Yes, E. Brown, Ellen did intensify farther north than Alex, but Alex was still stronger, and both intensified north of 38N. There, that was my moment to be annoying. bob rulz 06:06, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast That's good Eric, keep it simple.

-I came across this section, pretty interesting that we thought the 2004 season was the most bizarre ever. We had no idea what we had in store for 05. 209.62.224.245 00:29, 31 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

It's finally over. edit

OTTO NOTWITHSTANDING...TODAY IS THE LAST OFFICIAL DAY OF THE 2004
HURRICANE SEASON...AND THIS WILL BE THE LAST ISSUANCE OF THE
TROPICAL WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR 2004.  THIS PRODUCT WILL RESUME ON 1
JUNE 2005.

I think the NHC deserves a vacation. --Golbez 23:25, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

I took the current tag off, in case anyone didn't notice. -- Cyrius| 05:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree Golbez, the NHC have worked their butts off this season, 24/7. And when was the last time anyone decided to care.

Hats off guys

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Nine named storms edit

Does this really need to be an article? That's just a redirect by the way, but that and the article it goes to don't seem to be all that useful, do they? --Golbez 04:33, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Ugh, no. It seems to be intended as a list of landfalling cyclones, but it just isn't useful to have a completely separate article about a list of them for the year. The original "Nine named storms" title didn't even make sense at all. -- Cyrius|

No links in the header! (He!He!He!)

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast (Eric, two words: shut, up)

Links within the Header edit

I recieved the message that you were annoyed by me repeatedly putting links in the headers. I did this because I was confused as to why you were formatting this page differently from the other hurricane season pages. All of the other hurricane season links have links in the headers, for example: in the 1999 Atlantic hurricane season page, the sections on Hurricane Floyd and Hurricane Lenny as well as Tropical Storm Katrina have links the main article in the header. In fact, the only seasons that are not formatted this way are the 2004 and 2003 seasons. The 1988-2002 seasons all have links in the headers of summeries on the major storms. I came to like this format and was puzzled as to why you wanted to do this page differently. I had no intention of ticking anybody off.

-Eric B.(My name means king in Viking)

"Eric, nobody cares."

That's okay, and I'm sorry if I seemed harsh in my note (I really need to work on that...) but the fact is, THOSE articles are in error, not THIS one. The Wikipedia style guide states that is it best not to have wikilinks in headers, because some browsers and setups may not display those properly. So in actuality, those other articles should be modified to fit the style guide. This one is okay. You weren't ticking me off. :) Sorry if I turned you off editing at all. You do have good edits, but those kept getting reverted (yes, by me in many cases) and I wanted to clear it up. Thanks for chatting about this. --Golbez 23:56, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
But I like the header links :( -- Cyrius| 00:44, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Oh. :( --Golbez 05:42, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
I like it better without the header links personally. bob rulz 23:05, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
I like the style guide rules as they are. Please avoid links in headers! Awolf002 23:38, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

-I wasn't offended Golbez, I was just confused (I'm easily confused). I mean, if you went to a site like this and saw EVERY SINGLE ONE of the related links formatted one way and then the most recent link formatted a different way, wouldn't you be confused too? (Also shutting up is not my best thing) Look, I'm not going to sit here and pout because you didn't like my styling of the page. And I like this site too much and am too interested in hurricanes to just storm off into the sunset.

I shall return!

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

By the way, Katrina will need to be reformatted into Tropical Storm Katrina (1999), as there will likely be a Tropical Storm Katrina or Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and that could easily be a devastating storm that warrants the main article...

He He He. Looks like some people finally found out exactly how widespread these header links are. They are about as common as guns in a war. The War of the Header Links has begun. The links to the main articles are now almost blended with the text and it looks thouroughly boring.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast 25 March, 2005

Whoa! I know now it's 2006 an this is for 2004, so no one's gonna read thios, but wow! You hit it right on mark with this statement and it wasn't even a prediction, it was a hypothetical. Fableheroesguild 02:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

By the way, I just read that, too...pretty impressive, E. Brown. bob rulz 12:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)Reply
It looks much neater and more official with the links seperated from the headers. bob rulz 07:27, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism of Charley and Ivan edit

Perhaps I'm just dense, but I just now figured out why Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Ivan get vandalized so much.

I'm a little freaked out by that. -- Cyrius| 07:56, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Fact checking edit

Oi people, PLEASE fact check your stuff before you save it. I spent yesterday and this morning making changes to incorrect statements about some of these storms. Inez killed 1000, not 600, Carla was a 5, Anita was a 5, the third hurricane to hit Florida in 1964 was Isbell, not Isabella...It goes on and on and on. I'm not mad at anybody, I'm just asking you to please fact-check your stuff.

P.S: I doubt anybody on this message board has that problem.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

As always, death toll estimates vary. However, the 300 figure listed in the article was quite blatantly incorrect.
Hurricane Carla was a Category 5 at sea, and the mention of Category 4 was correctly framed as a statement about its strength at landfall.
The article on Hurricane Anita was simply incorrect.
The article on the 1964 Atlantic hurricane season was apparently modified from "Isbell" to "Isabella" [7] and the faulty "correction" slipped past.
Remember that there's easily over a hundred pages on these topics, and it's sometimes difficult for the small number of resident hurricane freaks to keep tabs on everything everyone does. -- Cyrius| 19:47, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I understand that. I was just asking everybody who does a page on hurricanes or modifys one that they make sure that they have the facts right. The article on Carla sounded a litte ambiguous (did I spell that right?) as to whether it meant a Category 4 at landfall or that the highest it ever got to was a 4. (Hurricane freaks, ha! ha! Now that's funny. Hurricane freaks, oh I love it.)

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

the future of Events edit

I've decided I don't much like the events section. However, I'm not bold enough to blow it away and perhaps replace it with something else without a second opinion. -- Cyrius| 03:17, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The events section was useful during the season, I think, so let's not discard it for next year. However, yeah, it needs to be condensed or eliminated. Either make a monthly summary, which would note that June was 50% chance to have no storms, and that Otto went into December, etc. Or just merge that into the season summary? I dunno, it might be nice to have a season summary, then a by-month summary, then a by-storm summary. --Golbez 08:49, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Just curious, how long are we going to keep that section up there? I noticed that none of the other hurricane seasons have it, so I was wondering if it was just a temporary thing.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Long Discussion edit

I was just noticing that this page is getting a little long, shouldn't we consolidate some of this stuff? Especially since the 2004 season is now over.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast 6 February 2005

Yeah, someone, usually Cyrius, seems to bring this up every month or so. ;) Eventually we'll figure out something to do with it! --Golbez 22:24, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)
Whoops, I thought you meant the timeline. You just meant this talk page. Maybe.

Maybe..hmm..wow that tells me alot. In regards to the timeline (Events), I think that it should be a seasonal thing. We track the season as it's happening and then delete it after the season is over. That's my two cents.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Meet the forecasters! edit

Check it out. It's neat to learn about the people whom we know only through "FORECASTER FRANKLIN" or the rare witty comment in a storm discussion. --Golbez 18:55, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • You mean this thread? I agree, although it was rather annoying to have to kill Javascript to be able to read it. It's also a good reminder that people we just see as signatures on the Internet really have lives and families in reality - it's not just a computer generating those forecasts and reports. --Goobergunch|? 03:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Whoops, yeah, sorry, pasted wrong link. How embarassing. --Golbez 04:06, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
    • Print preview works pretty well to counter lameness like that Javascript floater. foobaz· 04:20, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Six storms edit

Thanks to the map that just got put up (Good idea, by the way, I think), I decided to look a little bit. It's absolutely uncanny how the lines of Jeanne and Frances completely merge. But what shocked me more was that, while four storms went through Florida, *six* went through or just by North Carolina and Virginia. Where's our props, eh? ;) --Golbez 22:24, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

I figured the weather service had released that by now, so I integrated it into the new infobox. --tomf688 (talk) 23:52, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Don't forget Bonnie, Golbez. That makes five storms (Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne) for Florida and most of the storms that went through the Carolinas and Virginia were tropical depressions at the time. All but one of the Florida storms were of hurricane intensity. Three of those were of major hurricane intensity. By the way, this may sound a bit morbid, but don't the tracks of Charley and Frances vaguely resemble a swastika. Isn't that creepy?

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Infobox edit

Any positive/negative opinions relating to the infobox I just put up? If there are no serious objections, I'll integrate it into some of the other hurricane seasons also. --tomf688 (talk) 23:52, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

I like it, though one comment: Maybe include 5 years instead of just 3? Also, you have 3 major storms, but there were 6. :) --Golbez 02:32, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
As I said on the template's talk page, I think it would look better with 5 years instead of 3. As it is, the row of years takes up less than half the box's width on my setup. It also looks better to move the box down to occupy the large white space next to the TOC. At least it does on this article, I don't know how it would look on the less fleshed-out years with shorter TOCs. Other than that, I have no serious objections.
There's a few other statistics that might prove useful as additional ways of gauging overall storm activity. ACE value and number of landfalling storms come to mind. Needs to be a line drawn somewhere though, otherwise the box would end up with so much "useful" factoids that it'd lose its usefulness. -- Cyrius| 02:40, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It's just a prototype; the info in the box was thought up skimming the article and the opening paragraphs to it. Go ahead and play around with it at Template:Infobox Hurricane Season or in this article. --tomf688 (talk) 03:09, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
Box does seem a bit better down low. --tomf688 (talk) 03:45, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I like it at the top. --Golbez 08:33, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
If it's at the top, then there's a giant empty space next to the TOC. -- Cyrius| 12:42, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Cyrius does have a point about the empty space; this article has a rather large TOC, so it doesn't work too well at the top. --tomf688 (talk) 18:43, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Are you going to institute this infobox for all the seasons back to 1995 (the current-style track map only goes back that far)?

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

A bit difficult, as I can't find a definitive source of deaths and casualties. --tomf688(talk) 21:18, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I could think of a laundry list of sources: the NHC reports, the Monthly Weather Review... I could probably come up with respectable figures right now.

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast (squawk box)

Events edit

OK, kids, we're almost to the 2005 season, we need to come to a final decision of what to do with events. Should we split it off into a Timeline of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season article, nuke it, somehow summarize it (Which I don't think is useful, since it would essentially be duplicate information) or what? --Golbez 20:06, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

It'd be a shame to lose all that info... I'd go with moving it to a timeline article. --Patteroast 02:35, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I say move; makes the article much too long. --tomf688(talk) 02:46, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
Move. bob rulz 04:07, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I was bold and moved the timeline. Put a see also note at the top of the season summary, so the timeline won't be forgotten. Makes the page much more concise IMO. --tomf688(talk) 04:32, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
This was probably the right decision. The real question is whether 2005 should have a timeline or not. I'm not incredibly happy with the way it turned out. -- Cyrius| 13:41, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Good point; I really don't see much point to it as the individual articles sum up the information rather nicely. --tomf688(talk) 15:34, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
I say go with it for now, since it also records TDs that weren't named, and this is the *season* page, so it supplies a useful timeline of the season as a whole. --Golbez 17:54, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Florida edit

Does anybody here actually live in Florida? I live in Central Florida, specifically Lakeland, Florida. Anyway, I was thinking we might add a user account section where people can share their stories, but would that damage the NPOV status of the article? None of the Florida storms were strong where I live, but I know a lot of people that had a good amount of damage. In our Area, it was the worst around Lake Wales. Power was out for over a month there. --Zeerus 12:58, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed it would damage the npov. --tomf688(talk) 13:19, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Retiring storm names edit

The following text was removed from this page:

The World Meteorological Organization retired four names in the spring of 2005: Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. They will be replaced in 2010 by Colin, Fiona, Igor, and Julia.

with the comment

i checked news sites and googled this for 20 minutes and found nada

Well, I did 5 minutes of searching and found these:

http://wgntv.trb.com/news/weather/weblog/wgnweather/archives/000032.html
(October 12, 2004) summary: This won't be decided until this winter's meetings of the World Meteorological Organization (which is when?)
http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=853701
summary: 2010 list is out, but not updated. This happened previously, and will probably be fixed later.

To summarize my summaries, I agree that searching the net did not show evidence of the change. However, I think it is too soon to remove this outright as untrue, so I leave it here until final word from the NWS or WMO or whatever is posted somewhere google can find it. --ssd 01:50, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You over-summarized, I'm not sure what you're saying. The statement that they did something should stay removed until there's a cite for it. People have been trying to falsely state that the names are retired since the storms hit. I've been fighting this long enough that I'm not inclined to accept someone's word on the subject. -- Cyrius| 02:21, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Found another site with the correct list: http://www.cura.net/~fcapello/html/Hurricane_names.htm - Safe to say it is official.
How can you say that?? This not a NOAA or WMO web site, but a personal one, right? This is not official!! Awolf002 14:13, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It will be official when - and only when - either an official NOAA or WMO website says so. Period. --Golbez 15:01, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's official. [8] bob rulz 22:40, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm, have four names ever been retired in one season before? Interesting. --tomf688(talk) 00:04, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

The new names have apeared on NHC's 'Storm Names' link. [9] It's official. And, yes Tom, there have been four names retired before, once in 1955 (Connie, Diane, Ione and Janet) and again in 1995 (Luis, Marilyn, Opal, and Roxanne).

-E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast

Now see kids? Was it really so hard to wait until it was factually correct, rather than on random personal webpages? --Golbez 08:47, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Crunch Time edit

The 2005 Eastern Pacific hurricane season starts tomorrow. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season starts in two and a half weeks. It could get really exciting.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 00:11, 15 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yet, if it's anything like last year, then it'll be a boring 2 and a half months ahead. --Golbez 05:20, May 15, 2005 (UTC)
Followed by all hell breaking loose. -- Cyrius| 06:59, 18 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

Let's get ready to rumble! Tropical Depression One_E has formed in the Eastern Pacific and is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm within the next 24-36 hours [10]. The season has begun fellas, and the Atlantic, I'll wager, won't be far behind.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 22:23, 17 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

TS Adrian has formed in the Pacific, but it moves towards the east. If it crosses over to the Gulf, will it keep its name and stay a Pacific storm, or become an Atlantic storm? Mmmhhh... Awolf002 11:31, 18 May 2005 (UTC)Reply
Storms that cross basins are given a name from the new basin's list; see Earl from the 2004 Atlantic season. Perhaps we should move this discussion to the 2005 Atlantic and Pacific pages :) --Golbez 14:59, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

There's a 2005 Pacific hurricane season page?

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 22:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)Reply

There has been for a few months now... bob rulz 05:15, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

Main article template edit

I personally don't like that new main article link template. It's difficult to tweek and doesn't stand out enough. I think we should go back to the old fashioned way.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 8 July 2005 22:11 (UTC)

No protests from me. bob rulz July 9, 2005 04:16 (UTC)

Halifax link. edit

Please change the link to Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia.

Are European hurricanes welcome? edit

Was just wondering if this article is mostly for American hurricanes or if hurricanes that affect Europe are welcome too? I'm thinking of for example Hurricane Gudrun that caused big problems in Sweden in January 2005.

Be aware that the focus of these pages is on tropical cyclones. I believe in Europe the name "Hurricane" is applied to non-tropical systems, when the wind speeds are very high. Those would not fit in here. Awolf002 22:45, 29 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. However, those quasi-tropical systems that the Mediterranean sometimes sees would fit if they'd ever agree on just what they are. -- Cyrius| 02:44, 30 August 2005 (UTC)Reply
Except that they are not Atlantic hurricanes. Jdorje 04:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Images for each storm edit

I am trying to get an image for each storm, like 2005. I have started uploading ones that aren't on Wikipedia yet, and they are listed below. Alex, Charley, Frances, Gustav, Ivan, and Jeanne all have pictures as they all have articles.

Having a little trouble with a Hermine one without Gustav, and a lot of trouble with the other ones to find a good one. Would this do for an Otto pic? Hurricanehink 22:34, 22 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

OK, got Hermine, Karl, and Lisa. Does anyone have something of Matthew, Nicole, or Otto? That Otto pic is sort of weak, I found one of Nicole but it was during its extratropical stage, and Matthew is more or less non-existant on Google. Hurricanehink 13:55, 25 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Nevermind, I got them! I forgot about NRL Monterey, so that is why Matthew, Nicole, and Otto all have the same stuff in the upper left corner. Hurricanehink 14:22, 25 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Remind me again why we're overloading the hurricane pages with images? I liked it just the way it was. Now this page is becoming too much like the 2005AHS page. We don't need a picture for every fricking storm. I could be persuaded to one for every hurricane but not one for every named storm. This shouldn't be a picture gallery, it should be an informative page and all those images are distracting. We should add images to support the article, not to let the pics dominate over the text, which is what they're doing here. Having it like this almost ensures that this page will not become an FA. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 04:26, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, just thought it would help the article. I thought the picture and infobox would put the storms into perspective. Check your talk page. I have a compromise if you truly think the pictures bring more harm than good to the article. Hurricanehink 22:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Reply
I like the images. I think it's interesting, and have been having fun looking at previous seasons to actually see storms I hadn't seen pictures of before. (Gah, forgot to sign...) --Patteroast 03:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply


Thank you. And I ask, how does it hurt the article? It isn't a picture gallery. It merely helps the reader actually see the storm, rather than reading about it. Hurricanehink 03:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Nicole edit

I tried to upload a replacement image but I followed the link back to the image page and it still displayed the old pic. I don't know what the hell is going on but it's annoying the crap out of me. I had to upload the pic as a new file. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 23:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sometimes it's the Wikipedia cache or your own cache. Next time that happens, try holding Ctrl+Shift and then click the Refresh button, flushing out your cache for that page. -- RattleMan 01:06, 12 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

TD10? edit

Tropical Depression Ten is not included in the NHC best-track. What gives? Jdorje 04:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, but they don't include depressions. You'll have to go from the NHC Tropical Cyclone Report, which actually extends the storm's track back two days. Hurricanehink 04:26, 30 December 2005 (UTC)Reply

Todo edit

This article (as of this revision) is extremely complete - perhaps too much so - but is lacking in certain areas. Probably the biggest problem is that the summary section is too brief and is spaghetti (jumps from topic to topic). It is basically just a disjointed collection of facts with little narrative thread. For instance one paragraph talks about specific storms of the season that were unusual, the next paragraph talks about august storms, and the paragraph following talks about how Ivan was unusual. It's almost like the author is trying to alternate paragraphs between talking about individual storms and talking about the season as a whole. Another example is deaths - one paragraph leads off talking about how deadly the season was, then takes a right turn and gives the total number of storms in the season; the following paragraph returns to the original topic. The summary section also is incomplete in that it does not give season totals or breakdowns of deaths or damages - this is mentioned in the intro, but the intro is not part of the summary; it needs to be repeated here and with more detail. This section is also the only part of the article that isn't a list, and as such needs to be extended and given more structure (subsections).

The storms section is extremely complete, to the level of having too much detail. The section on Alex is good, but going into more detail on less notable storms is not a good thing. We don't need a whole page on Bonnie, nor do we need such great detail on exact locations (like the first paragraph of the Hermine section - in fact, I'd say giving milages to certain locations should NEVER be done to give the location of a storm, that's what maps are for) or specific times of day (like the first sentence of Gaston - simply knowing the day is enough for meteorological events; specific times should rarely be given in the synopsis).

Jdorje 20:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

The storms section should be the most extensive part of the article, Jdorje, we've been through this. The season summery is just that: a summery of the most notable events of the season. It is the job of the storms section to go into detail. Repeat after me: THE STORMS SECTION IS THE MEAT OF THE ARTICLE. That should hold most of the article's substance. All other sections are designed to give just a brief synopsis of the season as a whole and any other notable facts and figures (a la Retirement and ACE). -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 04:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Nonetheless, the storms section contains way too much tedium and is poorly balanced. You can see this by looking at the storms that get the most coverage: Ivan, Jeanne, and Bonnie. The level of detail is too high and is in many cases inappropriate for the notability of the storm. Additionally the references are given inconsistently: why do some storms use a combined list-text format while others use pure text, and how come there's not a single inline <ref> reference? Jdorje 05:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
The article is a little tedious in places, but it's still A-Class IMO. I really like the writing and the format. A LOT of research went into this and it shows. The lack of inline references is the main issue. I do not believe that the article is poorly balanced. Ivan and Jeanne were two of the most notable storms of the season. Bonnie can and should be trimmed. Selective trimming could be used in a few other sections as well. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 06:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Yes. Remember that an A-class article is basically "finished". I just don't think we're done with this one. Jdorje 06:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well then why is 2005AHS listed as A-class? I deem it far from "finished". -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 00:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply
Because somebody changed it, and unlike the 2004 article I didn't change it back. However we did agree that A-class should be discussed on the wiki page, and neither 2004AHS, 2005AHS, or Ivan has technically been discussed (I might jump on some of those supposed FAs too, but I haven't really looked at them closely). Jdorje 00:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

BOXES edit

Do We want boxes for each storm as they are in 2005? I will put them up if people vote to confirm(Decision will be made after 15 votes.):

Vote Yes - Sign Name Here:

  1. Weatherman90 01:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  2. Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 04:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  3. Good kitty 05:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  4. Icelandic Hurricane 12:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  5. User:HurricaneCraze3270.18.92.122 13:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  6. Jamie|C   14:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  7. Jake52 20:54 21 February 2006 (UTC)
  8. CrazyC83 04:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  9. Pikachu9000 07:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  10. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 08:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  11. Patteroast 13:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
  12. Fishhead 23:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Vote No - Sign Name Here(Give Reason If Possible):

  1. Hurricanehink 02:01, 21 February 2006 (UTC)- There's no need for this. People can read in the summaries, and the boxes would become a little too big.Reply
  2. §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 18:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC) I honestly don't think they add much value. All the information they give is given in a more concise form in the text of the article. They'll just clutter the page.Reply
  3. I just don't like them. Mike H. That's hot 09:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Vote Abstain

  1. jdorje (talk) - Boxes might help, but they might also make the article too long. You can feel free to add them, but if too many people don't like them you will have ended up wasting your time.

Comments edit

I feel that the boxes used on List of 2005 Atlantic hurricane season storms would be an asset to this article. They summarize information very well, and, unlike the 2005 season, the 2004 season does not have the problem of too many storms to easily summarize on a single page. Given that the spacing would not be greatly different from current with the track and image, I see no reason not to include them. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 04:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

There's no need. They add very little. All the person has to do is look in the paragraph to find out how long it lasted and what the peak was. The pressure adds little, IMO. Hurricanehink 16:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Actually, when finding out information about storms to write the introductions for these articles, I have trouble telling the exact duration and maximum strength of each. The paragraph often does not give a maximum windspeed or minimum pressure. — jdorje (talk) 18:28, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

They're good as they are a quick way to display data for those who don't want to read the paragraphs on the storms. Jamie|C   18:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

I feel the same as jdorje. It usually doesnt specifically tell the min pressure and max winds...If we don't put the boxes, I think we should make an effort to include that in each paragraph. Weatherman90 21:59, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Do we really need them for the depressions. Their sections are quite small and the facts listed in the table aren't as useful when we're talking about depressions. I also don't think that depressions should be emphasized as much as the other storms. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 01:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Decision edit

I have decided to add them, on the basis of the votes(11 to 3 to 1), and other observations (I would have extended the fifteen votes if the opposition stood a fair chance). They seem to make the article look more professional from my viewpoint. Just pictures alone seem like they are just floating there, out of place or something. Also, I discovered that not a single storm on the main page gives information on the minimum pressure, and just one storm (Karl) gives the maximum wind speed. The boxes arent just for the non-hurricane experts that don't want to read it, they are for anyone who needs quick access to information on a particular storm, even I find the boxes handy. If they really start to tick some people off, remove them. Weatherman90 02:16, 23 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

NOTE:I also removed the ugly radar images from Charley and Ivan Weatherman90 03:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

TD 10 edit

Anyone got a track image for it? Weatherman90 02:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Let's not, the storm went about two feet. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 01:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
If you want one, Jdorje made one but never posted it. Its path is located here. Hurricanehink 02:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, it doesn't show up for me. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 13:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC)Reply
You sure? It works for me. Hurricanehink 21:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

intro edit

I changed the wording of the intro slightly: "The most notable storms for the season were the four major hurricanes that made landfall". This is basically the exact same thing the 2005 season says (except in 2005 they all made landfall as major hurricanes; in 2004 Frances weakened slightly but was still a major hurricane that made landfall). I wonder how many seasons could say this exact same thing? — jdorje (talk) 06:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

Fact police: Frances weakened to a 100-mph Category 2 at landfall. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 01:05, 26 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
That's why it is a major hurricane that made landfall, not a hurricane that made landfall as a major hurricane. Perhaps the wording can be improved. — jdorje (talk) 01:37, 26 February 2006 (UTC)Reply
Uhh, yeah. If you word it like that, people are bound to get confused. If we're going to even mention it, it will have to be rephrased. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 01:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

next FAC? edit

I think this article can have a new run at FAC, if we just clean up the Predictions section and add a few links overall. What does everyone think? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 06:30, 1 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

I would like to see better storm pics, perhaps someone should go through the Earth Observatory archive and upload the choice pics to commons? It might be better to hold off for now on the FAC nomination for a little while in any case. I think we should reformat the non-storm sections to be more like 2005's (surely the impact of the season on Florida is worthy of mention here?). Theres also the chance of the all-article approach coming here, if that occured the storms section could end up being reduced a bit in line with summary style.--Nilfanion 11:00, 1 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
This could eventually become a FA, though I was personally thinking Mitch as the next one. We should talk about the actual next FAC over at the assessments page. For the actual page, better pics is a good idea. The all-article approach could work. There's surely enough information on Bonnie and Matthew, leaving only seven other storms to do. That could work, if necessary. Hurricanehink 11:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
Getting a storm article to FA is a lot easier, just because it's easier to have a narrative thread and we have more practice at it. — jdorje (talk) 02:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
There's no reason why to split the page up into a list of storms or an all-article approach, like with 2005 AHS, and inflamate things further. It just needs more copyediting, and a bit of reformatting as Nilfanion said above. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 21:05, 2 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

By the way, I went to the Earth Observatory archive and added some PD pics from there to several 2004 AHS articles. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:31, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

ACE Table edit

I reverted Mark J's changes and reverted the values per the cited source. I'm not so sure Nicole should be omitted but did not intentionally add it back, I copy and pasted the table as it was before Mark J's edit. TimL 20:56, 2 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

How to account for the discrepancy between the cited source and this? TimL 21:04, 2 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure that Mark J's changes were incorrect. You say that his source (by User:Jdorje) is incorrect, based on the cited source (NCDC), but my calculations from data provided by these people agree with Jdorje. I can't account for the discrepancies. I've been in contact with the author of the NCDC source, and discuss here why Nicole should be omitted. --Spiffy sperry 14:52, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
I reverted my revert. Using the NHC's TCR on Ivan i got an ACE of 70.38. So it appears the cited source is.... 'bad'. (I was not able to find the 2004 hurdata data.) TimL 20:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
It's a large text file (not user-friendly), apparently not directly linked from their website, but here it is. --Spiffy sperry 20:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Nicole? really? edit

Are yopu sure thats nicole? It looks too close to America to be nicole. And wad Nicole ever that organized?

Yep, at least according to the link. Hurricanehink 02:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
Cool. Sorry forgot to sign last time. →Cyclone1 02:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)Reply
Actually it isn't that close to America, its just there is a large cloud band to the north of it. If you look closely you can see it is south of Labrador and east of New York, putting it where the track map says it should be.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)Reply