Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Severe weather/Archive 3

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Flood

FYI, I've gone through the Flood article with a fine-toothed comb. Maybe someone can review the page and see how it looks now. The page has been the subject of a bunch of vandalisation (as have at least a few other meteorology articles I've noticed), but I think that it's got some protection now from non-registered user edits. Enjoy... Guy1890 (talk) 04:28, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Splitting the April 25–28, 2011 article

The April 25–28, 2011 tornado outbreak was the largest continuous outbreak on record. In fact, it was so large that the article relevant to the outbreak is breaking templates because of the sheer size. As such, the article needs to be broken up into two while maintaining appropriate titles. With prior discussion, neither United States Man nor myself have been able to come up with a title...suggestions? TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 21:40, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The page in question is List of tornadoes in the April 25–28, 2011 tornado outbreak. The page would be broken up with the April 25 and 26 events in one article and April 27 and 28 in another article. But, as TropicalAnalystwx13 said, we are unable to figure out good titles for the pages. United States Man (talk) 23:28, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

To hell with it, just split it up into "List of Tornadoes on April 25, 2011" and so on for the other ones. That'd be easier title-wise :) gwickwire^talk_editing 19:18, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

There probably is a better suggestion than gwickwire's lurking somewhere, but I can't think of any offhand. If you do follow the suggestion you might want to add necessary links to simplify dealing with the days in combination as required. Good luck anyway. Meanwhile get someone to frobnicate those templates before the daily twister event-count begins to break them too. (Watch this space, speaking as a certified optimist!) JonRichfield (talk) 14:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

WxBot

I've created WxBot, a bot which runs through AWB, to perform tasks for meteorology-relate projects. So far it has been approved for link and template replacement, but if we need it to do anything else in the future, I can make a request for additional approved tasks. I have placed a subsection giving a brief overview of the bot on the Project page under the Participants section. If anyone feels as if there's a better place for the subsection, feel free to move it. Inks.LWC (talk) 22:24, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

AfC

Just a heads-up about this AfC submission. Is it notable, etc? Feel free to review it. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:22, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments requested at Talk:May 18–21, 2013 tornado outbreak

There's currently a discussion about the format of the tornado tables ongoing at Talk:May 18–21, 2013 tornado outbreak#Changing tornado table format. Thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:31, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

New tornado table format

Forgive me if I sound bossy or if I look like I am trying to be the king here, but I think it is essential that we get all of the outbreak articles and monthly lists updated to keep consistency. I would ask that if anyone can help, that help would be greatly appreciated. What I am most worried about at this point is applying the new format to all outbreaks from the year 2000 and up (earlier outbreaks can by worried about later). In addition to that, all torandoes should be added into monthly lists from 2000 and up (these things are either non-existant or a mess up until 2009-2010). Again, all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, United States Man (talk) 02:37, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

What is the "new" format? I don't remember an old format (or perhaps my memory is just failing me). Inks.LWC (talk) 23:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Well not entirely. Only a few things were changed. See here. United States Man (talk) 00:50, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Once again, the tornado table! (Adhering to WP:MOS)

Since I've taken the plunge in attempting the project's first Featured List with the tornado tables, we've finally received substantial criticism on the tornado table in regards to WP:MOS. After some thinking and tweaking (on the 8th revamped version of the table now), I've come up with one that is far more in-line with standards. I'd like to get everyone's thoughts on it (please don't edit the page, just look at it and the formatting) and get your comments on it. The table is located at User:Cyclonebiskit/Sandbox1#Mk. 8. Thanks in advance! Regards, Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:55, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

The only two problems that I have are the states and the non-bolding in the rating block. To me, the table is already too wide for another column and the color can (but not always) drown out the text. I could live with everything else. United States Man (talk) 19:08, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

For the bold text, I can read the F#s fine in every color without it. It's more of screen resolution thing I guess. In regards to the states, per MOS:DTT the states either have to be in a column or the tables need to be split up (meaning each state gets its own table each day with column headers). In my opinion, putting it into the table is more appropriate and allows it to be sorted more efficiently. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Can "UTC" in the table header be Wiki-linked to Coordinated Universal Time for people that don't know what that is? Just to be sure, we're still going to have in-line citations, right? Guy1890 (talk) 19:19, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Added the link. Yeah, there will still be in-line citations. I just didn't want to overload that page with sources. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 19:28, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

List of SPC high-risk days

The idea of a "bust" within List of SPC high-risk days seems arbitrary and up for debate. Seriously, what constitutes a "bust"? For instance today there were 195 reports of severe weather, it was not supposed to be a major tornado event which already seems like a strike against it on the "bust" list here here...it was supposed to be mainly wind and hail which it ended up being (although not quite as strong as predicted). This "bust" notion seems like Original Research at worst and completly unverifiable at best. Unless some authoritative source directly calls the day a "bust", can we really put that in the list? Peace -Marcusmax(speak) 04:00, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

To me, the list seems very tornado-fied. It has always been that way for some reason. You are welcome to change it. United States Man (talk) 04:43, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The SPC "SLGT" "MDT" & "HIGH" Risk Outlooks all have very specific meanings. "A HIGH risk area suggests a major severe weather outbreak is expected, with a high concentration of severe weather reports and an enhanced likelihood of extreme severe (i.e., violent tornadoes or very damaging convective wind events occurring across a large area). In a high risk, the potential exists for 20 or more tornadoes, some possibly F2 or stronger, or an extreme derecho potentially causing widespread wind damage and higher end wind gusts (80+ mph) that may result in structural damage."

"A SLGT risk implies well-organized severe thunderstorms are expected, but in small numbers and/or low coverage. Depending on the size of the area, approximately 5-25 reports of 1" or larger hail, and/or 5-25 wind events, and/or 1-5 tornadoes would be possible."

"A MDT risk indicates a potential for a greater concentration of severe thunderstorms than the slight risk, and in most situations, greater magnitude of the severe weather."

I can't speak to how the list in question is currently evaluating "busts", but they should be using something like the above (or the relevant NWS regulations from the time in question, since they have changed over time) to evaluate whether a High Risk area verified or not. SPC might even have these kind of records available as well. I wouldn't know much about that, since I never worked at SPC while I was employed with the NWS in the past. Note: I don't work for the NWS any more...I currently work in the private sector. Guy1890 (talk)

AfC

I was directed to this project by a reviewer in my attempt to get the following Article for creation: Comparison_of_Dust_Storms_By_Visibility_Range

I'm trying to write the page as a comparison page; somewhat similar to this page but with much less comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers

The dust storms are already mentioned in the 'Dust Storms' article. But, my attempt is to breakout the notable storms from the main article to better compare the worst dust storms in history, by the more worse visibility ranges in history.

Then, I'd delete the references to 'visibility ranges' from the main Dust Storms article that would then be compared as the worst dust storms in history in terms of visibility ranges and have the link to the new page within the Dust Storms page, similar to other articles that link to a 'comparison' page that goes into more detail. In this case my objective is worst 'visibility comparisons' and time in history (and present history). (talk) June 15, 2013 —Preceding undated comment added 21:00, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems like your proposed article would be better merged with the Dust_storm#Notable_dust_storms page. Why not try & discuss a merger of the info that you have above on the Dust Storm talk page? Good luck. Guy1890 (talk) 23:26, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Latest tornado table

Alright, the ninth variant of the dreaded tornado table is up. This one is a more condensed version that combines all days into a single table. All previous columns are there as well. Thoughts on this would be much appreciated! Cyclonebiskit (talk) 20:58, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Naming conventions

I would like to propose that articles about tornado outbreaks have a standard naming convention, namely the following:

1. All tornado outbreaks occurring after 2010 (2011 onward) will have article titles based upon the dates of their occurrence, in the format "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak" or "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak sequence". Some outbreaks occurring before 2010 have well entrenched names (2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak, for example) and would be best left as are.
2. WP:COMMONNAME shall not apply to tornado outbreak articles. This will save time-consuming naming disputes like have occurred over 2011 Super Outbreak, and save the project from embarrassing situations like the naming of Hurricane Bawbag.

Further suggestions are welcome and discussion is requested. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 05:19, 9 September 2013 (UTC) (Added after Inks.LWC's comments) Just to clarify, this is a proposed change to the "Title" section of WP:SEVERE/T. The changes would be to invalidate number 1 for tornado outbreaks from 2011 onwards and to change number 4 to "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak" or "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak sequence" for all tornado outbreaks occurring from 2011 onward. I will now be notifying all listed members of the project to this discussion. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:06, 9 September 2013 (UTC) Alright, further clarification after Charmlet's comments: The intent behind point 2 is to basically set it to where for tornado outbreak articles the default name is "Month day-day, year tornado outbreak", with consensus being needed to switch to a common name. The goal of this is mostly as stated in the original proposal, as well as to have the power of hindsight as to which common name becomes the true common name, since tornado outbreaks often have many local and or national common names. As per Charmlet's advice about needing sitewide consensus, I will be posting this as an RfC and advertising it in relevant locations. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 23:41, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't really care what we use (I really don't care if there is a comma after the year or not), but let's put a moratorium on any more moves until we have a consensus here. There's no point getting into fights over what the title should be. Inks.LWC (talk) 05:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

After some quick research (and I mean really quick), I don't see any other titles that use a comma after the year. Granted, I only looked at about 12 random titles that had a "Month day, year..." setup in the title (which I did by randomly typing dates into the search bar to see what autogenerated), so take it with grain of salt. Again, I don't care what we do; I'm just trying to throw some facts out there for those who do care. Inks.LWC (talk) 05:30, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I am one of those picky people that does care, and I wholeheartedly agree with Ks0stm's suggustions. United States Man (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The biggest issue I have with outbreak and outbreak sequence nomenclature is the erroneous listing of a series of outbreaks an outbreak sequence. Outbreak sequences refer specifically to a continuous period of tornado outbreaks with no breaks in tornadic activity. A series of more dispersed outbreaks occurs frequently in the spring (in the US). This is not the concept or definition of a sequence and its inclusion as such on Wikipedia (fallaciously) dilutes the meaning and effectively constitutes WP:OR. I understand the utility of a shorthand to refer to such noncontinuous periods of outbreaks and to reduce the number of articles, so I (re)propose that such periods are referred to as "Month day–day, year tornado outbreaks" with outbreaks as plural to denote that more than one outbreak is included. Outbreak sequences are relatively rare in comparison.

I weakly support Ks0stm's proposal. Common names should be setup as redirects when reaching a critical mass as confirmed by reliable sources. Determining if a common should apply and what to name an article is the chief reason for my support of Ks0stm's proposal. Evolauxia (talk) 22:46, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Just from a policy standpoint, a local consensus here cannot override WP:COMMONNAME. There would need to be a standalone, well advertised (CENT, AN, VPP, etc) RfC for that to happen.

  Aside from that, I think M D-D, YYYY works fine for US outbreaks, but for international ones it should be international date format (i.e. D-D M YYYY). ~Charmlet ^-talk- 22:48, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I strongly support Chamlet's suggestion of adopting mm/dd/yyyy for US outbreaks and dd/mm/yyyy for outbreaks outside the US. Establishing what is a common name is not a straightforward task for outbreaks, as they're often referred to by multiple names (by reliable sources) or a catchy name is included that isn't widely adopted even though a reliable source uses it. This sufficiently complicates that matter such that WP:COMMONNAME probably does not apply.

Further background on problems with tornado outbreaks and outbreak sequences is at this archive. Evolauxia (talk) 23:02, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

RfC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I would like to propose that articles about tornado outbreaks have a standard naming convention, namely the following:

1. All tornado outbreaks occurring after 2010 (2011 onward) will have article titles based upon the dates of their occurrence, in the format "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak" or "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak sequence". Some outbreaks occurring before 2010 have well entrenched names (2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak, for example) and would be best left as are.
2. The default name format for tornado outbreaks will be "Month day-day, year tornado outbreak", with consensus being needed to switch to a common name. The goal of this is to have a standard name for tornado outbreak articles to be created at when they occur and to gain a "power of hindsight" as to which common name becomes the true common name, if any, since tornado outbreaks often have many local and or national common names. This "power of hindsight" will help to prevent time consuming naming disputes like occurred over the 2011 Super Outbreak name, a common name in the days immediately following the April 25-28, 2011 tornado outbreak that did not become the long term common name.
   

Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 23:41, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support - Other than the part about whether it will be called an "outbreak" or an "outbreak sequence" (which is another discussion for another time), I completely agree. United States Man (talk) 23:57, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This is a simple proposal with a clear scope and a low likelihood of ambiguity. Whenever we can have a standard form of names for a group of related topics, we should do our best to create that standard. I know nothing about the difference between outbreaks and outbreak sequences, so like US Man, I have no comment on that part. Nyttend (talk) 00:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Strong support as it grew over time and provides consistency while avoids ambiguity, especially in periods of busy activity (common in the peak season). Some older outbreaks, unless well entrenched, can do the same as well. If a common name develops and becomes widespread it can become an exception. The April 2011 outbreak names forced the issue as there was no other way to separate them out. CrazyC83 (talk) 00:32, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support - Even though I was on the other side of it at the time, the 2011 Super Outbreak debate was quite a headache, and it would be good to avoid it. One question though: Will outbreaks occurring on holidays and other specially named days be an exception? Take 2012 Leap Day tornado outbreak and 2012 Christmas tornado outbreak for example. TornadoLGS (talk) 00:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, those would more than likely fall into the well-entrenched category, and I'm sure no one would throw fits (I wouldn't, at least) if they were left where they are. I just gave 2011 onward as the date due to most articles starting in 2011 having the month day-day, year format, versus before you start to get quite a few ones like 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak, the Palm Sunday tornado outbreaks, the 1991 Andover, Kansas tornado outbreak, etc. The opposite is also true in that ones formatted like May 2007 tornado outbreak from before 2011 could probably be moved to the "month day-day, year" format without much objection. The purpose of this RfC, however, is especially to set the standards going forward from this point in time, with the before or after 2011 thing being a very secondary goal. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 00:52, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
    • That might be noted in the convention, then, in the event that such an outbreak might happen in the future. TornadoLGS (talk) 00:58, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
      • In the future I would expect under these proposed conventions the articles would be moved to the holiday based name if consensus was determined that the holiday based name was the common name. For outbreaks like Super Tuesday or the Palm Sunday outbreaks this became the well defined, enduring common name, and I see no reason that that can't occur for future outbreaks as well. For example, if an outbreak were to occur July 4-5, 2017 we would name the article "July 4–5, 2017 tornado outbreak" and rename to "2017 Independence Day tornado outbreak" or whatever once after a period of time it became clear that that "2017 Independence Day tornado outbreak" was the common name that was going to "stick", for lack of a better term. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 01:08, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• (edit conflict × 2) 'Support – Two things I like about this. First, it sets a standard, and second, the date range and consensus needed to establish a common name minimize ambiguity and confusion. I echo the sentiment of CrazyC83. TheAustinMan^{(Talk·Works)} 00:54, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose – why would you omit the matching comma after the year? Discussions in other contexts have generally concluded that titles are not immune from normal rules of grammar and puctuation. Dicklyon (talk) 03:20, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
  • What matching comma? I'm not sure if this is purely a stylistic opinion of yours or something, but I personally have never seen a comma after the year in such a way. If referring to something happening on the date only, maybe ("On March 20, 2011, something was large"), but never in a singular object where the date is part of the name ("The March 20, 2011 something was really large..."). If you use the comma in the second instance it just sounds weird ("The March 20, 2011, something was really large.") because it separates "something" from "March 20, 2011", effectively making it sound like "The March 20, 2011" and "something" are two different things, rather than the single "March 20, 2011 something". Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 04:04, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
    • No, not me. See grammar guides. With the exception of Garner, almost all call for the matching comma. We had this discussion elsewhere, but I guess you guys at Extreme missed it. Dicklyon (talk) 07:08, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
      • I would like to suggest that this go under a separate RfC. This RfC is in regard to the used of a standardized Month-DD-YYYY format to avoid issues with WP:commonname and other such hang-ups. I would not want to throw out an entire naming convention for the sake of a comma. TornadoLGS (talk) 14:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support to reduce ambiguity and conflict over article names. Kaldari (talk) 06:25, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 06:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I support a coherent convention. However, if a reader is searching in the search box, for, say the October 2010 Arizona tornado outbreak, it is highly unlikely they would start typing in "October...". It is much more likely they will start typing "tornado outbreak...". If the Standard convention is "Tornado outbreak date", then starting a search with "tornado outbreak..." will naturally show those possibilities, and they will quickly see the way to specify. I am not enamored of the MDY format. It is US centric, and not very logical. The ISO standard is an obvious choice, although I'd prefer NN MMM YYYY where the month is spelled out, e.g "Tornado outbreak 6 October 2010"--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:01, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The MDY format is the one being proposed for US outbreaks, as they fall under the "strong national ties" rule for dates. International outbreaks would be in DMY (from what I understand). Also, the status quo right now is to have the day first, so it would require massive moves to change them all. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
  • @Sphilbrick: Charmlet is correct. The current status quo is MDY, mostly because (estimation here) over 90% of tornado outbreaks occur wholly or primarily in the United States or Canada, though non-US or -Canada related pages use DMY (e.g. List of European tornadoes and tornado outbreaks, List of Southern Hemisphere tornadoes and tornado outbreaks). Any outbreaks that occur wholly or primarily in DMY locations can be formatted as such (dd–dd Month, year tornado outbreak). The reason it is not mentioned is due to tornado outbreaks in general being a rather US/Canada-centric phenomenon, though I can insert the DMY style for other regions in the proposal if you would prefer. As for the date being first, that's mostly just status quo, and I'm not quite sure how well "Tornado outbreak of Month day–day, year" would work compared to "Month day–day, year tornado outbreak". Personally I've always looked for "Month year tornado outbreak" to get to a disambiguation page (example) if I didn't already know the name of the article, and there should always a disambiguation page or redirect at the "Month year tornado outbreak" locations. On the rare instances that such a disambiguation page didn't exist I would almost always find what I was looking for in the search (even with "tornado outbreak" first: example) or the relevant "Tornadoes of [Year]" article, which nearly always shows up in said search results. Redirects could also be created at "Tornado outbreak of Month Year" and "Tornado outbreak of Month day–day, year" (or day–day Month, year) to the relevant location. Does this address your concerns somewhat? Sorry this is such a long reply, but tornado outbreaks and related phenomenon are something I could write pages on if I didn't check myself. =P Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 21:10, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Creating the redirects would resolve my search concerns. I don't get why it make more sense to put the qualifier ahead of the main subject. For example, we talk about Hurricane Katrina, not Katrina Hurricane. I thought I could further illustrate the point with Galveston Hurricane of 1900, but I see that is a redirect, and the actual article is at 1900 Galveston hurricane. I think that was a poor decision. Time magazine notwithstanding, Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is a better choice. In close calls, for things that are likely to be in long lists, there is value to a convention which would sort sensibly. The proposal does not. That said, sorting is only one aspect. I haven't fully understood the rationale for the alternative, but if I cannot refute it, then I'm simply one more !vote. As for the stupid US date convention, I can't take a strong stand. I support the notion that Wikipedia is a follower not a leader, and when sources do stupid things, we follow them rather than take stand for sensible alternatives. As long as the month is spelled out, there isn't any chance of confusion, so treat my reference for sensible date format as a personal preference, and not one supportable by policy.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Don't modifiers usually precede the subject in English anyway? Most of the time I've seen something phrased along the lines of "Tornado (location) (year)" it has come from a non-native English speaker. TornadoLGS (talk) 23:01, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Practices vary, and I've been trying to think throguh whether there is a unifying paradigm or not.

For example,

• 2012 Summer Olympics
• 2012–13 NCAA Division I men's basketball season

but

• Deaths in September 2010, not September 2010 deaths
• Deaths in 2000 not 2000 Deaths

Not seeing a clear unifying theme.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 00:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the date comes first if it refers to a particular event or something that is well-defined while less specific subjects have the year go after. Also "2000 deaths" would likely be confusing as it could refer to an event in which 2,000 people died. TornadoLGS (talk) 03:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• Support - standards are good (usually), and I don't see any issues, here! --Jackson Peebles (talk) 02:15, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
• Support-This establishes a good standard and avoids any gray area on tornado titles. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 00:16, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Post-RfC remark on commas following MDY dates

The proponent and closer of the above RfC did not specifically comment on the use of commas with dates, although the proposer did not include a comma after the year in the example dates. I suggest that this was an oversight and the consensus declared above should not be interpreted as saying that there should not be a comma after the year. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style (specifically, the section at MOS:BADDATEFORMAT) says "... when using the mdy format, a comma is required between day and year. When a date in mdy format appears in the middle of text, include a comma after the year (The weather on September 11, 2001, was clear and warm)." I also notice that there was no further discussion of the comma issue recorded above after the remarks made by Dicklyon and TornadoLGS, which left the comma question open to further discussion (after Dicklyon noted the evidence for including the comma). Please also see the move request discussion currently taking place at Talk:April 14–16, 2011, tornado outbreak#Requested move. Guided by the MOS, I suggest that pages should be moved in any MDY cases that do not include the comma after the year. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

A comma-free date format might also be an acceptable way to fix the current rash of unbalanced commas. E.g. "14–16 April 2011 tornado outbreak". Or omit the days when they're not needed: "April 2011 tornado outbreak". But to have the comma before the year and not after is just jarring. Dicklyon (talk) 01:14, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Another possibility would be to put the date at the end of the title, as in "Tornado outbreak of Month day–day, year" or "Tornado outbreak sequence of Month day–day". —BarrelProof (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

That sounds rather awkward imo. TornadoLGS (talk) 23:30, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

When in a title, if the format is "MDY tornado outbreak", the MDY is acting as an adjective, not the object in a prepositional phrase, so I do not think a comma would be necessary. That being said, I think this discussion goes beyond what the main point of this discussion was and should be held somewhere else, because it impacts a wide range of titles, not just tornado outbreak titles. Inks.LWC (talk) 04:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree with the remark that this is a broader topic that should be settled somewhere other than in a discussion about tornado articles. As you probably know, the MOS doesn't make a distinction between usage as an adjective and any other uses. At far as I know, that statement in the MOS is the current governing guideline/policy. If it needs to change, that discussion should probably take place at WT:MOS, not here. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:27, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

There is an RFC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style § RFC: Proposed amendment to MOS:COMMA regarding geographical references and dates with a proposal to clarify the position on the use of commas after dates in DMY format (namely, that the use of such dates as adjectives should be avoided). The suggestions of moving the date to the end of the title or using another date format would conveniently achieve this. —sroc 💬 22:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion on Alternate Names for Hurricane Sandy at Talk:Hurricane Sandy

There is currently a discussion going on at Talk:Hurricane Sandy about the placement of alternate names for Hurricane Sandy in the article's lead. Since the article concerns this project, I figured I would post this here to inform everyone. All views on the issue are welcome, and I would encourage those interested to participate in the discussion. Inks.LWC (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

This discussion was recently closed by me, but has since reopened. Please feel free to participate if you are interested. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 17:33, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

FYI, the discussion referred to here has been closed & archived on that talk page now. Guy1890 (talk) 04:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Damage totals

The tornado tables within this project are constantly changing -- we've seen several column additions over the past year. While working on getting the List of United States tornadoes in April 2011 (please do not edit) page to match current project standards and to adhere to FL standards, I thought it'd be a good idea to add a new column that denotes the damage total caused by a particular tornado. After all, that figure is provided by the NCDC. I thought I'd ask other members of the project before making the addition. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 03:12, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I think we've got enough columns. We are going to end up overloading this tables if we add anything else because they are scrunched together already. All people have to do is click on the ref and they'll see the damage totals. Another thing, the refs don't need a separate column. They should just go at the end of the summaries. United States Man (talk) 04:26, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that a reference column should be implemented since that indicates that the entire data row is sourced by it and not just the event summary. There can be a damage total column but if that makes the content too overloaded then they can go in the event summary. TheAustinMan^{(Talk·Works)} 22:28, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

A solution to that would be to add a note next to the Summary heading stating that the refs are for the whole row. Having 10 or 11 columns is making the entries longer and increasing the length of the page. Plus, I don't know how many people are going to like to read vertically instead of horizontally. Model it after List of tornadoes in the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak (except the fact that they are all grouped into one table of course - that would make it impossible to manage). United States Man (talk) 01:06, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the reference column is making the summaries 'a little bigger, but it's not anything substantial. Many tables across Wikipedia now incorporate a Refs column, and in fact, the tables over at MOS:TABLES have one as well. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 02:53, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I guess it's okay. But TAWX, be sure to double check all of your entries. I found several errors in your sandbox that I corrected on the main page on April 4. I also had a question about April 25-28. Were you going to add them to the page as well? I don't think we can because of what happened on that outbreak's page (breaking of templates). But, you can try it if you want to. When I find time I will probably work on upgrading that as well. All the data is correct; it just needs the new table. United States Man (talk) 17:57, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

No, the templates will break if I do that. I'll just link to the pages. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 00:54, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Old versions of tornado tables

Are we changing old tornado table formats over to new tornado table formats if any are still out there? I've seen a few articles that still have "Path Width" instead of "Max Width"; my thoughts are that those should be changed over to "Max Width" for consistency. Inks.LWC (talk) 04:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I remember some discussion that older tables were going to be "grandfathered in", so that they didn't all have to be converted over en masse. However, I don't think that anyone would have a problem with someone spending the time to change over older tables to the new format as time allows...as long as no information was lost in the process. Guy1890 (talk) 05:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, anything that is "path width" should be "max width". Also, older tables do not have to be changed (unless one wants to promote that list page to FL). That would run into too much work, and to include all columns we would most likely need NCDC Storm Data (which is currently only available back to 1996). United States Man (talk) 06:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Well I can use WxBot to change the path width name pretty easily; I can do that when I get some free time. Inks.LWC (talk) 19:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

That will be fine. No rush. United States Man (talk) 05:38, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Just a heads up that I haven't forgotten about this. I had planned on doing it tomorrow after I finish my law review note draft... but my new laptop began smoking last night, so I'm back on semi-wikibreak for at least a week (maybe 2). Inks.LWC (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Frankenstorm

Until today, Frankenstorm was a {{soft redirect}}. See [1] for that version. There is a bit of a discussion at Talk:Frankenstorm#Changed to a soft redirect, with @Davidwr: and myself. Today @Ego White Tray: converted it to a dab page, which is IMO necessary. It would be helpful if we could obtain more opinions on how that page should look and what it should contain. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:56, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused on why it would be a dab or why the page suggests to link to Super storm and Perfect storm. The only widespread usage of the word "Frankenstorm" I have seen has been in relation to Sandy from 2012, in which case the page would need to be a hard redirect. But I may be wrong in the usage solely for Sandy. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 19:20, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

My apologies; by "which is IMO necessary", I should have said something like "which is IMO necessary if there are multiple targets". I didnt find strong evidence for it being used to refer to 'super storm' or 'perfect storm', so I am not sure a dab page is actually necessary. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 02:07, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

As I said at Talk:Frankenstorm#Changed to a soft redirect, I also do not think a dab page (or a soft redirect) is necessary. United States Man (talk) 02:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I have never heard "Frankenstorm" used to refer to anything other than Sandy, both in meteorological circles and outside them. There is no other article that Frankenstorm should even redirect to. Making it a disambig page is misleading in my opinion. While Sandy could be labelled a "perfect storm" or "super storm", "Frankenstorm" is not used as a nickname for either of those things; it has been used as a nickname for a single storm that falls in those categories--that storm being Sandy. IT should remain as a normal redirect to Hurricane Sandy. Inks.LWC (talk) 03:02, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Reference column in the tornado table

For reference, the current tornado table format can be viewed here. It has been proposed that we should make a new column for references in the tornado table (as was done on December 25–28, 2012 North American storm complex). Does the project have any thoughts on this? I'm leaning toward being opposed, as I think it adds a visual awkwardness to the table. Inks.LWC (talk) 06:40, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Why can't the references be included in the last column on the farthest right of the table ("Summary" - unless one needs to add a different reference for some of the material in some of the other columns)? Guy1890 (talk) 07:46, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

MOS:TABLES has incorporated a ref column, so we will incorporate a ref column. It shows that the whole table is sourced and not just the summary. What is the big deal anyway? United States Man (talk) 14:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Did MOS:TABLES make it mandatory? If not, we won't incorporate a ref column until there is consensus. Why I care is (1) I think it looks unappealing; (2) it takes up space in most tables because "Ref." or "Source" is generally much wider than the one or two endnote flags that would go in that column. Inks.LWC (talk) 00:54, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not mandatory, but (IMO) I think the reference column is needed so viewers know the information in the table is cited by that reference as opposed to just the summary being cited by that reference. The table looks fine on my end. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 00:24, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I prefer including a Ref column since it is too easy for editors not to include references, it also gives viewers the impression that the whole information is referenced.Jason Rees (talk) 01:09, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

In most, but not all, cases, a single page references multiple tornadoes (especially during major outbreaks) though. In extreme cases (i.e. 4/27/11) they can represent 30 to 50 tornadoes (or more), although major tornadoes may have secondary pages within office pages. However, once in Storm Data, they would become more useful to have special reference pages. CrazyC83 (talk) 01:26, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I am weakly in favor of adding the column. I agree with TropicalAnalyst that sticking it at the end of the description seems to imply that they only apply to that description. I would also note that it doesn't take up much space. That being said, these tables are getting rather crowded. TornadoLGS (talk) 01:32, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

The more I think about this, the more I'm coming to this side. I still think the tables look unappealing with the reference column, but they're more technically correct that way. It seems like a majority would rather have a column, but I'd hoped for more input. Either way, if we're going to do this, whatever we do needs to be consistent. Inks.LWC (talk) 03:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I would prefer including a reference column. In addition to the aforementioned benefits I believe it makes it easier to see what's referenced and what isn't and hope that it will encourage more referencing as tornadoes are added to the table, rather than being left for someone else to do at a later date. Speaking of referencing, we as a WikiProject really need to start archiving our references; all to often when I go to clean up an article there are references to internet news that have since gone dead. However, that's a discussion for another time. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 16:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Title Capitalization for Watches and Warnings

(I am reposting this inquisition of mine here; I previously posted it at Talk:Severe weather terminology (United States)#Title Capitalization, but I received no reply.) I don't understand why many of the Wikipedia pages dedicated to different National Weather Service watches and warnings do not start the words with capital letters. For example, the National Weather Service has an Extreme Cold Warning, but the article is located at Extreme cold warning. This is not exactly the same; the words extreme and cold are not just adjectives in this situation, but are actually part of the name of the warning. The warnings in this specific example may be warnings for extremely cold temperatures, but the actual warning is named Extreme Cold Warning, and so by this logic, the article should be located there, right? Another example is that the page for Tornado Warnings is located at Tornado warning, with a lower-case w. The same applies to many other NWS advisories, watches, and warnings, from Severe Thunderstorm Warnings to Tropical Storm Watches to Flash Flood Warnings and beyond, as seen in the template below: (Note: There may be some exceptions, but they are appear to be in the minority)

What I am saying is that the National Weather Service always capitalizes the first letter of any word contained in the name of a watch or warning. I don't believe this to simply be due to the usage of all capital letters by the National Weather Service in the main watch or warning because at http://www.weather.gov, all of the watches and warnings are started with capital letters, with the rest of the letters in lower-case. This is not a serious issue, but I was hoping for someone to respond; any replies would be appreciated. Dustin talk 02:18, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

• I guess there are some terms that are used internationally that might justify the capitalization of the first word in the article name only...in other words, there are terms that are used not only by the National Weather Service (like maybe Severe thunderstorm warning & Severe thunderstorm watch?). I also don't know if there is some Wikipedia article naming guideline that applies in these cases as well (?). It's true that many, if not all, NWS text products are still issued in all caps across the board, but that's partly because the old NWS main computer system (AFOS) defaulted to issuing products in all caps regardless of how they were originally entered into that system. I dunno when or if the NWS will ever start to communicate with the public in anything other than all caps. Note: Even though I used to work for the NWS in the past - I do not attempt to speak for them here.

I've basically noticed the same issues in play when it comes to articles like Local storm report (should be named "Local Storm Report"). I agree that many of these terms (that are used at least exclusively by the NWS) should be like Lake wind advisory, which simply re-directs to Lake Wind Advisory. Guy1890 (talk) 04:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I suppose that under that logic, it makes more sense to only capitalize the first letter of the first word in circumstances where the watch/warning is not unique to the United States. There is some terminology that is exclusive to the United States, though. Tornado Emergency, for example, is listed under the article title Tornado emergency, with a lowercase e, yet Tornado Emergencies are exclusive to the United States. Also, while the actual watches and warnings are issued in all caps, I might support my idea with what I said earlier - if you go to weather.gov and look at the key for watches and warnings (the key is below the map), they are listed in the format I previously mentioned, e.g. an advisory for dangerous wind chills is listed, with this format, as Wind Chill Advisory, not Wind chill advisory. One more thing: I am not sure whether or not Severe Thunderstorm Watches and Tornado Watches are exclusive to the United States, but I am fairly sure that Particularly Dangerous Situations are. Go to this link: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/2013/ww0262.html Note the capitalization of the first letters of each word in Particularly Dangerous Situation. If it turns out that Severe Thunderstorm Watches and/or Tornado Watches are US exclusive, then that same link gives an example a Tornado Watch in the format Tornado Watch. Regardless of what action is to be taken, thank you for the reply. I don't expect you to reply to all of what I have just said; I was just trying to give out some examples to start with. Dustin talk 22:09, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Believe me, I understand exactly where you are coming from, and I basically agree that most of the articles (including Tornado emergency & Particularly dangerous situation) that are in the template above probably need to be changed to the format that you prefer. We just need to be sure, first of all, that we're not running afoul of any hard & fast Wikipedia guidelines on article names, which, quite frankly, I am not that familiar with at all. Wikipedia sometimes has some odd rules that a lot of users are sticklers for unfortunately. Also, I do know that other official weather agencies outside of the USA use similiar (but sometimes not exactly the same) wording in the watches/warnings/advisories/etc. that they issue. Guy1890 (talk) 23:32, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Particularly dangerous situation now has received a move request on its talk page. If the move were to be executed, then Particularly dangerous situation would be moved to Particularly Dangerous Situation. If you wish to participate, discuss on the talk page here. Dustin talk 04:42, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Article Alerts

At Wikipedia:WikiProject Severe weather/Article alerts, why does is say that EdJohnston made that move request? That move request was made by me, not EdJohnston. Dustin talk 14:44, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Dunno - its an automatic program though so ive copied your post and reported it as a bug here

Thank you for the reply; I think that the software checks who made the edit that originally put it on the talk page in question rather than whoever actually made the request. I could be wrong, but it doesn't appear to be a major problem. Thank you again for the response. Dustin talk 20:23, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

El Reno Tornado Survey

Hey, sorry if it is against procedure or something in some way for me to post here to discuss on another page; I posted something at Talk:2013 El Reno tornado/Archive 1#Data Collecting Survey. Would anyone care to comment? I'm posting this here because less than 20 users are watching that page. Thank you for taking the time. Dustin talk 20:27, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Move 1991 Andover, Kansas tornado outbreak to April 26, 1991 tornado outbreak

I have requested that 1991 Andover, Kansas tornado outbreak be moved be moved to April 26, 1991 tornado outbreak. The discussion is here: Talk:1991 Andover, Kansas tornado outbreak#Requested move. Any contributions would be highly appreciated! Dustin (talk) 20:21, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Tornado outbreak article naming in conflict with WP:Copyedit

I recently moved the April 27–29, 2014 tornado outbreak article to the title April 2014 tornado outbreak, because a) a closing comma was missing per WP:Copyedit, b) I thought the title was over-precise, since – as far as I know – there were no other notable tornado outbreaks in April 2014. The article has since been moved back by Sharkguy05, with the following edit summary: "This isn't how we title tornado articles. In the spring, we usually see more than one significant outbreak per month. We stay specific by default because...", and then moved further, to its current name, April 27–30, 2014 tornado outbreak. I checked a couple of categories and list articles, and it does indeed seem that articles in many cases are named this way.

I obviously have no problem with consistent naming, although it, in some cases, leads to overprecise titles (if there is only one outbreak in a month), but I think there is a problem with the missing comma. Per WP:Copyedit, section "Common mistakes to fix", subsection "Punctuation", this date format requires a closing comma, except at the end of a sentence.

See for instance one of today's DYK entries:

• ... that the February 4, 2014, debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham on the viability of Young Earth creationism was watched by about 3 million people live on the Internet, according to one estimate?

I think there is a need to go through the naming of the tornado outbreak articles, and insert the required closing comma.

HandsomeFella (talk) 08:22, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I will not comment on the comma issue; I have already seen it discussed ad nauseam. On the topic of the specificity of dates, while the outbreak discussed was the only major outbreak in April 2014, it was not the only outbreak as the title April 2014 tornado outbreak would imply. I think it is an important distinction to help avoid confusion with some of the smaller events. TornadoLGS (talk) 15:58, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Hasn't there already been a long-lived debate over this? I don't think it is necessary for it to again occur. Dustin (talk) 18:28, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

If there has been such a debate, I'm surprised to see the articles at their current titles. I could only find one post about this in the archives, from an editor who added a post back in February 2010, which received no response whatsoever. Where has that discussion taken place?

HandsomeFella (talk) 04:16, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Here, here, here, and here. This got heated and then quickly got stale. I see no reason for another discussion about a dropped matter. Anyway, for the dates, we are trying to keep a consistency for events after the 2009-2011 range (unless the project specifically decides on something else for one page) and discussions like this are repetitive and disruptive. United States Man (talk) 04:51, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Allright, I didn't see those. The reason why these "repetitive and disruptive" discussions keep recurring could of course be that many editors think the current titling is in error. HandsomeFella (talk) 05:23, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump on you. I wasn't thinking that they were hard to find, because I knew myself where they were at. Maybe others will see this discussion in the future. United States Man (talk) 05:49, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

See #Naming conventions; it seems that another user has commented, but I have not read it yet. I will read that now. I typed this response about 30 minutes ago but am only now submitting it. Dustin (talk) 05:16, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Additional parameter for tornado infobox

See Template talk:Infobox tornado#Possible Estimated Winds Parameter to join in the discussion I have brought up. Dustin (talk) 00:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)