Talk:Cyclone Nilofar

Merge?

Although the storm was strong, it didn't affect land, and the season wasn't particularly crazy. It could handle a three paragraph section, which is what this article would be if formatted properly. Anyone opposed to a merger? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Scratch that, I redid the article. It was notable in its threat, its strength, and the rapid weakening, so I think the article is justified now. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

i'm puzzled by the statement that it was the 3d strongest cyclone "at that time". is that supposed to read "up to that time"? or "for that year", maybe?

if it was only the 3rd strongest of THAT VERY MOMENT, what were the 2 stronger/simultaneous ones?! 66.30.47.138 (talk) 07:24, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Cyclone Nilofar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Saskoiler (talk · contribs) 20:47, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

It's my pleasure to take on a GA review of this article. I will assess one criterion at a time, capturing the assessment in the table which follows. After the table, I'll list items which I believe need attention, if any. -- Saskoiler (talk) 20:47, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	The prose in this article is written to a very high standard. Bravo. Although a technical topic, it is easily understand by a novice such as myself. I have a few minor suggestions. See below: "Prose" (Update: All issues have been addressed.)
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead - The lead paragraph does a good job of aggregating the key facts to draw the reader in. The vocabulary here is precise, but not overflowing with technical jargon. That's very good. I have a suggestion for reorganizing it slightly. See below: "Lead" (Update: The lead reads well now.) Layout - The article is carefully organized, making good use of infobox, appropriate sections, and navigation boxes. I have a couple of questions. See below: "Layout" (Update: All issues have been addressed.) Words to watch - No problems found. Fiction - n/a List incorporation - n/a
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	There is a "References" section containing 37 citations, all of which are neatly formatted.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	Reliable sources have been chosen: meteorological agencies; mainstream media reports; etc.
	2c. it contains no original research.	I checked every source that I was able to get to (most of 37 listed), and for the most part, the article claims are verified by source documents. I have a couple of questions. See below: "Verifiability" (Update: my questions/suggestions have all been satisfactorily addressed.)
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.	There is no evidence of copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	The main aspects of this topic (meteorological history, preparations, impact) are addressed in reasonable detail.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	The article is focussed on its topic. There are no off-topic diversions.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	The article is presented using neutral language. There is no evidence of editorial bias.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	The article's content is stable, and there is no evidence of edit warring. Indeed, the only recent edits of any kind were made by the nominator leading to this GA review.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	There are two images in this article. Both are in the public domain. All good.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Both images are highly relevant to the topic. Captions are suitable. I have a couple questions. See below: "Images"
	7. Overall assessment.	Overall, this is a fine article and a good example of a comprehensive short article. It is well-researched with a multitude of good sources enriching it with vibrant details. It is clear and educational. Below, a number of items have been identified to further improve this article and meet the GA criteria. I'm going to put this hold on review to give the nominator (or someone else) time to address them. Update: All review comments have been diligently addressed (or explained). In my opinion, the GA criteria have been met, and I am passing this review.

Items to Address

The following is a list of items which need attention. Please respond to each to let me know when it is resolved, or enter an explanation to justify why it should not be changed.

Images

• I have three comments that probably fall outside of the GA criteria, but wanted to pass them along anyway:
  • The "Summary" section for the infobox image mentions "Very Severe Cylonic Storm Nilofar", but the article states "Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nilofar". I believe the article is right, but the image text probably warrants an update to avoid confusion.

• Yes, the category "Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm" was added in 2015, so at the time, it was known as a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm. When the IMD added the categorization, we went back to change all of the older articles to reflect their new status, as that is how the designation will appear in the IMD's archives. I'll add a note when I first use it that ECSC was added, and that the article reflects the changes. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• • The "Summary" section for the "track" image also mentions "Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Nilofar". Further, this text links to "2014_North_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_season#Very_Severe_Cyclonic_Storm_Nilofar". That anchor text doesn't exist, so the link is broken. In any case, I would expect the link to come straight back to the Cylone Nilofar article directly.

• I fixed the link in the track file. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• • The "track" image and its description is wonderful. To make it even better, I'd like to see some marker/label indication of the start and end location/timestamp. Maybe it is obvious to experts in this area that these tracks always travel south-to-north (or whatever), but as a novice I don't know this. I assume you aren't the image creator, but since you are so active in this area, I thought you might know the best place to pass the suggestion along.

• I'll ping Cyclonebiskit (talk · contribs) and @Titoxd:, who might have ideas on whether this can be automated for future track images. We do get this problem a lot, and there are some tracks where it is genuinely ambiguous which way the storm went. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• It is not impossible, but it's not something I can work on in the near future. Titoxd^(?!?) 19:32, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Verifiability

• The article states: "At 09:00 UTC on October 28, the IMD upgraded Nilofar further to an extremely severe cyclonic storm.[2]" — I can't find anything in this source which supports this. I found the report for 0900 on 28/10/2014 (on page 90), and it says VSCS. Indeed, many references in this source PDF state Nilofar was a "Very Severe Cyclonic Storm". The phrase "Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm" doesn't appear in the document, including the table on page (x). Is it that the 90kt winds justify the ESCS classification independent of that source PDF? If that's the case, would language such as this be more accurate: "At 09:00 UTC on October 28, the IMD reported 90kt winds,[2] which translates to an extremely severe cyclonic storm." (Note placement of reference)

• ECSC was added retroactively. I added the ref to show how strong ECSC's were, but if you need more proof it is now officially known as an ESCS, I can provide that. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• The changes you made here are sufficient. No further proof required. Saskoiler (talk) 04:36, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

• Although I think this is outside the scope of a GA review, I would strongly recommend including page numbers in the citations into lengthy PDFs. It should not be necessary to scan so many pages to find where specific, factual claims are supported. The second referenced document is over 110 pages long and is referenced 14 different times on many different pages.

• All of the information is within a few pages, so I added the page range. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• The article states: "with about 5,000 fishermen advised to return to port.[26]". The source says "Fishermen out at sea in the area have been asked to return to the coast ... Roughly around 5,000 fishing boats are at sea" — Recommend rephrasing this to say 5000 boats, not 5000 fishermen.

• Done, good catch. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Reference #35 ("Abdullah Shah Ghazi will save us from Cyclone Nilofar: Durrani") contains rather interesting anecdotes, but does not seem to support the claims in that sentence. Should it be removed?

• Yea, I didn't see anything else worth adding there. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Lead

• The lead paragraph has all the right facts in it, but it feels bulky to me. It seems to be combining two groups of facts: (1) Name and statistics (records, deaths) and (2) timeline and meteorological summary. Would it make sense to divide it along those lines into two paragraphs, something like the following?

• That works great, thanks! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nilofar was, at the time, the third-strongest cyclone in the Arabian Sea, with peak maximum sustained winds estimated between 205 km/h (125 mph) and 215 km/h (130 mph). The India Meteorological Department (IMD) named it Nilofar; the name refers to the water lily, and was suggested by Pakistan.^[1] The western fringes of the storm caused flash flooding in northeastern Oman, killing four people.

Nilofar originated from a low pressure area between India and the Arabian Peninsula. It developed into a depression on October 25 and moved generally northward through an area of favorable conditions. The system intensified into a cyclonic storm on October 26. Quickly organizing due to the conditions, Nilofar developed a well-defined eye and structure, attaining its peak intensity on October 28. At the time, Nilofar was expected to make landfall in western India, prompting evacuations and preparations. However, high wind shear caused the storm to rapidly weaken, and Nilofar weakened into a remnant low pressure area on October 31 off the Indian state of Gujarat.

Layout

• "Aftermath"?
  • I was spot-checking a number of other Cyclone articles, and many of them (a majority in my admittedly small sample) had an "Aftermath" section. (It isn't 100% clear to me what the precise distinction is between "Impact" and "Aftermath" in these articles, but I assume a blurry dividing line related to longer-term effects.) The current "Preparations and impact" section seems to blend preparations, impact, and aftermath. Several items seem to "fit" into Aftermath: four deaths; mango prices; shifting air patterns; power outages(?) . Do you think a separate "Aftermath" section is warranted here? If not, is it sensible to rename the section to "Preparations, impact, and aftermath"?

• Mostly, aftermath is the long-term effects. Something that happens a day or two afterward is still generally impact, as it refers to the impacts directly caused by the storms. As it stands, only the higher prices could arguably be considered aftermath, and even then, it's due to the direct losses. Generally, aftermath refers to persistent homelessness, government response to the storms, major moving of people due to a storm, whatnot. Most storms don't have an aftermath section unless they were severely damaging. Nilofar threatened to be that bad, but in the end its effects were minimal. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• See also
  • I think it would be helpful if the "See also" links were annotated with the reason for their presence here. Since Nilofar claims to be the third-strongest (at the time), I think the rankings or max speeds of these others should probably be listed for context. Otherwise, I'm left wondering "What's so special about these three?" (I know the answer after clicking on all three... but at first I wondered if these were simply three other storms in 2014, or maybe three storms with similar trajectories, or...?)

• I removed Phet, which only had a semi-similar track. The other two were similarly strong. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Alternately, these three could be rolled into a tabular list along with Nilofar to show their names, dates, and relative strengths? - I see that's already done in List of the most intense tropical cyclones, even though Phet is not listed there because it missed the 950 hPa threshold.

• Navigation box "Tropical cyclones of the 2014..."
  • It would really help if the intensity labels ("D", "CS", "ESCS") had pop-up "legend" text describing them. I'm sure they are obvious to people who are knowledgeable in this field, but to a novice (like me), they are cryptic. I understand that would require updating a template somewhere, but it shouldn't be too hard. (It won't impact the pass/fail of this GA review, but it should be done sometime...)

• I'll ping so other people know about this. Jason Rees (talk · contribs), any thoughts? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Prose

• Lead (Please look at these after you've decided whether you like the lead restructuring suggestion above.)
  • I believe the lead should state the year (2014) in the prose somewhere, preferably in the first sentence.

• Added, good call. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: ...the name refers to the water lily..." — Is there a source for this? Or is this taken as common knowledge? Maybe we have to figure out a way to link to Niloufar if that is the link?

• Ack, I assumed it was sourced by the link right next to when it said "water lily". Pardon my laziness in checking the one source in the lead (everything else in the article I wrote and verified). I fixed the source. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "suggested by Pakistan." — (1) This links to the country. Should we not link to Pakistan Meteorological Department? (2) Since we give the full "India Meteorological Department" earlier in the sentence, does it make sense to write out the full name of the Pakistani department?

• The IMD is the official agency responsible for the warnings. The naming is much less important, more of a curiosity for readers wondering what "Nilofar" is. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Okay, I accept that as a reason not to write out the full name of the "Pakistan Meteorological Department". However, I think my suggestion to change the destination of the link from Pakistan (the country) to Pakistan Meteorological Department (the agency) must have been unclear. I've changed the wikilink to link to the latter. Hope that's alright. Saskoiler (talk) 04:36, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "Quickly organizing due to the conditions..." — This seems awkward, but I suspect this use of the word "organizing" may be part of storm lingo since it is used again in later sections. Yes? It seems like it should say "Quickly forming...", but I understand this may not be the way storms are described.

• "Organizing" is a term referring to the improving structure of a storm. "Forming" has a different meaning, referring to when a storm first develops. So it might be a bit jargon-y, but most people who read the article anyway are likely to be hurricane readers, as it is. I know that's not an ideal answer for a GA review, as every article should be legible to every reader. Further, I think the context makes it clear enough for the readers. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "... caused the storm to rapidly weaken, and Nilofar weakened into..." — Slightly redundant use of "weaken" here. Can it be reworded, perhaps to: "... caused Nilofar to rapidly weaken into..."

• Changed to "degraded". ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Meteorological history
  • Re: "the American-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)" — Shouldn't this be just "American Joint Typhoon Warning Center"? Or just remove the word American-based entirely? Or "Hawaii-based"?

• Well, the "India Meteorological Department" is very obvious where it's from. If it was from UK, I would say "British-based XXX". It's to emphasize that the agency doesn't handle storms on an official capacity, that they're just doing it to help the American military, but they're also very good at their jobs, so we include their analyses in our articles. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "...to the equivalence of a minimal hurricane..." — Should that be "equivalent" instead?

• Yep! Oops. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "1 minute" and "3 minute" — The infobar has "1-minute" and "3-minute". I expect one or the other should be changed for consistency.

• Changed, easy enough. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "...third-strongest storm on record in the Arabian Sea." — Is it worth mentioning and wikilinking Gonu, Phet, and Chapala in this sentence (or a following one) instead of listing them in "See also"?

• Ehh, I didn't want to include too much here. And there is always a chance the storm could be knocked further down the list with each passing year and storm. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• • Re: "...degenerated into a remnant low off coast of the..." — Is a word missing there? Or is "remnant low" correct? I'm far from an expert, but I was expecting something like "remnant low pressure area".

• Correct, "remnant low" is a meteorological term, related to the term "low", which is a noun referring to any circulation that has the lowest pressure at the center. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Saskoiler (talk) 20:47, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the review. I'm sorry I've been a bit busy IRL, but I should be able to get this by Sunday. Is that OK? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:44, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

That's fine. I am travelling on business as of Saturday. I will try to pop in if time permits, but I may be away for a week or so. Saskoiler (talk) 03:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Few replies so far. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Finally done! Sorry again I took so long. Very crazy week in real life, dealing with two musicals, three schools, lessons at four different locations, and finding time to eat and socialize. Hope you don't mind. Now I'm back to play for another musical. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

It was no trouble at all, particularly since I was out-of-town. Thank you for your patience in explaining all of the storm terminology to me, and for all of your contributions to this very good article. Saskoiler (talk) 04:36, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

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