Storm Boy

Welcome!

Welcome to the Tropical Cyclone Wikiproject! I see you have made a few edits to some southern hemisphere seasons, and am glad you have an interest in tropical cyclones. The southern hemisphere is currently one of the least-cared about section in the tropical cyclone sector, and any help you can give is great, whether it is adding storm info or a simple spelling error fix. Keep up the good work, and happy editing! Hurricanehink 02:58, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome, mate - hope my edits are making sense out there. Storm Boy 17:00, 17 May 2006 (EST, Brisbane, Australia)

Article formatting

Dear Tropical cyclone editor,

As a member of the Tropical Cyclone Wikiproject, you are receiving this message to describe how you can better tropical cyclone articles. There are hundreds of tropical cyclone articles, though many of them are poorly organized and lacking in information. Using the existing featured articles as a guide line, here is the basic format for the ideal tropical cyclone article.

1. Infobox- Whenever possible, the infobox should have a picture for the tropical cyclone. The picture can be any uploaded picture about the storm, though ideally it should be a satellite shot of the system. If that is not available, damage pictures, either during the storm or after the storm, are suitable. In the area that says Formed, indicate the date on which the storm first developed into a tropical depression. In the area that says Dissipated, indicate the date on which the storm lost its tropical characteristics. This includes when the storm became extratropical, or if it dissipated. If the storm dissipated and reformed, include the original start date and the final end date. Highest winds should be the local unit of measurement for speed (mph in non-metric countries, km/h in metric countries), with the other unit in parenthesis. The lowest pressure should be in mbars. Damages should, when available, be in the year of impact, then the present year. The unit of currency can be at your discretion, though typically it should be in USD. Fatalities indicate direct deaths first, then indirect deaths. Areas affected should only be major areas of impact. Specific islands or cities should only be mentioned if majority of the cyclone's effects occurred there.
2. Intro- The intro for every article should be, at a minimum, 2 paragraphs. For more impacting hurricanes, it should be 3. The first should describe the storm in general, including a link to the seasonal article, its number in the season, and other statistics. The second should include a brief storm history, while the third should be impact.
3. Storm history- The storm history should be a decent length, relatively proportional to the longevity of the storm. Generally speaking, the first paragraph should be the origins of the storm, leading to the system reaching tropical storm status. The second should be the storm reaching its peak. The third should be post-peak until landfall and dissipation. This section is very flexible, depending on meteorological conditions, but it should generally be around 3. Storm histories can be longer than three paragraphs, though they should be less than five. Anything more becomes excessive. Remember, all storm impacts, preparations, and records can go elsewhere. Additional pictures are useful here. If the picture in the infobox is of the storm at its peak, use a landfall picture in the storm history. If the picture in the infobox is of the storm at its landfall, use the peak. If the landfall is its peak, use a secondary peak, or even a random point in the storm's history.
4. Preparations- The preparations section can be any length, depending on the amount of preparations taken by people for the storm. Hurricane watches and warnings need to be mentioned here, as well as the number of people evacuated from the coast. Include numbers of shelters, and other info you can find on how people prepared for the storm.
5. Impact- For landfalling storms, the impact section should be the majority of the article. First, if the storm caused deaths in multiple areas, a death table would work well in the top level impact section. A paragraph of the general effects of the storm is also needed. After the intro paragraph, impact should be broken up by each major area. It depends on the information, but sections should be at least one paragraph, if not more. In the major impact areas, the first paragraph should be devoted to meteorological statistics, including rainfall totals, peak wind gusts on land, storm surge, wave heights, beach erosion, and tornadoes. The second should be actual damage. Possible additional paragraphs could be detailed information on crop damage or specifics. Death and damage tolls should be at the end. Pictures are needed, as well. Ideally, there would be at least one picture for each sub-section in the impact, though this sometimes can't happen. For storms that impact the United States or United States territories, this site can be used for rainfall data, including an image of rainfall totals.
6. Aftermath- The aftermath section should describe foreign aid, national aid, reconstruction, short-term and long-term environmental effects, and disease. Also, the storm's retirement information, whether it happened or not, should be mentioned here.
7. Records- This is optional, but can't hurt to be included.
8. Other- The ideal article should have inline sourcing, with the {{cite web}} formatting being preferable. Always double check your writing and make sure it makes sense.

Good luck with future writing, and if you have a question about the above, don't hesitate to ask.

Hurricanehink (talk) 20:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Tropical cyclones WikiProject Newsletter #1

Number 1, June 4, 2006

The Hurricane Herald

This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary of the activities of the WikiProject over the past month and upcoming events over the next month. In addition monthly tropical cyclone activity will be summarized.

You have received this as you are a member of the WikiProject, please add your username in the appropriate section on the mailing list. If you do not add your name to that list, the WikiProject will assume you do not wish to receive future versions of The Hurricane Herald. Sorry if the newsletter breaks your talk page formatting.

Storm of the month

Typhoon Chanchu near its peak intensity

Typhoon Chanchu was the first typhoon and first super typhoon of the 2006 Pacific typhoon season. Forming on May 9 over the open western Pacific Ocean, Chanchu moved over the Philippines on the 11th. There, it dropped heavy rainfall, causing mudslides, crop damage, and 41 deaths. It moved into the South China Sea, where it rapidly strengthened to a super typhoon on May 14, one of only two super typhoons recorded in the sea. It turned to the north, weakened, and struck the Fujian province of China as a minimal typhoon on the 17th. The typhoon flooded 192 houses, while heavy rainfall caused deadly mudslides. In China, Chanchu caused at least 25 deaths and $480 million in damage (2006 USD). Elsewhere on its path, strong waves from the typhoon sank eleven Vietnamese ships, killing at least 44 people. In Taiwan, heavy rainfall killed two people, while in Japan, severe waves killed one person and injured another.

Other tropical cyclone activity

• Tropical Storm Aletta existed in the eastern Pacific Ocean from May 25 to May 29, peaking as a 45 mph tropical storm.

New and improved articles

• New storm articles include: Typhoon Joan (1970), Hurricane Bonnie (1986), Tropical Storm Matthew (2004), Storm of October 1804, Typhoon Chanchu (2006) and Cyclone Olaf.

• New non-storm articles include: Tropical cyclone rainfall climatology, Dvorak technique and List of Bangladesh tropical cyclones.

• New Featured articles: 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, Hurricane Mitch, Hurricane Irene (2005) and Hurricane Claudette (2003)

• Articles which became A/GA class: Hurricane Katrina (A), Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans (A), Hurricane Felix (1995) (GA), Cyclone Percy (A), Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 (A), List of New Jersey hurricanes (A), Hurricane John (1994) (A), Tropical Storm Isabel (1985) (GA), Tropical Storm Odette (2003) (GA)

New articles and improvements wanted

• An article is requested on subtropical ridge
• The current collaboration of the fortnight is Hurricane Gilbert, please help improve this article.
• Improvements are requested to Indianola Hurricane of 1886, Hurricane Camille and Hurricane Andrew.
• The WikiProject is likely to submit Hurricane John (1994) and Hurricane Katrina to Featured Article Candidates in the near future, so please help improve them to featured standard.

Member of the month

This isn't the generic barnstar, we just don't have a WPTC star yet…

The May member of the month is TitoXD. The WikiProject awards this to him for his brilliant work in improving articles. TitoXD joined the WikiProject in October just after it had been founded. Since then he has contributed substantially to many articles, for example Hurricane Nora (1997), which is currently a Featured Article Candidate. He is also actively involved in the assessment of articles and so helps to improve many more articles.

Explanation of content

If you have a topic which is not directly related to any specific article but is relevant to the WikiProject bring it up on the Newsletters talk page, and it will probably be included in a future edition of The Hurricane Herald.

These two sections are decided by the community on the newsletter's talk page:

• Storm of the month: This is determined by a straw poll on the page. While all storms will be mentioned on the newsletter, the selected storm will be described in more detail.
• Member of the month: Nominations are made on the talk page, voting is by secret ballot; read the talk page for details. The winner receives the WikiProject's barnstar (when we make it).

Main Page content

• 2005 Atlantic hurricane season appeared on the Main Page as Today's Featured Article on June 1.
• Hurricane Floyd will appear on the Main Page as Today's Featured Article on June 17.
• Entries from Dvorak technique, Typhoon Joan (1970), Typhoon Chanchu (2006), and Storm of October 1804 appeared on the Main Page in the Did you know column during May.
• Entries from 5 other articles relating to tropical cyclones had appeared in the Did you know column earlier in 2006.

Storm article statistics

Grade	April	May	June
FA	7	7	10
A	4	5	7
GA	0	3	5
B	62	66	82
Start	154	177	168
Stub	13	12	10
Total	240	263	282
percentage ≥Less than B	69.6	71.6	63.1

The assessment scale

• The cyclone assessment scale is one of the bases of the new assessment scale for Version 1.0 of Wikipedia. It splits articles into several categories by quality, to identify which articles are "finished" and which ones still need to be improved.
• The assessment scale by itself counts of several grades:
  • FA: reserved for articles that have been identified as featured content only.
  • A: this grade is given to articles that are considered ready for Wikipedia:peer review. The way to get this grade assigned to an article is by asking other cyclone editors at the WikiProject's assessment page.
  • GA: reserved for articles that have passed a good article nomination.
  • B: these articles are "halfway there", and have most of the details of a complete article, yet it still has significant gaps in its coverage.
  • Start: articles that fall in this category have a decent amount of content, yet it is weak in many areas. Be bold and feel free to improve them!
  • Stub: these articles are mostly placeholders, and may in some cases be useless for the reader. It needs a lot of work to be brought to A-Class level.
• The way to use these assessments is by adding a parameter to the WikiProject template on the articles talk page ({{hurricane|class=B}} as an example). This feeds the article into a category which is read and parsed to create an assessment table, summary and log.

Tropical cyclones WikiProject Newsletter #2

The July issue of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones newsletter is now available. If you wish to receive the full newsletter or no longer be informed of the release of future editions, please add your username to the appropriate section on the mailing list.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)