The welcome may be belated, but the cookies are still warm!
Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Weatherman27. I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:
Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post.
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page, consult Wikipedia:Questions, or place {{help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there.
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from March 17 to April 30, 2020. This edition's editor and author is Hurricanehink.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
Map plotting the track and the intensity of the storm, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale
There is a proposal to redo the tropical cyclone maps. The new maps will be zoomable, include intermediate advisory points (the current map only lists six-hour positions), and information on intensity and date when you hover over the location. There is a discussion on how to implement different scales from around the world, which would replace the current model of using JTWC data, with coloring from the Saffir-Simpson scale.
An awards program for the project began last year. It involves 25 levels that may be gained by earning points for completing various actions such as getting good or featured articles. Additional awards will be added in the future.
WPTC 15th Anniversary push: some goals for the 15th year of WPTC include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
Project Goals & Progress
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for March
Cyclone Herold (not to be confused with April's storm of the month) was an intense tropical cyclone in the southwest Indian Ocean. It formed near northeastern Madagascar, where its flooding killed five people. Herold later passed between the islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues before becoming extratropical. Special thanks to Chicdat for helping write this newsletter's storm of the month!
Australia - the month began with Cyclone Ferdinand dissipating off northwest Australia. Several days later, a tropical low struck Western Australia, and Tropical Cyclone Gretel formed northeast of Queensland, later exiting into the South Pacific. There, the storm brushed New Caledonia with gusty winds and locally heavy rainfall. The month ended with another tropical low near Papua New Guinea.
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Storms around the world, by Jason Rees
Over the last few months, the project has started to dip its toe into several other types of articles away from the traditional season, storm and timeline articles. These articles include lists on what tropical cyclones existed in which year, tropical cyclone by intensity and tropical cyclones affecting a certain territory, island nation etc. The hope is that these articles will be developed over the next few months to the point, where they get used by the international community.
We have had some early success with this goal with information from Category 5 South Pacific severe tropical cyclones being used by a Facebook page after Cyclone Harold. However, we need help developing these articles since there are approximately 150 countries impacted by tropical cyclones and there are approximately 15 tropical cyclones off all intensities per basin per year. You can help by finding resources for us to use, going through IBTRACS and the various databases published by the warning centres or even helping to expand the various articles.
As a reader: I first became interested in hurricanes when the buzz on Hurricane Dorian making landfall in the Bahamas came out at the end of August 2019. I was interested to know more about Dorian, but not too much. I went onto the solution page: 2019 Atlantic hurricane season, one of the first pages I saw on Wikipedia (that's where I got my signature, 🐔ChicdatChickenDatabase, the Chicken links to 2019 AHS). As hurricane season continued, I "experienced" every single storm from Dorian to Sebastien. After hurricane season in the Atlantic ended, I turned my eyes to the Southern Hemisphere. By the beginning of 2020, I was even delving into FAs, GAs, and stubs. As an IP: By late January 2020, I began questioning sharing my knowledge with the rest of Wikipedia, and on February 3, me my IP made what I believe was my first Wikipedia edit as an IP. However, many users were following the "All IPs are vandals, so let's revert their edits!" rule (e.g. here). Any coincidence that just 5 hours later...? As Chicdat: Five hours after I was given a violation of the WP:IPs are humans too rule, I decided to create an account. I like chickens, and I had a database that I used for their egg production, which I call CHICDAT (Chicken Database), so I chose the username Chicdat. Not long after that, I made my first edit as Chicdat. On March 18, I created my first article, List of Alabama hurricanes. On February 24, I became an autoconfirmed user, and on March 19, I became extended confirmed. In late March, I created my first userspace draft, User:Chicdat/Cyclone Herold.
In other words, that is how I became a Wikipedia user! 🐔ChicdatChickenDatabase
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 996 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for April
Cyclone Harold was a Category 5 storm on both the Saffir-Simpson and the Australian scale. The storm formed near the Solomon Islands on April 1, where high waves drowned 27 people on the MV Taimareho ferry. Near peak intensity, Harold struck the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, causing widespread damage and disruptions amid the ongoing pandemic, as well as two deaths. Harold later passed south of the main island of Fiji, resulting in power outages and one fatality. The storm subsequently passed just south of Tonga, causing power outages and high tides. Special thanks to Hurricaneboy23, Jason Rees, and TheAustinMan for helping write 94% of this newsletter's storm of the month!
Eastern Pacific - Tropical Depression One-E formed on April 25 southwest of Mexico, becoming the earliest tropical cyclone in the basin (east of 140°W and north of the equator). The depression dissipated a day after formation.
South-west Indian - toward the beginning of April, Cyclone Irondro formed southwest of Diego Garcia and moved to the southeast, becoming an intense tropical cyclone before weakening and becoming extratropical near the boundary with the Australian basin. In the middle of the month, Tropical Storm Jeruto originated in the Australian basin and took a southwest trajectory over open waters, dissipating on April 16.
The Hurricane Herald: Special Hurricane Season/New SHEM Cyclone Year Edition!
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from May 1–July 1, 2020. This edition's editors and authors are Chicdat and Hurricanehink.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
WPTC 15th Anniversary push: some goals for the 15th year of WPTC (October 5, 2020!) include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
Project Goals & Progress
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
Hurricane Noah recently announced an initiative to get a featured topic for the year of 2018 with complete subtopics. The Eastern Pacific portion is very close to achieving a featured topic, and the Atlantic and North Indian Ocean are around a B-class average. The Western Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, and the global article for 2018 need your help! A lot of work is needed to get those three items up to par. For more information on which articles need specifically, please check out the project talk page. Getting a featured topic for an entire year would be an impressive feat for our project.
I want to invite you all to sing Auld Lang Syne with me and open up the egg nog with me as today July 1, 2020, marks the formal start of the 2020-21 tropical cyclone year, as well as the start of the season in the South-West Indian Ocean. As a result, it is a good chance to look back at the previous TC year and look forward to the season starting on November 1. As things stand, it appears that the status of the El Nino Southern Oscillation will either be La Nina or neutral conditions leaning towards La Nina. As a result, I would expect more activity to occur within the Coral Sea, near Queensland rather than out towards French Polynesia. On a social basis, the biggest question this year will be how will the island nations deal will Covid 19 and a major tropical cyclone - assuming it's still around in November. We got an early taster of how Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga will deal with it thanks Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold.
Atlantic - Tropical Storm Arthur started the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season early for the sixth year in a row. It affected North Carolina before turning extratropical on May 19. Tropical Storm Bertha formed, made landfall in South Carolina, and dissipated — all on May 27. Bertha killed one person and left US$200 million in damage.
Eastern Pacific - Tropical Storm Amanda struck Guatemala in late May. Its heavy rainfall killed 33 people and caused US$200 million in damage. Amanda later reformed in the Bay of Campeche as Cristobal.
Western Pacific - Typhoon Vongfong devastated the Phillipines and made the 2020 Pacific typhoon season have the sixth-latest start on record in the basin. The typhoon killed 5 people.
North Indian Ocean - In addition to Amphan, a depression formed and dissipated near the coast of Oman, producing heavy rainfall that killed three people.
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Featured Content
From May 1 to present, two featured articles were promoted:
When a new storm undergoes rapid intensification and makes landfall, the members of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones try hard to create an article for it. Suddenly, the storm goes back out to sea again and makes landfall somewhere different. In one 20-kilobyte edit, Hurricaneboy23, let's say, adds in more information about this landfall, but not before the storm undergoes a cyclonic loop and makes a third landfall. As the article gets huge and bloated, it's split.
The story above is fictional, but things like it happen often, like in Cyclone Amphan's revision history. For Wikipedia to have an accurate coverage of tropical cyclones, there need to be enough members to put the new information — boosted by reliable sources, of course — into the article. So, if you haven't already, go to WP:WPTC/MEMBER and add your name! 🐔ChicdatChickenDatabase
Burnout - an opinion piece by ♫ Hurricanehink (talk)
I've been editing Wikipedia for a while. I've retired a few times, thinking I would be done for good, but something kept drawing me back. It might be the thrill to be the first one to post an advisory, or if you found a damage total that wasn't in the article, or the thrill of publishing an article and making it the best source of information on a given storm. Those are all great reasons to edit and to continue editing. But while the text we write is just computer code, we all are humans, subjected to outside stresses and the dreaded real life (RL).
When you edit for too long, you might find that you can't finish that list of projects you wanted to work on. It is better to take a break from what you were working on, and try something different (maybe not even weather-related) so that editing becomes enjoyable again. There's no sense getting burned out and stressed. The work will eventually get done on Wikipedia. Some projects are in much worse shape, but improving slowly but surely. The WPTC has a leg up on other projects because we have such a passionate group of editors and writers. It's better for the long run to take a break, focus on RL, get some sun, have a laugh, and do whatever you can to stay sane these days.
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,002 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for June
Tropical Storm Cristobal formed on June 1 in the Bay of Campeche from the remnants of Amanda in the eastern Pacific. Cristobal looped over the Yucatán peninsula before progressing northward, striking Louisiana on June 7, marking the second-earliest landfall on record in the state. The system moved through the central United States, eventually becoming extratropical over Wisconsin. Cristobal killed four people and left US$343 million in damage.
Atlantic - in addition to Cristobal, Tropical Storm Dolly formed in late June off the east coast of the United States. Originating as a subtropical depression, Dolly transitioned into a tropical cyclone over the Gulf Stream, and became extratropical on June 24.
Eastern Pacific - there were two short-lived tropical cyclones in the basin in late June. Tropical Storm Boris formed on June 24 and was a minimal tropical storm, and Tropical Depression Four-E formed at the end of the month off of Baja California.
Western Pacific - one tropical storm - Nuri - formed in the South China Sea, and killed one person when it struck southern China.
North Indian Ocean - Cyclone Nisarga formed on June 1 off India's western coast. The storm intensified into a severe cyclonic storm before it made landfall south of Mumbai. The cyclone killed 6 people and caused US$665 million in damage.
Hey there Weatherman27! I can help you with your opinion piece. Here are some steps you can follow if you choose so:
First, if you don't know where to write your opinion piece, you can either write it in the Opinion Piece box, or in your sandbox (if it takes a long time to write). Next, think of something that you like about WPTC, or something that you don't like about WPTC. Or, you can write about your experience on Wikipedia, especially about your experience (not expertise) - the things that made you edit, the things that drove you to improve hurricane articles. You should probably jot your ideas down somewhere. Next, transform your ideas into a short opinion article - doesn't need to be fancy, like an essay - just a short lead paragraph, bullet points, and a short closing paragraph should do. Now...
@Destroyeraa: Thanks for giving me those helpful suggestions. I was wanting to write about the perspective of the WPTC from the viewpoint of a (relatively) new user such as myself, per reccomendation. Also, I made some edits to Hurricane Dolores if you want to check them out, and I plan on further editing on that page as no one else seems to have really noticed it unfourtunately. Also, one last thing, I might not respond for a few hours because I am going to be busy but I will when I can. Weatherman27 (talk) 02:38, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weatherman27, I'm glad you have an idea of what you're going to write about! Now think about your experience as a new user. Did you feel welcomed in WPTC? Did other users reach out to you. Be honest, no one is going to get upset if you write critically about the project, though don't mention any usernames in a negative sense. It's ok if your busy. Your piece doesn't have to be long like mine, just a paragraph and a few bullet points should do. ~Destroyeraa🌀16:27, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Destoyeraa Thanks for the helpful tips, I feel pretty welcomed and have enjoyed what has been done with this WP, so the piece should be pretty good, plus I have started a draft that I periodically am working on. :-) Weatherman27 (talk) 16:37, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I’m glad to hear that. Just make sure to finish the draft before September 1, since that’s that time this edition of the newsletter gets distributed. ~Destroyeraa🌀21:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As per Chicdat, I want to congratulate you on a splendid opinion piece. Great job, and I encourage you to keep writing for the HH. ~Destroyeraa🌀22:19, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
destroyeraa, I couldn't have made this piece without the help of you, and Chicdat, and HurricaneHink. Thank you guys for encouragement and the great tips. Weatherman27 (talk) 22:41, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from July 1–August 31, 2020. This edition's editors and authors are (alphabetically) Chicdat, Destroyeraa, Hurricanehink, Jason Rees, KN2731, Typhoon2013, & Weatherman27.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
As we rapidly approach the 15th anniversary of the project in October, it has been proposed that the Climate, Tropical cyclone, Severe Weather, and Non-tropical storms (defunct) wikiprojects get merged into a single project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather. This brand new project would remove the overlap that exists between the projects. It provide us with a better opportunity to develop articles such as List of named storms A, B, C etc; Tornadoes in Fiji/New Zealand/Hawaii/etc; Floods in 2018, 2019, 2020, etc; Floods in Bangladesh/United States/Egypt, etc; Weather of 1997, 1998, 2020, etc; Weather in Tokelau/South Africa/France, etc; Hurricanes in the United States, Hurricanes in Mexico, Typhoons in China, etc. The discussion continues on WP:Meteorology. Any feedback would be appreciated.
There are now more than 1,000 distinct good articles in the project, as of June, when Tropical Storm Sanba (2018) passed its GAR. That doesn't include the articles rated A-class that also passed GA status. There are now 1,299 good or featured articles, which 47.1% of all articles in the project. 80 net more good articles are needed for half of the project to be good or featured.
There are more than 500 articles in the Western Pacific, as of July, when Yellow Evan (talk·contribs) created Tropical Storm Ofelia (1993) and Tropical Storm Percy (1993). The WPAC is the second basin to reach that milestone, after the Atlantic, which crossed that threshold in 2008. In fact, the WPAC is growing at a rate of 33 articles per year (since 2017), while the Atlantic is only growing at a rate of 13.6 articles per year (also since 2017). At that rate, the WPAC would surpass the Atlantic in number of articles in 15 years, when both basins would have about 1,000 articles. The EPAC would only have about 450 articles by that point. At the current rate, the entire WPTC would have 4,632 articles. For reference, there are 2727 articles in the WPTC at the moment, 2,185 of which are a storm/season/timeline article.
There is a discussion to merge the nearly 600 disambiguation/set index article into naming lists by letter, such as List of named storms (I), instead of Tropical Storm Ingrid. This would make sure that the pages are centralized, which would make updating and navigation easier.
WPTC 15th Anniversary push: some goals for the 15th year of WPTC (October 5, 2020!) include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
2018 Featured Topic
Hurricane Noah recently announced an initiative to get a featured topic for the year of 2018 with complete subtopics. The Eastern Pacific portion is very close to achieving a featured topic, and the Atlantic and North Indian Ocean are around a B-class average. The Western Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, and the global article for 2018 need your help! A lot of work is needed to get those three items up to par. For more information on which articles need specifically, please check out the project talk page. Getting a featured topic for an entire year would be an impressive feat for our project.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for July
Hurricane Isaias caused widespread flooding and wind damage to the East Coast of the United States, spawning a destructive tornado outbreak and killing at least 18 people. Forming from a tropical wave near the Lesser Antilles on July 30, Isaias crossed Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and parts of the Bahamas, before making its final landfall in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. The storm proceeded up the East Coast, spawning 37 tornadoes and causing more than 3 million power outages, with more than half of them in New Jersey. Overall, Isaias caused a total of $4.2 billion in damage and 18 fatalities.
Atlantic - there were five named storms in the North Atlantic in July, tying the record set by 2005. In addition to Isaias, the first storm of the month was Tropical Storm Edouard, which formed near Bermuda and moved quickly across the north Atlantic. A few days later, Tropical Storm Fay became the first storm to hit New Jersey since 2011. Fay caused 6 fatalities and $400 million in damage. Short-lived Tropical Storm Gonzalo threatened the southern Lesser Antilles, but it dissipated while crossing into the Caribbean Sea. Hurricane Hanna formed in the Gulf of Mexico and rapidly intensified as it made landfall in Padre Island, Texas. The storm caused $500 million in damage and 5 fatalities. There was also a short-lived tropical depression near Cabo Verde.
Eastern Pacific - Tropical Storm Cristina nearly reached hurricane intensity as it moved to the southwest of Mexico, affecting Socorro Island. After two short-lived tropical depressions, Hurricane Douglas became the basin's first hurricane on July 23, which was the fourth-latest on record. Douglas would go on to strengthen into the season's first major hurricane, briefly attaining Category 4 status before weakening as it passed north of Hawaii. Damage in Hawaii was minor.
Western Pacific - For the first time on record, there were no tropical storms or typhoons during the month of July in the western Pacific. There were two nondeveloping tropical depressions during the month, as well as two tropical depressions in late July that would reach peak intensity in August. Tropical Storm Sinlaku formed on July 31 and made landfall in Vietnam, causing significant flooding and killing 6 people. Typhoon Hagupit formed east of the Philippines and later made landfall in Wenzhou, China, killing 12 and causing more than ¥2.858 billion (US$411 million) in damage.
ChessEric first joined Wikipedia in April of this year, and has quickly become a prolific weather editor. In addition to his work on tornado and severe weather articles, ChessEric helped write the bulk of the Hurricane Laura article (the storm of the month), in addition to making sure the article stayed free of vandalism, with 224 edits to the article as of this newsletter. ChessEric was one of 190 editors who worked on the Laura article. We thank ChessEric for his edits, and hope we can build on more collaborations in the future between the severe and the tropical cyclone Wikiprojects.
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
A few weeks ago, I created an article, Hurricane Isaias, as it threatened much of the East Coast. I've created several articles already, but Isaias is one that stood out to me. First of all, it affected me, my town and my state of New Jersey, along with millions of other people. Two months ago, I learned about Wikipedia's In The News section of the main page, which documents recent events that are in the news. I nominated Isaias' article on August 1 here, and the discussion was closed quickly after Isaias had weakened significantly after impacting the Bahamas. As Isaias made landfall in the Carolinas, spawned 36+ tornadoes and killed 18 people, I re-nominated Isaias [1], got rejected again, and I learned a few lessons that I want to share to other editors:
When posting
If you post something that isn't in the news or isn't notable at all, then it would be quickly closed without much discussion.
Don't feel upset when someone opposes your nomination. It is almost guaranteed that someone will oppose your nomination.
Keep improving the article. An article that is a stub won't likely be posted.
When posting about a person, make sure the article complies with BLP policies, and is adequately referenced and well-written.
I also learned a few lessons about which tropical cyclones to post. In July, someone nominated Hurricane Hanna (2020)here, and it was also rejected because it didn't meet the notability requirements. Also, keep in mind that damage estimates and death reports often come out several days after the storm, which makes passing the nomination for a storm like Isaias, a storm that caused $4.2 billion and 18 deaths, somewhat hard.
My opinions on when to nominate an article (this list mainly refers to tropical cyclone articles)
The storm should affect more than two countries. However, if the storm causes a lot of death and destruction in one country (such as Tropical Storm Imelda), see the requirements below
The storm should cause more than $1 billion in damage. However, if the storm causes less destruction and less death, see the requirements below
The storm should cause at least 10 or 20 deaths. Most ITN nominations about a disaster that have less than 10 deaths are usually rejected/closed.
The storm should break at least 1 notable record (such as the deadliest storm to hit a country in 20 years, or something like that).
There is currently a discussion on the WPTC project page about this topic.
Around six months ago, I joined Wikipedia after seeing many articles on tropical cyclones and their seasons. Being someone who has studied (and been through) multiple storms, I realized I could help make a difference, bring more attention to tropical cyclones and that Wikipedia was the perfect place to do that. Soon after, I came across the WikiProject Tropical cyclones page, and after seeing what they did, I decided to sign my name and join the project. I really enjoyed how they gave to-do lists of tropical cyclone pages that needed work among other things. One of the great things about this WikiProject is the warm welcome I received when I joined and I got to know some of the more veteran editors, and they really helped me get around on Wikipedia, such as helpful tips and great advice to make better edits. As I have become comfortable editing and helping other users, some things came to mind that I thought other new users should know when they join the WPTC:
If you are new and have questions, don't be afraid to ask someone. There are plenty of helpful editors who know what they are doing, and who would be happy to give some great tips to get you used to editing weather articles on Wikipedia.
Don't be afraid to start editing. You can edit tropical cyclone pages as much as you want, just make sure you use the proper sources and citations.
Be kind. It is simply the Golden Rule, if you use it, others will too.
If you see something wrong, do something! If you see vandalism or any strange edits, make sure you revert them.
Help improve. There are plenty of tropical cyclone articles that need improvement and we need all the help we can get.
If you have any ideas but you're not sure if they would be right for an article, you can discuss them with fellow users on a talk page.
I am sure I missed some tips, but these are important for getting started with WPTC. This WikiProject has some amazing people and articles and I am sure new users (and veteran users as well) enjoy this as much as I do and will continue to make great edits as well as informative articles.
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,002 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for August
Hurricane Laura tied the 1856 Last Island hurricane as the strongest hurricane ever recorded to make landfall in the U.S state of Louisiana, as measured by maximum sustained winds. It moved across the Lesser and Greater Antilles as a tropical storm, killing 35 people on the island of Hispaniola due to flooding and landslides. Laura rapidly intensified once it reached the Gulf of Mexico, becoming a powerful Category 4 hurricane on August 26 with peak winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) early the next day. On August 27, Laura made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana at peak intensity, producing wind gusts of 137 mph (220 km/h) in Lake Charles, and leaving at least $8 billion in damage. Overall, Laura killed more than 57 people, with more missing.
Atlantic - the basin continued its record pace of activity. In the middle of the month, Tropical Storm Josephine formed east of the Lesser Antilles and eventually dissipated north of the islands. Tropical Storm Kyle originated off the east coast of the United States and moved to the east-northeast. Hurricane Marco formed in the Caribbean and briefly strengthened into a minimal hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. For a few days, the NHC forecast back-to-back hurricane landfalls from Marco and Laura within two days of each other; however, Marco dissipated near the Louisiana coastline without causing significant damage. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Depression Fifteen formed off the southeastern United States.
Eastern Pacific - Hurricane Elida was the season's second hurricane, which brushed the Baja California Peninsula while moving northwestward. In the middle of the month, a series of storms formed, including a long-lived tropical depression, Tropical Storm Fausto, and Hurricane Genevieve, the last of which passed near the Baja California Peninsula. Genevieve killed two people, and its moisture spread into the southwestern United States. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Storm Hernan caused flooding and landslides in southwestern Mexico, and Iselle formed around the same time farther west over open water.
Western Pacific - after a quiet July, the basin became more active in August. Tropical Storm Jangmi brushed western Japan and South Korea with heavy rainfall. A short-lived tropical depression existed south of Japan. Severe Tropical Storm Mekkhala formed in the South China Sea and struck Guangdong, resulting in heavy rainfall and $154 million in damage. About a week later, Severe Tropical Storm Higos struck the same region, leaving eight deaths. Typhoon Bavi formed east of Taiwan and moved northward through the Yellow Sea, eventually striking North Korea, where it caused one fatality. Toward the end of the month, Typhoon Maysak formed east of Taiwan and followed a similar path to Bavi, becoming a powerful typhoon as it moved through the Ryukyu Islands. Another tropical depression formed between the Marianas Islands and Japan on August 31.
Project Goals & Progress
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from September 1–October 5, 2020, which is the 15th anniversary of the WPTC. This edition's editors and authors are ChessEric, Chicdat, Destroyeraa, Hurricanehink, and our member of the month, SMB99thx!
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
As we rapidly approach the 15th anniversary of the project in October, it has been proposed that the Climate, Tropical cyclone, Severe Weather, and Non-tropical storms (defunct) wikiprojects get merged into a single project: Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather. This brand new project would remove the overlap that exists between the projects. It provide us with a better opportunity to develop articles such as List of named storms A, B, C etc; Tornadoes in Fiji/New Zealand/Hawaii/etc; Floods in 2018, 2019, 2020, etc; Floods in Bangladesh/United States/Egypt, etc; Weather of 1997, 1998, 2020, etc; Weather in Tokelau/South Africa/France, etc; Hurricanes in the United States, Hurricanes in Mexico, Typhoons in China, etc. The discussion continues on WP:Meteorology. Any feedback would be appreciated.
A series of goals, proposed for the project, has been extended to January 2021 for Wikipedia's 20th anniversary. Goals include tropical cyclone effects for every location around the world, merging the hundreds of disambiguation articles into lists by letter, and featured topics for every list of retired names. Some of these goals might take another 20 years to complete, but some are doable with some sustained effort.
Hurricane Noah announced an initiative to get a featured topic for the year of 2018 with complete subtopics. The Eastern Pacific portion is very close to achieving a featured topic, and the Atlantic and North Indian Ocean are around a B-class average. The Western Pacific, Southern Hemisphere, and the global article for 2018 need your help! A lot of work is needed to get those three items up to par. For more information on which articles need specifically, please check out the project talk page. Getting a featured topic for an entire year would be an impressive feat for our project.
20th Anniversary push: some goals for the 20th year of Wikipedia (January 15, 2021!) include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for September (and the first 5 days of October)
Ianos, was a Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone, also known as a Medicane. The Mediterranean isn't officially a tropical cyclone basin, so there aren't any official intensity estimates for the storm. The system originated from a low pressure area north of Libya, and it developed organized convection while moving northeastward. On September 18, Ianos struck the Greek island of Cephalonia, and later moved across the Greek mainland. The World Meteorological Organization mentioned the medicane and its similarities to tropical cyclones. Although these medicanes are unofficial, Wikipedia covers them like other tropical cyclones, using the same reliable sources and news articles to document the event. As Ianos was created, not many users edited it, as coverage of tropical cyclones and storms outside of main development regions are, unfortunately, low. However, as Ianos was nominated and posted at ITN, a current news section on the main page, many users outside of the TC WikiProject began working on it, As these storms are becoming more common and better documented, these storms may be officially classified in the future.
Atlantic - September 2020 was the most active month on record in the Atlantic, with nine named storms forming, as well as Omar which formed on August 31 but was named a day later. Nana formed on September 1, rapidly intensifying into a minimal hurricane before making landfall in Belize. After a short lull in activity, Paulette and Rene both formed on the 7th, with the former intensifying into a strong Category 1 hurricane while making a rare landfall in Bermuda. The latter made landfall in the Cabo Verde Islands, causing minimal damage. Hurricane Sally had its origins over the Bahamas, and after stalling in the northern Gulf of Mexico it struck Alabama, dropping 36 in (910 mm) of rainfall on the Florida Panhandle; Sally left about $7 billion in damage and three deaths. On September 12, Hurricane Teddy formed, which grew into a powerful Category 4 hurricane, and later swept across Atlantic Canada. Near the Cape Verde Islands, Tropical Storm Vicky formed on September 14, and four days later, Wilfred formed in the same region. Tropical Storm Beta formed in the Gulf of Mexico on September 17 ahead of Wilfred and Alpha, and later brought heavy rainfall to Texas. A day later, Subtropical Storm Alpha formed near the coast of Portugal, marking only the second time that the Atlantic hurricane naming list was exhausted, thus requiring the usage of the Greek alphabet for names. Beta also formed, though before both Wilfred and Alpha. Beta would hit Texas and Louisiana with moderate flooding and kill one person.
Eastern Pacific - The month of September was not very active. Tropical Storm Julio formed from the mid-level circulation of Hurricane Nana in the Atlantic on September 4; however it stayed weak due to wind shear. In mid-September, tropical storms Karina and Lowell formed southwest of Mexico and were short-lived tropical storms. Toward the end of the month, Marie formed, becoming a hurricane on the last day of the month. Marie would later go on to be the current strongest storm of the EPAC season this year.
Western Pacific - The month of September was fairly active for the WPAC. Typhoon Maysak, which formed in late August, struck South Korea early in the month, followed days later by Typhoon Haishen, which became the season's first super typhoon. Haishen caused 4 fatalities and heavy damage in the Korean Peninsula. Later, Tropical Storm Noul formed on September 17, hitting Vietnam and causing 6 deaths and $30.4 million in damage. Later, Dolphin formed on the 19th, brushing Japan. Toward the end of the month, Tropical Storm Kujira formed northeast of the Marianas Islands.
SMB99thx first joined Wikipedia in 2013, but didn't officially join the WPTC until August 2020. Since then, they have been a prolific contributor, helping with less visible pages such as project talk pages, or splitting older season articles in the North Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. They are a such a tireless contributor and kind user, who appreciates others' contributions while being humble about their own. It was SMB99thx who gave barnstars along with kind and encouraging messages to countless other WPTC contributors and Wikipedians. SMB99thx also worked on several lists, including area affects lists, various drafts, and List of named storms (T). We'll take that T and say TY to SMB99thx for all of their contributions, and wish them luck at college.
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Featured Content
From September 1 to October 5, one featured article was promoted:
From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from September 1–October 5, 2020 in chronological order.
How WikiProject Tropical cyclones should move forward by SMB99thx
As we have seen in the month of August and September, there is a surge of new articles. Most of these new articles are season/decade articles and Pacific typhoon articles, and most of these articles are assessed by me as either Start-class or Stub-class. These articles I believe would have been rejected by WikiProject Tropical cyclones in the earlier years (especially 2008-2012) - and these reflected the changes in WikiProject Tropical cyclones after I joined in July 2020.
In order to counteract that surge of Start-class and Stub-class articles in recent months, I have been closely working on the Article requests page (used to be a primary contributor of the surge that happened in August and September), trying to make this recently-extended WikiProject 15th anniversary as some serious effort as well as revamping WikiProject To-Do (and completing some, but not all tasks) - and the results of my work on these three projects led into the explosive growth of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones draftspace (I tried to prevent this by publishing the half-finished drafts into mainspace (which is primarily composed of C-class with some speck of Start-class articles coming out of it, and these are the ones that aren't as obviously unfinished like Draft:Effects of Hurricane Dorian on the Mainland United States), and made several drafts on articles that are not considered notable like Draft:Hurricane Barbara (2019) into redirects or deleted, but there is less kinds of these drafts now) as well as discovery of several drafts that isn't done by this point or are not listed as part of WikiProject Tropical cyclones. These drafts are later linked to the Article requests page. I don't my work is done yet, and in order to consider that effectively done, I need to get these drafts done and submitted as C-class or higher.
However, there is a personal problem I had to face in order to getting this work done when I'm still new to WikiProject Tropical cyclones. Article creation from drafts are not my strength. I create articles mostly from splits, not from drafts. As such, I consider article creation from drafts to be personally tedious work. As our 15th anniversary gets near, it appears that things are changing. As the draft space exploded, it appears fellow WikiProject Tropical cyclones are helping me out in getting these drafts complete, especially Destroyeraa (helping me out in deciding which drafts can pass the cut), ChessEric (working on Draft:Tropical Storm Noul (2020)), Robloxsupersuperhappyface (for developing current events articles, alongside ChessEric), I like hurricanes (Tropical cyclone lists), Chicdat (for the work on Tropical cyclones in 2002 and will probably work on others), Janm 7 (for working on Tropical cyclones in 2011 and 2003), and Iseriously (for useful season summaries, and this isn't a WPTC member!). I also began to frequently give out barnstars to these hard-working people like Jason Rees and Hurricanehink.
These events led me to believe that, if this WikiProject has to move forward then in my opinion this WikiProject should:
Take things in Article requests, WikiProject To-Do, WikiProject Tropical cyclones draftspace and WPTC 15th anniversary push (now extended into January 15th, 2021) seriously. I have seen some serious neglect from this area of the WikiProject and i believe this really held back the growth of this WikiProject. In my opinion, this WikiProject could have been easily have 2500 articles, or even 3000 articles by now if that area of WikiProject had been taken seriously. Even possibly, this WikiProject could have a lot more quality articles than it is today!
Frequently collaborate with each other. Don't bite the newcomers, but help them! They will help you.
If someone wants to take a break, e.g. Yellow Evan, let them be. Don't hurt their feelings! (i.e. moving their userspace drafts into mainspace) If you are hurting their feelings, then this could discourage future collaborations that could advance this WikiProject.
Thanks for reading this opinion piece! And happy 15th anniversary, WikiProject Tropical cyclones!
OPINION PIECE - by ChessEric
Accuracy has always been one of my biggest sticking points when it comes to editing on Wikipedia. When I came here back in April, my first edit was a revert of misinformation on the 2020 Easter tornado outbreak article. Of course, I understand that as a relatively new user, I still have a lot to learn and I don't profess to know everything, even after I started several large projects that I will probably be working on for quite some time. My first tornado outbreak pages used only the Tornado History Projects which, while generally good for tornado tracks, provides no damage info and if weren't for editors like CapeVerdeWave and Halls4521, my "breakthrough" articles would be so incomplete. However, I've been able to research more and more and find ways to complete these articles and that has carried over into the tropical cyclone projects as well. My thing has always been is that If I can't find a source for it, then it's not true. I will continue to follow that motto and hope that others will do the same.
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 157 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,002 good articles. There are only 65 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 369 C-class articles, 736 start-class articles, and 151 stub-class articles, with 31 lists, and 8 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.
WikiProject Tropical cyclones was founded on October 5, 2005. By that time, Wikipedia had its small share of articles, including the four deadly hurricanes that hit the United States in 2004. The hyperactive 2005 Atlantic hurricane season featured a series of deadly and historic hurricanes, the first of which was Hurricane Dennis. This is how the article looked on 10/5/05. It might not look like much, considering how much larger storm articles tend to be today. However, Dennis quickly became a featured article by February 2006. Its quality showed a marked improvement from the 2004 hurricanes. For comparison, here is what Hurricane Charley looked like on 10/5/05, with barely any references, no preparations, no aftermath, and one sentence worth of impact for a location with $1 billion in damage.
The busy 2005 season featured Hurricane Katrina, and in the aftermath of the storm, dozens of articles related to the hurricane were created. Some still exist, such as Katrina refrigerator, Memorial Medical Center and Hurricane Katrina, and Effect of Hurricane Katrina on the Louisiana Superdome. I don't know if those hyper-specific articles would be created today, and many of these old articles are still of low quality. On the other hand, one of the most notable changes since 2005 is the improvement in articles throughout Wikipedia, both new and old. Every Atlantic season from 1945 to 2019 is a good article, and all but 31 seasons since 1851 are a good article. More impressive is how much other basins around the world have improved. As of June 2006 (the oldest date for our assessment tables), the EPAC only had articles back to 1970, WPAC with yearly articles back to 1945 (with a rump article for everything beforehand - there are now decade articles going back to 1850), and the NIO only had one yearly season article (with five-yearly articles going back to 1980, and one rump article for everything beforehand), with only six storm articles. There are now yearly NIO articles going back to 1960. Also as of June 2006, all SHEM storms were put into yearly articles going back to 1995, with three five-yearly articles going back to 1980, and then one article for everything beforehand. The SHEM is now split into its three sub-basins (plus a distinct article for SATL storms), with yearly articles back to 1970. There are also now yearly articles for tropical cyclones back to 2009.
15 years might not feel like much, or for some of you it's an entire lifetime. Users should be reminded of eventualism, in work will improve over time, especially with sustained editor attention. There are now over 2,000 articles in the project, versus less than 500 15 years ago, or 1000 10 years ago, or 1500 13 years ago. The project's growth hasn't always been even, but it has trended toward inclusion, with hundreds of articles that are the best resources available anywhere on a given storm/season/topic. As Mother Nature throws us hyperactive seasons, it will be difficult, but not impossible, to keep up with the annual cycle of tropical cyclone activity, so the world can remain informed of these swirling furies.
Project Goals & Progress
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
You know that user who was very rude and extremely disrespectful on the season talk page. Well, the words he/she said was a Personal attack. Users are allowed to remove personal attacks and replace it with (Redacted). I have given the user a strict warning and removed the personal attack. I hope this cheers you up. ~Destroyeraa🌀20:04, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay Thank you so much for doing that. I was mainly confused due to the fact that their first edit was an attack, but yeah this definitely cheers me up, thank you again. Is it possible that it is a sock-puppet? I only ask because of their rudeness, and the fact that they chose to attack me on their very first edit on the site. @Destroyeraa: 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (talk). 20:20, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Tropical Storm Blanca (2009), an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. HurricaneTracker495 (talk) 15:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Breathe (British band), you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Cassette. Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)
Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Chicdat has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving! 🐔ChicdatBawk to me!11:13, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{subst:Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
CodingCyclone has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving! 𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐𝙲𝚢𝚌𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎ᴛᴀʟᴋ19:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{subst:Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Destroyeraa has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving! ~Destroyeraa🌀03:07, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{subst:Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Moline1 has given you a Turkey! Turkeys promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a turkey, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy Thanksgiving! Moline1 (talk) 03:09, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Spread the goodness of turkey by adding {{subst:Thanksgiving Turkey}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Happy Thanksgiving! Looks like the 2020 Hurricane Season may be winding down unless I am missing some potential formations (Haven't watched Weather Channel in a few days, and they were watching a few systems with 20% or less chance of forming).
Hey there, is there a reason you rewrote the storm activity section in this edit? I had rewritten it earlier today to include all of the storms up to date, trying to keep it concise. Yours is a bit on the lengthy side - remember, the newsletter is about the project as a whole, not just the storms (which presumably the editors in the project are aware of the storms and seasons articles). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:43, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. My apologies @Hurricanehink:. I had not seen your edit for the summaries until afterward, and even then, I didn't see that you had done all of the systems already. That was my fault. Also, I thought that by the season summary I should do a full on summary of each basin's activity and make sure I talked about each storm. I didn't realize that I should have done a short summary as you did. so again my apologies. That was just some confusion on my part. Also, I reverted my edit and replaced yours. 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 20:04, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, no major worries. Just always be sure to check the current version of the article, and try keeping things as short as they need to be. Over the years, I've seen that a lot of writers like going on and on in their writing without saying much. If you can, write the fewest amount of words to get your point across. Cheers, and happy editing! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:18, 30 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, @Hurricanehink: I would have to say that I am mostly interested in tropical cyclone related articles. I am interested in the weather talk pages, and especially recently, I have been more active in terms of participation, when there is a discussion. I am still taking my first steps into the deep end though, and I plan to edit more articles besides just the Atlantic and E. Pacific articles. Besides weather, I have some interest in editing with regards to music and bands, though I only edit a few specific articles here and there. Other than that, I am gaining more interest in geology, specifically volcanoes, and to a lesser extent plant (primary species of trees). Although it has been a few months, I also am interested in American football, and I plan on editing some of the articles there. 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 00:20, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Right on dude. So I guess more specifically, are you inclined toward newer Atlantic and EPAC articles, or older? Records go back thousands of years (1330 BC was the oldest known Atlantic tropical cyclone). And there's lots of work needed to be done, both new and old. I'm curious if you ever saw the assessment table for every Atlantic tropical cyclone, color coded based on how good the article is (blue is featured, to red being a stub class). You might notice that most seasons since 1900 are a good article, and hopefully every season in the Atlantic database will be a good article. That is a feasible goal within the next year or so. Another project is getting all of the storms in 2018 around the world to a good article or better. There are also lots of lists (and topics), such as storms in a certain area, or of a certain type, or even by the letter of the alphabet. I just wanted to let you know about the different projects going on, before you get of TC's now that the season is over and move onto other (deadlier) climate/weather topics :P ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Hurricanehink: Well as of now I am leaning towards more of the newer articles. That is interesting, I will look into the articles about the older cyclones. I have seen it, though I haven't really taken the time to look into it. Thank you for telling me about those things though, i will definitely start to look into some of these TC article now that we're in the "offseason". :) 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 05:26, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Totally understood about leaning toward newer articles. Heck, this season has 20 articles! Two of them are good articles, so that leaves just 18 more to do. Are you interested in doing article writing and improving articles to a good article? Or are you more about the minor edits? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 14:09, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Nice, I gotcha, minor edits are a good way of figuring everything out. I'll happily answer any questions, big or small, if you need any assistance on writing articles, whether it's TCs, plants, volcanos, or football even! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there, I just wanted to check in, and see if you have any articles you might want to work on. There are tons of articles that are in various stages of completion. Do you need any suggestions, or are you happy just figuring out the project? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea with the timeline. Yea, the problem with having so many articles is that some of them get forgotten! Are you familiar with the formatting required for the timeline? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:18, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks.@Hurricanehink: Yeah, I would assume so. I am not too familiar with it, as I haven't really ever edited a timeline article, so i don't really know how to do the formatting, but judging from what I saw, it looked pretty simple. 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 21:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yea, the most complicated part is the referencing. Most people just use the tropical cyclone reports, which is why a lot of other timelines are already featured. Only Arthur and Bertha have their TCR's for the 2020 AHS, so you could do theirs first, making sure the formation dates are based on the dates in the TCR (which will be the official times listed in the best track). The important thing is to get every formation timing, when it became a tropical storm, when it became a hurricane, every category change, landfalls, and status transition (like from subtropical to tropical, or to extratropical). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Weatherman27, if you don't really feel like finding sources (even though I know your probably don't really care), there are plenty of list articles. For example, Hurricanes in the Bahama Archipelago. Some of the more recent articles, but some of they entries (ones that I put in before I was even a month old), aren't sourced. So, you can always look in their articles and put them in. Or Hurricanes in Hispaniola. I created it, but missed a lot of the storms (when I mean a lot, I literally forgot to add Hurricane Gordon (1994), which killed more than 1,100 peopl), so you might have to look for which storms impact Hispaniola. If not, on the Simple English Wikipedia, the articles there are of very little quality. If you want an idea, than you can look at the Hurricane Sally, or Delta article. Anyways, Cheers, CycloneToby02:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Hurricanehink:, Okay, that makes sense. When I have more time, I may start doing that. Thanks. @Cyclone Toby:. Oh okay, thank you for the suggestions as well. Finding and sourcing articles would be good practice for me, as I am still trying to get the hang of properly citing sources (instead of just referencing links). Also, I will check out the simple English Wikipedia as I never have done so before. Also, When I have some free time, along with adding to the AHS timeline, I might add to some list artices, as well as some of the tropical cyclone articles that Hurricanehink mentioned above. Thank you both. 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 05:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks dude. As for citing, do you need any explanation for any of the parameters? Most of it us pretty straightforward. <ref> is the start of every citation. {{cite web| is the standard template for most references. |author= is the actual name of the person who wrote it. And if you don't have that, you should put |publisher= The title, url, date, and accessdate should be pretty obvious too. As for the simple Wikipedia, if I may jump in, that's used for people who have a basic understanding of English. However, most people just use Google translate for the main English Wikipedia articles. So your call if you want to journey over there, but the English Wikipedia is still the primarily used one around the world. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Of course! One last thing that you might not know - several government and science sources uses Wikipedia, sometimes directly (like in the case of our track maps). One time, the NHC even lifted a paragraph out of one of our articles directly into a TCR. So we're not just writing for weather nerds. We're also being used by insurance companies, governments, scientists, and yes, weather nerds too :P ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to share! It's also why I'm trying to push as many editors as possible into becoming writers (rather than just editors who revert vandalism or talk on talk pages). We're a valued resource, and we should try and keep it that way! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from October 5–November 30, 2020. This edition's editors and authors are SMB99thx, Weatherman27, Chicdat, Hurricanehink, Cyclone Toby, Typhoon2013, and ChessEric.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
From the Main Page documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from October 5–November 30, 2020 in chronological order.
20th Anniversary push: some goals for the 20th year of Wikipedia (January 15, 2021!) include the creation or improvement of many other articles listed in the first section on the WPTC talk page.
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 164 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 133 A-class articles, and 1,010 good articles. There are only 71 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 415 C-class articles, 788 start-class articles, and 182 stub-class articles, with 23 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
Storms of the month and other tropical activity for October and November
SotM for October: Typhoon Goni / Rolly
Typhoon Goni formed from east of The Philippines towards the end of October, just as Typhoon Molave ravaged the country. Taking in the plentiful favorable conditions, Goni, known as Rolly in The Philippines, explosively intensified into a Category-5 equivalent hurricane just three days after it became a tropical depression. An eyewall replacement cycle managed to curb its intensification. Goni finished the cycle a few hours before it made landfall, and explosively intensified again into winds of 195 mph (JTWC) and a pressure of 884 mbar. This allowed it to tie with typhoons Haiyan and Meranti as the strongest typhoon by wind speed. Goni made landfall at peak intensity, killing 25 people and causing US$368 million in damage.
SotM for November: Hurricane Iota
Hurricane Iota developed in the central Caribbean Sea in mid-November. Like Goni, it explosively intensified, strengthening 120 mph in 48 hours, and deepening 81 mbar in the same amount of time. Iota explosively strengthened late on November 15 and early on November 16, becoming a Category 5 hurricane at 15:00 UTC on the 16th. By the time Iota had achieved C5 intensity, three people were already dead in Colombia due to landslides. As the storm made landfall, and subsequently weakened and dissipated, adding to the destruction from Hurricane Eta. Iota killed at least 61 people.
Atlantic - Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota.
The active Atlantic hurricane season continued. In early October, Tropical Storm Gamma dissipated over the northern Yucatan and was absorbed by powerful Hurricane Delta, which was the season's third major hurricane. Delta weakened before hitting Quintana Roo, but restrengthened in the Gulf of Mexico, later hitting Louisiana as a low-end Category 2 hurricane in nearly the same location as Hurricane Laura in August. Delta killed six people and left US$4 billion in damage. A few days later, Hurricane Epsilon developed southeast of Bermuda, becoming a major hurricane and brushing the island to the east. Hurricane Zeta followed a similar path as Delta, striking Quintana Roo and later striking southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane; it killed 8 people and left U$3 billion in damage. At the end of the month, Hurricane Eta developed, becoming a strong Category 4 hurricane before striking Nicaragua. After killing hundreds of people in Central America, Eta reformed in the northwestern Caribbean. It made another landfall in Cuba, moved over the Florida Keys, and briefly became a hurricane again in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, before weakening and striking Cedar Key, Florida as a tropical storm. In early November, Tropical Storm Theta developed from a non-tropical low and moved across the eastern Atlantic.
Eastern Pacific - Tropical Storm Norbert was the basin's only storm in October. It formed southwest of Mexico, though wind shear killed it off within a few days. Norbert then pulled a surprise on meteorologists: it regenerated into a tropical storm again on October 13, although it eventually dying again two days later. In early November, the season's next system, Tropical storm Odalys, formed, which remained weak off southwest Mexico. After an 11-day lull in activity, Tropical Storm Polo southwest of Mexico, which dissipated two days after its formation.
Western Pacific - In early October, Typhoon Chan-Hom passed south of Japan and turned to the southeast, dissipating after 12 days. A series of storms affected Vietnam, causing deadly floods that killed over 200 people. In short succession, tropical storms Linfa and Nangka struck the country. Typhoon Saudel moved across the Philippines and later struck Vietnam. Typhoon Molave crossed the central Philippines and later hit Vietnam, killing 71 people. After the powerful Typhoon Goni, Tropical Storm Atsani reached peak intensity southeast of Taiwan before dissipating. In early November, Tropical Storm Etau struck southeastern Vietnam, followed days later by Typhoon Vamco, which crossed the Philippines and hit central Vietnam.
2020 North Indian Ocean cyclone season - after a long hiatus, the season sprang to life with one deep depression and two tropical depressions in October. Deep Depression BOB 02 killed 98 people in Central India, and flooded the city of Hyderabad. The system redeveloped into a depression in the Arabian Sea. Later in the month, a depression struck West Bengal. In November, Cyclone Gati explosively intensified before hitting northeastern Somalia, becoming the strongest tropical cyclone on record there; Gati killed at least eight people after dropping more than a year's worth of rain. Later in the month, Cyclone Nivar struck southeastern India. As the month ended, another depression was developing east of Sri Lanka.
Robloxsupersuperhappyface joined Wikipedia in July of this year, and has become the most prolific tropical cyclone editor relating to current events, as well as playing an enormous role in creation of newly formed tropical cyclones that eventually became destructive in many regions they are affected in (Hurricane Sally to Gulf Coast of the United States, Typhoon Goni to the Philippines, and Hurricane Iota to Central America respectively - Also, both Goni and Iota are Storms of the Month!). Because of that reason, Robloxsupersuperhappyface's articles are the one of the most viewed tropical cyclone articles in this year - as well as helped us on inviting prospective tropical cyclone editors to this project as they edited Robloxsupersuperhappyface's articles, leading into why we have more than 100 members in this WikiProject leading to this issue. As the result of brilliant Robloxsupersuperhappyface's contributions, we want to give many, many thanks to Super for helping this WikiProject grow so much recently. Happy Thanksgiving!
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter - project membership is over 100 now!
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically in order of which they joined.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Let's talk about that - An opinion piece by Weatherman27
Before I start, I would like to link everyone to a new essay regarding Force Thirteen. Here it is: WP:F13. I recommend users (old and new) to read this to understand why we don't use Force Thirteen as a source, and why it isn't a reliable source. If you want to see what good reliable sources are, read this: WP:WPTC/AS Now, I will get to the main point of this opinion piece.
Recently, I have gotten more involved in talk pages, and sharing my ideas and/or my opinions on different issues or ideas that have come up, primarily on 2020 Atlantic hurricane season's talk page. As I have discussed these thoughts and ideas with other editors, I have noticed and experienced some things such as being personally attacked, which has led me to want to reiterated some key points here. Despite the fact that they are mentioned commonly at the top of talk pages, I want to bring these up as it is important to have a good base where people can properly chat and discuss topics in peace.
1. Treat others with respect This one can't be stressed enough. Especially on talk pages, it is a place where you and your peers communicate issues, opinions, or ideas to each-other. This means discussing topics in a kind and adult manner. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing in what somebody may say, but that does not mean that you have the right to put them down for not having similar views. It is simply the Golden Rule.
2. Assume Good faith Along with my first point, I feel this one needs to be brought up. People have different opinions, and that is all right, but just because you may not agree with it or what they say, does not mean that it was not out of good faith. They were most likely voicing what they think on the subject, and that is alright. This also goes for edits. Unless it is pretty obvious that a user as vandalized something, it is always good to assume good faith, as other people might not know the rules as well as a more experienced editor.
3. Avoid Personal attacks This is a very important subject that needs to be remembered not just on talk pages, but on all other parts of Wikipedia as well. On talk pages, discussions can get pretty tense and heated, and I admit that I have gotten into a few of these arguments as well. Despite this, it is never okay to attack someone. As a user who has gotten personally attacked before, I can definitely say that it does not feel good, and usually the person who made the attacked will get warned or blocked, so please be kind and accept what other people have to say, because you will get nowhere by being rude.
4. Come to a consensus (preferably a clear one) On talk pages, whenever there is a discussion regarding something important like the merging of an article, people need to decide what the outcome of something important on a talk page. For example, if there is say, a merge discussion for an article on a tropical cyclone, many people will give their input. Usually, different people will have different views on whether to merge or keep the article. Sometimes, the editor will close the discussion early, but this is usually for unrelated reasons, though it sometimes may be because the editor had a change of mind. Now, if there is support for say a merge of the article, then that will be the consensus and the discussion will be closed and the article merged. This can also happen on the opposite side, if an article is to be kept, the discussion will be closed and article kept. Simply put, it is important to discuss and come to a clear decision if there is a consensus involved, to avoid difficulty with the article or page in the future.
These are just a few examples of things that editors of the WPTC need to remember when using talk page discussions. There are plenty of other things not mentioned here that are just as important when it comes to using talk pages. I made this simply to help remind editors the key points when using the discussions, and I hope these were helpful to new users as well as veterans. We need to really get better at staying calm and keeping civil. I have noticed lots of hostility and arguing lately, as well as edit warring and disputes. We need to work this out. We are supposed to work together as WPTC editors, so please fix it. It is sad seeing so many editors getting reported or having to get blocked from this. Once again, keep discussions civil and have a good day. Signing off,
My experiences as a WikiProject Tropical cyclones member by SMB99thx
Hello again, people of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones! In here, I want to tell how my experiences with WikiProject Tropical Cyclones changed my views on WikiProjects, helped me out of trouble and to be able to regain the trust of many people in Wikipedia.
When I joined WikiProject Tropical cyclones, it was the second WikiProject I have ever joined. The first WikiProject I have ever joined is WikiProject COVID-19, and the reason why I joined that project is to gain trust of people when I contributed to COVID-19 articles and as well as my fight against an IP editor which turned out to be the LTA named Bedriczwaleta (and has been active much more longer than I thought, since February of last year (!!!!)). I have the same thought process (and combined with my plans of editing old season articles, which is not done yet) when I first joined this WikiProject, but joining the WikiProject Tropical cyclones turned out to be something different. It led me to know what are the purposes of WikiProjects are and in turn led me to join many other WikiProjects since.
As such, what made me change my views on WikiProjects during my time as a WikiProject Tropical Cyclones?
First of all, I have seen that WikiProject Tropical cyclones members always actively work together to advance project goals, actively participating in discussions and give much-needed advice on new WikiProject Tropical cyclones members (including me). Second, WPTC really cares about our articles (and the assessments) as part of their project goals. 2018 FT project and Meteorological history of Hurricane Dorian (Four Award!) is a prime example of this. Third, we are actively welcoming the new members of this WikiProject and giving these members opportunity to succeed with us by i.e. giving out WikiLove (barnstars). Fourth, we, like WP COVID-19, actively fight against vandals and other LTAs e.g. Sidow........., UnderArmorKid, and Iphonehurricane95.
These kinds of activity led me to change my belief on what WikiProjects truly are. You could see this kind of activity on other good WikiProjects like WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors, which I just joined recently on 26 October 2020 as of this newsletter and WikiProject Articles of Creation, which I have interest on joining but I might not be able to.
Now, why WikiProject Tropical cyclones brought me out of trouble (and Chicdat, for that matter)?
WikiProject Tropical cyclones is generally a content-creating WikiProject. We really care about improving tropical cyclone coverage on Wikipedia. Members of this WikiProject generally encouraged to communicate and discuss (in Wikipedia, in Discord, or in IRC channel), and this is what helped me and Chicdat out from trouble since our discussions from what I have seen is not always administrative.
Before I joined WikiProject Tropical cyclones (and when I was still new to WikiProject Tropical cyclones), I have been putting myself on trouble numerous times. I was an ANI regular, and as an ANI regular I detailed about my struggle to deal with the LTA Bedriczwaleta and I'm was also putting up IBAN proposals of User:Jadebenn and User:Moamem as well as User:U1Quattro and User:1292simon. While I have managed to get my proposal succeeded and finally got Bedriczwaleta back on track for a while (what I thought), in August 20 (as I was about to finalize my decision to enter my college I'm currently in right now) I got myself into serious trouble against IP range 185.66.252.0/23 (which is apparently good at programming - I'm not). I tried to get them blocked for PA (calling me a thief who has a black soul), but this is where when I realized that I had to attribute things I copied within Wikipedia and I had to apologize to the user. Since then, I did my best to attribute everything I had copied articles from (Example) and I also realized that ANI is not for me (as I do not want to get into troubles by just being there), which led me to quitting ANI until November of this year when I decided to involve myself on Miggy72 dispute (now banned for sockpuppetry - Miggy72 could have been invited to WPTC if he stopped on insisting to create non-notable topics).
After that incident with the IP range 185.66.252.0/23, I have stated that I do not want to get myself into trouble as a presence in ANI. As such, I decided to focus on what I want to do, which is to continue my project of splitting season articles of the yesteryear and began to increasingly involve myself within the project - to look for help and giving the best help that I can do for this WikiProject. The activity from that September led me to become Member of the Month in the previous edition of this newsletter. It was a comeback that I needed, and I want to thank WikiProject Tropical cyclones (especially Hurricanehink) for getting me on this situation. Without their help, I'm not sure if I could be here on this day.
Now, for the final question – why this WikiProject helped me (and Chicdat) regain trust of many people in Wikipedia?
As I stated before, this WikiProject encourages discussion within other members of this WikiProject, which in turn encourages close involvement in all sides of this WikiProject. Because of this, some people are actually helping us learning policies in Wikipedia as the time goes on, rather than falling in into blocks. As such, with time, I have seen that some admins are open for Chicdat to become a rollbacker, while I got hold on several automated gadgets that was more useful. It appears that these tools are the reason why these people are one of the more trusted people in Wikipedia, which in turn helped me a lot at gaining trust. Someday in the future, I'm looking to become an admin by myself. But that's for the another day. For now, what I'm currently doing now is to work at my craft to eventually prepare for the day when I will seek for adminship in the years ahead.
By the way, to me, both Binbin0111 and Miggy72 are young, but unfortunately they took on the wrong path (Binbin0111 was one of the earliest Force Thirteen insinuators - Binbin0111 is probably the impetus of Force Thirteen policy in this project (as it was made back in 2017), while Miggy72... we know what happened). I feel bad for them, especially Binbin0111. Had Binbin0111 is willing to learn and took steps forward to become productive young editor like Yellow Evan and two other resilient young editors I have mentioned did, Binbin0111 could have been one of the most valuable editors in this project, especially in matters related to Western Pacific basin, and in extension, Vietnam.
That's it. That's what I have to say. College is increasingly getting into my feelings right now, but I will do my best as I can coming into December. Sorry if I have a bad English. Thanks for reading this opinion piece!
For reaching 1,000 edits, and being one of the most kind users on the entire WPTC project. (Btw, I know I'm not suppose to get favorites wiki users, but you definitely way up there) CycloneToby02:13, 4 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Weatherman27, Destroyeraa has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Go on, smile! Cheers, and happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
I'm very sorry for your loss. Thank you for cleaning up my userpage.
~Destroyer🌀🌀22:45, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Destroyeraa: for the kind messages. It is just a sad case of a good friend getting into an accident, basically wrong place at the wrong time. I may or may not leave Wikipedia for a while, for now I am just editing to take my mind off of it. The only thing I ask is if you could make sure that other editors give me space for now, as I don't want to have my notifications flooded with messages. Thank you again for the support though, it means a lot. 🌀Weatherman27🏈 (Chat|Edits|sandbox) 22:54, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
On the top right notice of your talk page, you can see the red "Page notice" text. Click on that and you can create a page notice. If someone edits your talk page, they will see the notice. ~Destroyer🌀🌀23:19, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hey again. I wanted to throw out a list idea for you. Eventually there’ll be a need for tropical cyclone effects in every area. There aren’t many, but there have been a few remnants of storms that affected Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska. There might not be much of a need for Tropical cyclones in Alaska, but one for the entire region would be useful. Just throwing it out there. Take care dude ✌️ Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 18:54, 13 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks for showing me your support yesterday! Not only did you help resolve the conflict, but you also pretty much summed up everything I had to say. I'm truly grateful for that. :) CycloneYoristalk!22:08, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Hey there, CycloneFootball71. (nice name!) Currently I've been trying to dig up some articles to work on, and I was thinking of doing a small project to start. Specifically, I want to get Timeline of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season from B-class to GA. Could you please provide some pointers for me, as you are more experienced in the editing realm? Thanks, 𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐𝙲𝚢𝚌𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎ᴛᴀʟᴋ21:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, @CodingCyclone: when editing timeline articles, it is important that you are making sure the formation dates are based on the dates in the TCR (which will be the official times listed in the best track). The important thing is to get every formation timing, when it became a tropical storm, when it became a hurricane, every category change, landfalls, and status transition (like from subtropical to tropical, or to extratropical). For this, you'll have to look at advisories, forecast discussions, which you can find in the NHC archives. You will also need to list the coordinates of the storm, so like the position of the storm as of that advisory, basically the latitude and longitude. As always, you need to reference your sources, so in this case it is the NHC. Also, many editors just use the TCR as well, which would make it quicker to get the article to GA. 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox22:07, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Shift674 has given you a Mac n' Cheetos (🧀🐆)! Mac n' Cheetos promotes WikiLove (📖💞) and hopefully this one has made your day cheesier. It is dangerously cheesy! Mac n' Cheetos is the combination of both macaroni and cheese and the Frito-Lay snack Cheetos. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a Mac n' Cheetos, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.
Spread the goodness of Mac n' Cheetos by adding {{subst:Mac n' Cheetos}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message!
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from December 1, 2020–January 15, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are MarioJump83, Hurricanehink, Destroyeraa, Chicdat, Typhoon2013, CycloneFootball71, Hurricane Noah, LightandDark2000, Cyclone Toby (editor's pick for member of the month), Skarmory, Shift674, and HurricaneCovid. Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions can be viewed here.
Typhoon Ike was also promoted from GA to A-class article.
Member of the month (Editor's Pick) – Cyclone Toby
Cyclone Toby first joined Wikipedia in July 2020 as I like hurricanes. Since then, they have become one of the most active editors, taking the initiative of fulfilling article requests, as well as helping us work on finishing many drafts we have. These articles include Hurricanes in Hispaniola, Hurricanes in Nicaragua, and Hurricanes in Honduras, as well as helping out getting Effects of Hurricane Dorian in the Carolinas (a long-standing draft that took many efforts to get it published to mainspace) nominated for GA, as of this writing. There are more articles Cyclone Toby is currently working on other than the ones previously listed. Also, Cyclone Toby is one of the kinder members of WPTC, actively welcoming many new editors that edited articles under WikiProject Tropical cyclones banner, as well as inviting some of these editors to the project, in which their influence ended up bringing more editors to WPTC without any invitation. We thank Cyclone Toby for work they have done in the past year, which was a horrible year for many of us, but Toby is one of many bright spots that helped us get through that year. As we enter the new year, we encourage Cyclone Toby to keep up their work and eventually complete these drafts, which will ultimately lead to the clearing of the backlog of drafts within the project.
Featured Content
From December 1, 2020 to January 15, 2021, there were no articles promoted to Featured Article status. From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from December 1, 2020–January 15, 2021 in chronological order.
For the next steps of the 2018 Global FT project, we're likely to finish the 2018 Pacific hurricane season FT by the end of the year. Hurricane Bud (2018) is likely to become a Featured Article (FA) around the first anniversary of the 2018 Global FT task force, which will be in June 2021, while Hurricane Olivia (2018) is the most likely FAC next in line. Sooner or later (which might happen before Bud or Olivia is FA), Timeline of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season will be completed, and subsequently nominated for Good Article (GA) status. After that, 2018 Pacific hurricane season might be nominated for Featured Topic (FT) before the timeline or the article is nominated for FA, based on the likely order of completion provided by Hurricane Noah on December 22, 2020 with some changes due to priorities after that time.
In the Western Pacific, the creation of Effects of Typhoon Mangkhut in the Philippines is still being planned out, while Cimaron, Trami, Kong-rey, and Son-Tinh are in line to be nominated for GA later on - and Jebi may well become a FA by the next issue. In the North Indian Ocean, Cyclone Titli was recently created and likely to be expanded later on. In the Southern Hemisphere, Cyclone Owen is currently being worked on to become a GA someday, while Berguitta, Josie, Keni, and Liua are still under construction. For the Mediterranean, Cyclone Zorbas will be expanded upon and nominated for GA, some time after this issue.
We are recruiting
If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to Hurricane Noah or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 164 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 133 A-class articles, and 1,010 good articles. There are only 71 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 415 C-class articles, 788 start-class articles, and 182 stub-class articles, with 23 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1,000th GA in the project.
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for December through January 15, 2021
Storm of the month for December – Cyclone Yasa
Yasa was a powerful and destructive tropical cyclone that struck the island nation of Fiji in December 2020. The second tropical tropical disturbance, and the first and strongest severe tropical cyclone of the season, Yasa originated from a low pressure area on December 10, to the north of Port Vila, in Vanuatu. The storm became a tropical disturbance on the next day and was given the designation 02F by the Fiji Meteorological Service (FMS). The system gradually strengthened over the next couple of days while moving southeastward, reaching tropical storm-equivalent status (Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Australian scale) and receiving the name Yasa on December 13. For the next 3 days, Yasa made a slow clockwise loop, during which time it underwent rapid intensification from December 14 to 16, bombing out from tropical storm-equivalent status to a Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone on both the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS) and the Australian scale. On December 16, Yasa reached its peak intensity, with maximum 10-minute sustained winds of 250 km/h (155 mph), maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 mph), and a minimum central pressure of 899 millibars (26.5 inHg). This made Yasa the fourth-most intense tropical cyclone recorded in the South Pacific basin, as well as the second Category 5 severe tropical cyclone in 2020, after Cyclone Harold.
Afterward, Yasa underwent an eyewall replacement cycle as it neared Fiji, causing the storm to weaken. Early on December 17, Yasa made landfall on Bua Province on Vanua Levu, as a powerful Category 4-equivalent tropical cyclone on the SSHWS (Category 5 severe tropical cyclone on the Australian scale). Following landfall, Yasa quickly weakened, dropping back to tropical storm-equivalent status within two days. Afterward, Yasa moved in a southward direction while continuing its weakening trend, falling below tropical cyclone status on December 19, and dissipating on December 24. Yasa killed 4 people in Fiji and left another person missing. As of this writing, the damage estimates for Yasa are still being calculated, but Yasa had caused extensive damage on Vanua Levu, likely becoming the most destructive tropical cyclone to strike Fiji since Winston in 2016.
North Atlantic – This season, after being the most active on record for its basin, in terms of tropical cyclone formation, officially ended on November 30.
Eastern Pacific – This season, along with the Atlantic hurricane season, ended on November 30.
Western Pacific – Tropical Storm Krovanh (Vicky) developed over the Philippine Sea. The storm is the third tropical cyclone to receive the name Vicky in the year 2020. The storm made landfall on Palawan on December 19, and eventually moved into the South China Sea.
North Indian Ocean – Activity continued into December, with the strengthening of Cyclonic Storm Burevi in the Bay of Bengal. Burevi then made landfall in Sri Lanka a few days later.
South-West Indian Ocean – The third cyclone of the season, Tropical Storm Bongoyo, formed, gradually strengthening over open waters. Within a few weeks, the season began to ramp up, with the formation Tropical Storm Chalane, before it made landfall on Madagascar and in Mozambique. After a tropical depression left the basin, another system would form, becoming Tropical Storm Danilo. On January 14, another Zone of Disturbed Weather developed over the central south Indian Ocean, which became Tropical Depression 07 two days later.
Australian region – A tropical low formed, slowly developing, before gaining tropical-storm strength winds. Soon after, another tropical low formed, this making landfall along the Pilbara Coast of Australia with tropical storm-force winds. Within just a few days, yet another tropical low formed that made landfall along the Kimberly Coast. After a series of two more tropical lows, another system formed. This low would strengthen into Tropical Cyclone Imogen, before making landfall along the Queensland Coast. A seventh tropical low developed on January 5, before dissipating five days later. On January 13, an eighth tropical low, 07U, developed east-northeast of the Cocos Islands.
South Pacific – The first system of the season, 01F, formed on December 11. Within a few days, the season began to ramp up, with the development of Tropical cyclones Yasa and Zazu, with the former rapidly intensifying and becoming a powerful Category 5-equivalent cyclone. Yasa went on to make landfall on the island of Vanua Levu in Fiji on December 17, becoming the most powerful tropical cyclone to strike the island nation since Winston in 2016.
South Atlantic – On December 27, Subtropical Storm Oquira, the second storm of the season, formed in the South Atlantic, off the coast of Brazil. The system lasted for several days as a subtropical storm while moving away from Brazil, before transitioning into an extratropical low on December 31.
Eta was a powerful and long-lived hurricane that devastated Central America in November 2020. The twenty-ninth tropical depression, record-tying twenty-eighth named storm, twelfth hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the extremely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, Eta originated from a vigorous tropical wave in the eastern Caribbean Sea on October 28. On October 30, the system organized into Tropical Depression Twenty-Nine, before becoming a tropical storm on the next day, at which time it was given the name Eta by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). On November 2, Eta became undergoing rapid intensification over the western Caribbean, as it progressed westward, with the cyclone ultimately becoming a Category 4 hurricane on November 3. Later that day, Eta reached its peak intensity, with 1-minute sustained winds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and a minimum central pressure of 922 mbar (hPa; 27.23 inHg), it was the third-most intense November Atlantic hurricane on record, behind the 1932 Cuba hurricane, and Hurricane Iota, which struck the same region just two weeks later. However, satellite data suggests that Eta may have reached Category 5 intensity at the time of its peak intensity, since reconnaissance aircraft failed to sample the hurricane's strongest winds at the time of its peak intensity. Despite this, in their post-storm report, the NHC maintained Eta as a powerful Category 4 hurricane. Six hours after reaching its peak, Eta underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, causing the storm to weaken somewhat. At 21:00 UTC on November 2, Eta made landfall south of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 km/h) and a central pressure of 940 mbar (hPa; 27.76 inHg). Following landfall, Eta rapidly weakened to a tropical depression by 00:00 UTC on November 5.
Despite the mountainous terrain, Eta's low-level circulation survived, and Eta retained tropical depression status for another day, during its two-day trek across Central America, before degenerating into a remnant low overland later on November 5. On November 6, Eta's remnant low moved north over water and regenerated into a tropical depression, before turning towards the northeast. Afterward, Eta reorganized into a tropical storm over the Caribbean on November 7, as it accelerated toward Cuba. On the next day, Eta made landfall on Cuba's Sancti Spíritus Province as a tropical storm, before quickly emerging into the Atlantic and turning westward. Over the next five days, the system moved erratically, making a third landfall on Lower Matecumbe Key in the Florida Keys, on November 9, before slowing down and making a counterclockwise loop in the southern Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Cuba, with the storm's intensity fluctuating along the way. Afterward, Eta turned north-northeastward and briefly regained Category 1 hurricane strength on November 11, before weakening back into a tropical storm several hours later. On November 12, Eta made a fourth landfall over Cedar Key, Florida. Eta weakened after making landfall, before eventually re-emerging into the Atlantic later that day. Afterward, Eta became extratropical on November 13, before being absorbed into another frontal system off the coast of the Eastern United States on the next day. In all, Hurricane Eta killed at least 211 people, left 120 people missing, and caused at least $7.9 billion (2020 USD) in damages, with the vast majority of the deaths and damages occurring in Central America. Just two weeks later, Central America was struck by Hurricane Iota as a high-end Category 4 hurricane, making landfall near the same location as Eta, which further exacerbated the disaster in the region.
Jason first created an account on Wikipedia in August 2006, after tracking Hurricane Katrina and countless other storms in 2005. Since then, he has written four featured articles and 21 good articles. Recently, Jason has done great work expanding and cleaning up Cyclone Yasa, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the South Pacific basin. He is also an active content creator, currently writing Cyclone Meena. Overall, Jason has done an outstanding job expanding the scope of tropical cyclone articles in the Southern Hemisphere basins, such as the South Pacific, where there is, sadly, a shortage of active users. We want to thank him for his wonderful work, and thus award him the Member of the Month award for this edition.
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
A year in review: WPTC's accomplishments in 2020
2020 has been a hard year for many of us. Depending on where you live, the COVID-19 pandemic began as early as January. In most of the world, the pandemic ramped up in February and March, reaching its first peak in April–May. A second wave struck in June–August, which saw cases dramatically increase across the globe, while the third and largest wave began around October. However, during this pandemic, through lock-downs and online learning, as well as the the insanely active 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, our WikiProject saw a huge influx of new editors showing interest in editing tropical cyclone articles. Here, we will take a look at the stats:
Due to recent incidents involving sockpuppetry within WPTC, I invited some editors to address the problem of socking inside the project. MarioJump83!
Sockpuppetry is a serious offense committed by various users on Wikipedia. Our own WPTC is not immune to this travesty. WPTC has seen its fair share of abuse from serial vandals and LTAs throughout the years. From 2013 through 2018, IPhonehurricane95 vandalized dozens of tropical cyclone articles and created more than 200 sock accounts. For several years, mostly spanning a two-year period from 2013 to 2014, IPhonehurricane95 defaced numerous tropical cyclone articles, mostly ones that he had once contributed to, were major storms, or were storms in an active tropical cyclone season. He also attacked essentially every single active editor on WPTC at the time, and he went on to attack every single Admin and CheckUser who had ever blocked him, in addition to making making racist remarks and threats of harassment. He eventually went cross-wiki, forcing the intervention of Stewards. In July 2014, he began including graphic 9/11 images in his vandalism, which further damaged the image of the project. IPhonehurricane95's vandalism inspired several copy-cat vandals, including one who has continued to plague the project to this day. This is a problem with LTAs and serial vandals – those who aren't stopped quickly enough and early on often bring bad publicity to the project, in addition to elevating the risk of copycat inspiring knock-offs. In 2016, IPhonehurricane95's socking spree dramatically decreased, with the LTA disappearing in 2018. Sockpuppetry on WPTC has not been nearly as bad since then, but sockpuppetry persisted on WPTC afterward, even to this day. Recent LTAs that WPTC had to deal with include Fly High in the Sky and Wyatt2049, and possibly Evlekis, with the later two engaging in a campaign of vandalism claiming fake Category 5 upgrades (or Category 0 downgrades) "from God" that attracted a lot of bad publicity. Recently, someusersdabbled with socking, which got them into trouble. With the recent breaches of trust on WPTC and the confirmation of socking by CUs in several of the newer members, some members of WPTC have called for WPTC members to be vetted by CUs. In the past year alone, a few editors who had recently joined the project came out as sockmasters who went on to become LTAs, further adding to the pressure on WPTC. Personally, I feel that the newer users who joined within the past 6 months with a history of disruption should be examined by a CheckUser, but long-standing CU policy is to not investigate anyone unless there are serious allegations of sockpuppetry (with evidence). This policy exists for good reason, and these requests for blanket CUs may very well be turned down, if proposed.
Sockpuppetry is not only bad for the reputation and integrity of the project. It is also harmful to the well-being of editors on the site, especially when they become the targets of attacks. In addition, sockpuppetry breaks the trust of the community when the said offender is a trusted and valued member of the community, no matter the level and duration of the offense. Those editors have to work hard to regain the trust of the community, and in some cases, trust may never be restored. Perhaps equally as bad, sockpuppetry leads to false accusations of the practice and claims of intentional bad faith against both reformed ex-sockpuppeteers and non-socking editors alike. This further damages the reputation of the site, while unnecessarily inflaming tensions between editors on the project and damaging the cohesion between the community. These aspersions also hurt well-meaning editors on the site, and can have the unwanted consequences of embittering them or prompting them to go into retirement. While there are users on WPTC who are dedicated to rooting out and combatting vandals and sockpuppeteers on the site (including some who are a part of the Counter-Vandalism Unit), this is a responsibility that the entire project needs to bear as a whole, since socking is an issue that affects the entire project in one way or another. Editors should be willing and able to investigate potential cases of socking and other types of abusive behavior, while maintaining good faith at the same time. Sockpuppetry is serious issue and an ongoing challenge to the project. Equally as bad are unfounded allegations of the abuse against editors with a long-standing history of being a net-positive. However, together, as a community, we can combat this menace to safeguard the integrity and accuracy of WPTC articles, and make Wikipedia a healthy, productive environment. ~ LightandDark2000 🌀
WPTC had its humble beginnings in the early days of Wikipedia. The WikiProject was founded by Jdorje on October 5, 2005, during the heart of the record-breaking and devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. The founding of WPTC provided a place for editors who had an interest in tropical cyclones to collaborate. Over the next few years, dozens of users flocked to WPTC, growing the ranks to over 60 active members by 2011. This was the first generation of WPTC editors, many of whom had been active on Wikipedia within a few years of its founding in 2001. The first WPTC editors worked hard on improving the quality and quantity of tropical cyclone articles, attaining 100 Good Articles (GAs) and several Featured Articles (FAs) by January 2007. The number of existing TC articles grew each month, with the project boasting 1,000 articles by January 2008. However, as the years passed by, long-time members of the WPTC gradually began dropping out. Reasons included entering college, a busy work schedule, loss of interest in the subject, and retirement from Wikipedia, among other reasons. By January 2011, more than 120 members had either become inactive or had left Wikipedia entirely. By the end of the year, WPTC membership had hemorrhaged to the point where roughly 19 users remained in the WikiProject. As of this writing, the first 13 members on the WPTC roster can be considered the remaining "core" of this first generation that has stayed with the project throughout the years. But the initial WPTC Golden Age was over. The flow of new recruits fell off sharply, and overall interest declined. WPTC would remain at this reduced level of membership and activity for years to come.
More users continued to join the WikiProject over the next several years, albeit on a significantly reduced scale. Even then, the vast majority of the work done on tropical cyclone articles were largely carried out by a "core" of roughly a dozen experienced editors who stayed on with the WikiProject throughout the year, even as tropical cyclone activity shifted between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. However, this reduction in the numbers of active users meant that many more articles ended up being neglected, or suffered from reduced quality. The flow of new GAs and FAs slowed down, and new FACs almost ground to a halt. Some long-time editors, such as Hurricanehink, continued to hammer out TC articles, while recruiting and mentoring new members. The second generation of WPTC editors began showing up in 2013 through 2016, including Nova Crystallis, Typhoon2013, Master of Time, KN2731, and me. (I had edited on Wikipedia for several years before then, but I wasn't officially a part of WPTC prior to 2014.) While new editors continued to join each year, others kept on leaving, and the size of the roster remained around the same size. On a Featured Article review, one of the reviewers even remarked that WPTC was no longer as lively as it once was, with much of the activity having died down. Working on WPTC grew depressing at times, with some of the active editors moving on to other topics when their basins of interest went inactive (usually when the northern hemisphere seasons came to an end). Articles suffered from quality control and content issues in numerous places, especially articles on storms outside of the North Atlantic and East/Central Pacific hurricane basins, where most of the activity from experienced editors was historically concentrated. Articles for storms in the Southern Hemisphere were the hardest-hit, with only a few editors, such as Jason Rees, continuing to work hard on them year-round. As usual, the vast majority of work fell on a tight-knit group of roughly two dozen editors, most of whom were senior editors who had been present since the early days of WPTC. At times, I wondered whether I would ever see the day in which we would have enough active editors on our roster to bring WPTC back to its former glory.
From 2016 to 2018, more users joined WPTC, including ChocolateTrain, Hurricane Noah, and MarioProtIV, some of whom would later play a key role in revitalizing tropical cyclone articles or WPTC on some level. In 2018, Hurricane Noah helped restructure some of the internal dynamics of WPTC, including the creation of specific task forces for certain topics and also designing a new award system, in order to help motivate WPTC members and also to help coordinate the work between other editors more effectively. That same year, he kicked off a massive campaign to get more articles to GA and FA status, By late 2020, more than two dozen articles had been brought up to GA or FA status, and WPTC saw its first potential Featured Topic Candidate in more than 6 years (the 2018 Pacific hurricane season). After 2019, the number of new members gradually increased, and activity picked up across the WikiProject. A third batch of new editors showed up between 2018 and 2019, tripling the WPTC roster to 60+ active members. These editors included FleurDeOdile, CycloneYoris, EBGamingWiki, Sandy14156, SaiTheCyclone, DavidTheMeteorologist, JavaHurricane, and others. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Despite the ensuing lockdowns and other fallouts from the pandemic, WPTC saw an explosion of new editors that same year. This 4th generation of editors was, by far, probably the largest influx of new membership that WPTC had ever seen. By the end of the year, the active membership roster had exploded from 69to 124 active members. Our newer members from 2020 include AC5230, CycloneFootball71, Chicdat, Hurricaneboy23, Chlod, Destroyeraa, MarioJump83, ChessEric, Modokai, CodingCyclone, Cyclone Toby, TornadoLGS, HurricaneCovid, Skarmory, and many, many others. The wait was finally over. New life had been breathed back into WPTC. It was almost as if the good old days of the WikiProject were starting to return. While we've had our ups and downs this year, the influx of new editors infused WPTC with much-needed new blood and also helped relieve the senior editors of some of the burdens they've had to bear for years. Our hope is that the vast majority of these new editors will stay with us going forward, even as tropical cyclone activity cycles on and off across the world. Even after the pandemic-related lockdowns end.
In closing, I want to thank my fellow WPTC editors for my experience. When I first started as an IP editor on Wikipedia more than a decade ago, I never imagined that WikiProjects existed, not to mention one specifically tailored for tropical cyclones. I had a rough start here, with a bitey reception from most of the others who communicated with me, while also struggling to learn some of Wikipedia's fundamental policies (particularly citations). However, I eventually eased into the place and the others warmed to me, and my proficiency in editing improved as I spent more time on Wikipedia. The truth is, whenever I came under pressure in other areas of Wikipedia, whether it is from hounding, witch hunts, attacks, or other hostile behavior, I've always retreated back to WPTC. Why? Because I've always felt much more welcome here. And safe. In some ways, WPTC has become my home on Wikipedia. I've gotten so much more out of here than I had expected to as well. My time on Wikipedia helped sharpen my writing (and typing) skills, which was a rather nice bonus. I've also made a number of new friends here (some of whom I've grown rather close with), all of whom I enjoy working with. Thank you, all of you, for everything. Thank you for showing me what the Wikipedia experience should be like, and thank you for being willing to befriend me. I look forward to continue working with you all and growing with you in the years to come. May you all have a wonderful 2021! ~ LightandDark2000 🌀
Hello, this is my first opinion piece on Hurricane Herald as MarioJump83. In this opinion piece, I want to explain why I'm not as active as I'm hoping for in recent weeks. I do not plan to ever make this opinion piece at all, but I had to speak out about my issue with my activity in order to balance this edition of Hurricane Herald as well as to prevent attempts at adding my work-in-progress opinion piece to this issue because I'm planning to package that opinion piece with a long-finished but unfortunately delayed opinion piece. I want to apologize for delaying my work-in-progress opinion piece numerous times, given there are numerous issues about it, one of which (stress) will be addressed in this opinion piece.
Since last December, I have repeatedly have been on semi-wikibreaks. Wikipedia, as I know it, is a serious business. I was no longer the "nice guy" when I got my MoTM. Stress has been building up as I faced college exams as well as my father's stroke which happened on December 17, 2020. I attempted to break this semi-wikibreak once as I requested to change my name from SMB99thx into MarioJump83 for a breath of a fresh air (some days before that I requested deletion of my userpage for the same reason), and did some AfC reviewing spree in January 2 and 3. But as it turns out, it was quite a failure as three AfC submissions I accepted ended up being in jeopardy, with me trying to save the last one standing. I think these experiences ruined my chance to become a permanent new page reviewer, pushed me back into my semi-wikibreak once more and I had to enroll myself into New Page Patrol School in hopes of getting back into what I wanted. As such, I decided to commit into content creation as I was granted page mover rights (temporary) on January 4. As of now, I'm trying my best to come out on this second semi-wikibreak, bringing myself out of trouble that I didn't intend to participate in and planning to become autopatrolled some day as the college exams are winding over.
Wish me and my family for the best in the coming weeks, anyone! I'm hoping that it will happen after the release of this issue, if not later. By the way - even when I'm still stressed - I am going to wish everybody Happy New Year and Happy 20th Wikipedia anniversary! (Don't forget that we also reached edit number 1,000,000,000!)
I really hope your stress decreases soon. You've always been so kind and civil, and I am really grateful for that. Have a barnstar with a cup of coffee in the middle! Cheers, ~Destroyeraa🌀🇺🇸20:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Destroyeraa:, it means a lot. It is simply just bad stuff happening at the wrong time, along with the events from late last year that are still kind of raw. You are a very kind and civil person as well, I am glad that there are good, supporting editors on here like you. Thank you again for the barnstar!🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox20:43, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Happy 20th Wikipedia Anniversary!
Cyclone Toby has given you a Wikipedia ball! Wikipedia balls promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by copy and pasting and sending it to a user, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy 20th anniversary! CycloneToby02:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't go. I know that you've been through a lot recently and that you've come under a tremendous amount of stress, but please reconsider. :( I understand that you may want to step away, given everything that's happening in your life, but you don't have to call it quits. I'd hate to see you go like this. Here's a cheesecake for you. Hopefully, it'll make your day when you find this message. BTW, you'll always be welcome here. I hope to see you again someday soon. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A kitten for you!
Hey there, I know you've been going through a lot recently, but I do hope that you come back to Wikipedia soon once things clear up. I understand that it can sometimes feel hard, and that's ok. I just wanted you to know that you are a valued contributor here. I'll keep working on Timeline of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season for you. Wishing you the best,
Hi CycloneFootball71, please don't go. You're a vital editor for Hurricane Herald. If it is not for you, who's going to step up? I'm not sure if everybody can. MarioJump83!01:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Some WikiCoffee for you!
-Shift674-🌀contribs has given you a cup of coffee! Coffee promotes WikiLove and hopefully this has made your time away better. Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a coffee! Enjoy!
Hello there. I’ve noticed you’ve retired from the Wikimedia projects, and I’d just like to say I hope you change your mind soon. In case you ever see this message, we all hope you recover from your health issues, and we are worried for you. Stay safe, -Shift674-🌀contribs. (02:24, 20 January 2021 (UTC))[reply]
Spread the lovely, warm, bitter goodness of coffee by adding {{subst:WikiCoffee}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
A barnstar for you!
The Tropical Cyclone Barnstar
The members of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones would like to present CycloneFootball71 with the Tropical Cyclone Barnstar. They would like to thank him for his wonderful work for the project. First of all, CycloneFootball71 has invited numerous editors to the project. Secondly, he has been an active write for the Hurricane Herald. Furthermore, CycloneFootball71 has copyedited countless tropical cyclone articles by finding better wording, correcting grammar mistakes, and adding additional details. CycloneFootball71 has truly accomplished greatly for the project. We thank him for his edits and hope that he will reconsider his retirement and come back to edit more articles. Best, ===Current members===
Please sign your name(s) at the bottom of this list if you want to join our WikiProject, but before doing so you have to sign up first. Once you added your name in the list, you can add our userbox, {{User WPTC}} to your userpage, subscribe to our newsletter, or join us at our IRC channel or Discord server! Note that you can subscribe to our newsletter, join our IRC channel and/or our Discord server without adding your name to this list if you don't intend to join our project - there are no firm rules here on Wikipedia. Once you are more established in this project enough, you can also invite prospective members of the project or welcome new members of the project. To invite prospective members of the project, use {{WP:WPTC/I}} or {{WP:WPTC/Invite}}. To welcome a new member of the project, use {{WP:WPTC/W}} or {{WP:WPTC/Welcome}}.
These users have not edited within the realm of tropical cyclones for a year, have not edited Wikipedia outside of user page or user talk page for several months, fully retired, or have been blocked or banned from Wikipedia. Their legacy is preserved here. Users who were blocked or banned have their usernames struck out. Users from this list can add their names back to the active list by removing themselves from the list, otherwise if you plan to fully retire from Wikipedia, you can add your name to the bottom of this list. Per WPTC bylaws, moving any members of the WikiProject to this list without fulfilling one of these criteria is prohibited.
I may not have spent much time on Wikipedia while you were active, but what I did know is you were a great contributor and you were very nice. I hope to see you back some day! Also, isn't this giving you myself, based on my (old) username?...Skarmory(talk •contribs)04:41, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Re to all
@Skarmory, Destroyeraa, Shift674, CodingCyclone, and LightandDark2000:, and others, I am so sorry for all of this. Things have just gotten so difficult lately, and every since Thanksgiving 2020, things just have been going downhill. That, along with something that happened on the Wikimedia Commons, have been too much for me, and I can't devote time to edit on here anymore. I thank you all for your kindness and well wishes, and I hope to eventually come back, but for now it is just too uncertain as to whether or not I will be able to even edit here. I am sorry. 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox16:47, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I saw what happened on Commons. It was extremely rude and insensitive to delete the picture of you playing football. The admin should've given you the chance to elaborate on the files' pages that your relatives sent the photos to you and that the photos were actually of you. Does it matter who took the photo? If your relatives took it, there doesn't need to be attribution (of course, if you want to specify who took the photo, you can). I will be speaking to the users who deleted the files. ~Destroyeraa🌀🇺🇸17:19, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree @Destroyeraa:. Unfortunately I was pinged to the response, but they then closed the discussion before I ever could respond. There were actually a few pics that were deleted, not just one. It all started when I accidentally downloaded a pic and unknowingly uploaded it to commons from Nasa Worldview. That was by mistake, and I tried to explain it to the person who requested the deletion of those images. However, they then took the liberty of requesting that all photos of me be deleted, including one reason being that they couldn't find the data that I uploaded it to a camera. After that, I basically said on all photos that My relative sent them to me and I downloaded them for use on whatever ( I was still in school so I wanted to have them for projects or other things, so I decided to use them here because why not, I like football, so why not show that I actually play). When they were deleted, I was redirected to the thing where you can have a relative or someone else grant permission for photo use, but it is too late because that relative is no longer here, and so I basically don't know what to do. That, along with out-of Wiki things, and I just couldn't do it anymore. (Also to note, the person who nominated my pics for deletion never responded nor were they the ones who ended up deleting them) Thank you, 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox17:31, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Destroyeraa:, well given the response their talk page, I decided to basically ask in the commons area where you ask questions. Basically what I said was Hello. Recently I had images that were deleted here on the commons. These images had been uploaded by me and were used on my User page in Wikipedia, and they were of me playing football. They had been requested for deletion because the editor could not find the data to show that I had uploaded them from a camera, where I explained that they had been emailed to me by a relative, who originally took the photo. I was told to go to OTRS to have my relative grant permission to use the photos. However, since the relative gave me the photos, they have since passed away, and I am left here without any idea as to what to do now. I also originally claimed ownership of the photo's, as by then they had passed and I assumed they were mine because, well they're of me. Can someone help me figure out what to do? Hopefully I can get some more clarity as to what to do in this situation.🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox17:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really sorry about the passing of your relative. I am still rather new to Commons, and I have never used OTRS before. I'm sure someone on Commons will be able to help you. I am very happy to see that you will be coming back from the changing of the retired template to semi-retired. Stay safe. Best, ~Destroyeraa🌀🇺🇸17:46, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Destroyeraa:, I have never used it either, so it will be interesting to see what is said. Thanks you, I was saddened by it but luckily they are in a better place now (If you believe in that sort of stuff). Thank you, I realized the mistake I made byu putting a banner saying that I was completely retired. Fortunately, I will be back, hopefully within a few weeks. Thanks, 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox18:33, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Destroyeraa:, I forgot to mention earlier, but the response I got from the inquiry was that I need to get the heir to my relative to go and give permission, which will be difficult for me to try and do, but thanks for your help before, it means a lot. Hopefully I can get this sorted out, once and for all. 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox17:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Aww man, sorry you're retiring dude! It's been a stressful year for sure. Make sure you take care of yourself and your mental/physical health. If you hit the majors one day, then the admin who deleted your pics will be kicking themselves for deleting your pics :P ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:23, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Hurricanehink:, yes unfortunately I am going to retire, at least for a short period of time. I will make sure to do so, I just need some time to go away and try to clear my mind, and try to recuperate. Wouldn't that be something though lol :), when I come back I want to really get going and begin to become a better editor (Make articles, help improve them, ETC). Thank you, 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox17:49, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hey. I know that you've been through Hell the past few months. And I know that you feel that you cannot continue editing here anymore. If you need to step away for a while, that's completely okay. But you don't have to quit completely. You can always come back. And you are definitely still welcome here. Always. Regarding what happened on Commons, I'm very sorry. I don't agree with what transpired there at all. (Even if there was a minor "technical" issue, that could have easily been corrected.) That was disgraceful. It shouldn't have been done, and honestly, I feel that the deletions should be reversed, or that they should allow you to re-upload them (though as Destroyeraa mentioned, you might want to mention the individuals who took the images if you didn't take them yourself, but that shouldn't be an issue that leads to deletion). Anyway, take care. I do hope things will turn around for you soon. I would like to see you return in full capacity some day. I wish you the best, no matter where you go in life. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 17:28, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@LightandDark2000:, Thank you. I should probably change the thing to semi-retired, because I do plan to come back, I just need some time to heal and recover from all of my hardships. I agree, I wish that event would have transpired differently. Thank you for the well wishes, I hope best for you as well and for everyone here for that matter. I will be back eventually, I just am not sure when that'll be. Thank you, 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox17:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
;(... no.... :(. I hope this won't take long, and I do have to agree that the admin could of atleast let you explain more before all your pics were deleted. Oh well. Stay safe, CycloneToby18:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. Your mental and physical health should be more important than editing here. Hopefully things get better for you, and I can't wait to welcome you back with open arms when you are ready. Soon, maybe you can reupload the pictures of you playing football without them getting deleted, it sounds like the people there were in the wrong. Stay safe. Wishing you all the best, 𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐𝙲𝚢𝚌𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚎ᴛᴀʟᴋ19:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Despite my disappointment that I will probably step up as one of many editors of Hurricane Herald, I agree with other WPTC members here that mental and physical health should be taken care of rather than Wikipedia activities here, especially during this continously raging pandemic era. COVID is quite going to be deadly for someone who is suffering from the same conditions as you and I really, really hope that you can survive this pandemic. This pandemic took a toll on me, my family, and all other people including you. I don't have many other words, but please hope we can fight this through and finally make a comeback someday. Stay safe, MarioJump83!11:27, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@MarioJump83:, I am sorry that you will have to step up as an editor of the Hurricane herald. Thank you though for the words of encouragement, and I am sorry it has been difficult for you and your family as well. I hope we can fight this as well, and I hope the best for your and your family. Also, when I come back full time, I will definitely edit the Hurricane Herald and help lessen the slack. Stay safe as well. thanks, 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox17:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A barnstar for you!
The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
For all of your acts of kindness. What impresses me is that you've continued being such a kind, helpful editor, even in the midst of everything that you're going through. I really admire that. You're also one of the kindest editors I've met on Wikipedia. You have a good heart, and you should be proud of it. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 01:25, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm André. I'm a student of journalism and I'm 23 years old.
On the Brazilian page "tropical cyclone of the South Atlantic", there was a lack of information on various subjects.
My first page created, was "subtropical storm Mani". I didn't stop anymore, because unfortunately, there was a lot of weather content missing from Wikipedia Brazil. When the subtropical storm Oquira was formed, I kept watching it until it completely dissipated. Then I created another page called "tropical storm 01q", which is a real mystery for meteorology in Brazil. since it was an extratropical cyclone before it became a bomb cyclone and according to noaa, it became a subtropical and then tropical cyclone but it had a short life since it only lasted a few hours.
I also created the "derecho" page, because in Brazil unfortunately there is no such page and also because in 2020 the address occurred and what caused that storm right that 2020 Cyclone bomb in southern Brazil I question what is missing in Wikipedia Brazil is a nucleus of journalism to avoid lawsuits due to copyright, Wikipedia has several groups, physics groups, chemistry groups, biology groups, history groups, geography, and so on, but it doesn’t have a right reporting group right without having to depend directly communication vehicles and because of that it is discredited by the public so please I ask that these pages if they block me are not excluded as this would be a platform service for the reader André L P Souza (talk) 21:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you so much @HurricaneCovid:! I am glad to be back. Thank you for your support, it means a lot. Unfortunately, I have to get over one last hurdle, which happens to be a football injury, though I am hoping that it heals quick. Thanks again! 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox01:53, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition ran on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the member list. New members will automatically receive this newsletter. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from January 15–February 28, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are MarioJump83, Destroyeraa, HurricaneCovid, CycloneFootball71, HurricaneEdgar, Skarmory, Typhoon2013 (editor's pick for member of the month), and our member of the month, LightandDark2000! Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions, including past MoTMs and SoTMs, can be viewed here.
In response to the initial selection of Cyclone Toby as MoTM of the last edition, the long established-practice of picking MoTM (edition) by the main editor of Hurricane Herald was changed, with one that involved most of the WPTC community being created. The original practice continues to live on, but in the form of MoTM (Editor's Pick), as wished by longtime editor of the Hurricane Herald, Hurricanehink. The details of this event were recorded in the notes of the last edition and in this edition.
On January 13, 2021, Destroyeraa announced the Cyclone Cup, which was inspired by the WikiCup. There are seven participants in the 2021 Cyclone Cup, who are: CodingCyclone, Skarmory, CycloneFootball71, MarioJump83, Jason Rees, HurricaneCovid, and LightandDark2000. This is the second-ever competition organized by members of WPTC. The first competition organized by WPTC members was the WPTC Bowl, which started on January 2012, before flaming out by the end of 2012 without anyone winning the competition. The WPTC Bowl was also inspired by the WikiCup, similar to the Cyclone Cup, but ran differently from the Cyclone Cup. We hope that the Cyclone Cup ends up successful, with a winner.
In the light of BCNY2011's membership situation (now globally locked and was found to be socking also), I, MarioJump83, heavily revamped the members list of WPTC as well as formalized WPTC bylaws, with some modifications, regarding inactive membership, thus allowing veteran WPTC members Runningonbrains, Juliancolton (two of the 14 WPTC core members), Atomic7732 and Derpdadoodle to rejoin the project. I also tried to enforce some guidelines regarding recruiting and membership as it was discussed previously, but since I did not discuss and establish the consensus in regards to enforcement and the shape of "guidelines" as of now is more of an essay, for now they will be considered unofficial and have yet to be implemented. It will be discussed later on, probably in a survey.
During Wikipedia's 15th anniversary, I officially revived the Non-tropical storms WikiProject (WPNTS), due to WPTC editors actively joining the WikiProject, despite the fact that the WikiProject was defunct. (More reasons will be stated in my opinion piece in the next issue of the WPNTS newsletter.) Despite its formal revival, WPNTS was not fully reorganized until February 7. That day, I closely modeled that WikiProject after WikiProject Tropical cyclones, thus tying WPNTS together with WPTC, as the two WikiProjects are closely intertwined. In the meanwhile, I discovered the defunct newsletter of WPNTS and later on, WikiProject Severe Weather, both of which has their last issues in March 2008. As I began WPNTS makeover, I revived both publications. The WikiProject Non-tropical storms Newsletter, which is known as The Frozen Times, and the WikiProject Severe weather Newsletter will become sister publications of The Hurricane Herald going forward. I have set their publication dates on March 15, and April 1, 2021, respectively, and they are going to become semi-regular newsletters. Before they ever get published, I implore you to help me writing these newsletters, the links for which are listed here: The Frozen Times, WikiProject Severe Weather.
Alongside the revamp above, I discovered the 2011 list through looking at the edit history of the members page, which shows the true extent of this WikiProject's popularity, as well as the members that joined the project after 2011 but were eventually removed from the roster, as the after effects of Hurricanefan25's mass removal of inactive WikiProject members. I restored them back to the list during and after the revamp - they were truly part of the WikiProject during the golden age of WPTC and I see it's removal by the sock of Perseus, Son of Zeus, as effectively destroying the history of the WPTC because of the importance of these members. The restored list reveals that Knowledgekid87is actually a member of WPTC back in the day and clearly still participates in the project, while Rosalina2427 is actually an another member of the 14 golden age WPTC remnants that still remain to this day. (Note: These were the members that was listed before TheAustinMan joined the project) Our newsletter's subscribers AySz88, RingTailedFox, WmE, Douglasr007, Dylan620 and X! were actually members of this WikiProject, despite the belief that they weren't. And the others, such as Good kitty and Miss Madeline were very influential in the building of this WikiProject. In conclusion, you can see that there is more from the WikiProject than meets the eye. The WikiProject used to be huge before 2010s decade started, and they were the building blocks of the project that unfortunately were erased by some sock.
The three-month merge moratorium, which has been implemented since November 23, 2020, ended on February 23, at 03:45:00 UTC. During the moratorium, when it was in effect, there were generally no attempts to discuss changes to the moratorium, nor were there any requests for article mergers. However, there were two requests to allow an exception to the merge moratorium. One of which was to merge Meteorological history of Hurricane Michael to the Hurricane Michael as that article presents an obstacle for Hurricane Michael article to reach GA - the consensus for exception was quickly reached on Christmas 2020, and on January 5 the article was finally merged. The other, which was meant for Hurricane Jeanne's impacts articles, was never made into a proposal and thus were not seriously discussed at all. The first such merger after the merge moratorium expired was merging Tropical Storm Amanda (2020) and Tropical Storm Cristobal (2020) into Tropical Storm Amanda–Cristobal, which later was requested to be moved into 2020 Central America and Mexico floods and opposers of the merger requested splitting them back once again.
I, MarioJump83, the interim coordinator of 2018 Global FT's WPAC squad, feels bad with what is going on as I felt we are taking a step back with the ongoing real-life difficulties regarding important members of our task force. KN2731 had to take a wikibreak because of the compulsory service in Singapore and will likely be gone for two years; Destroyeraa's activities were highly inhibited by multiple illnesses, school exams, "bullying" issues, and series of winter storms this month; Hurricane Noah almost took a two-month-long wikibreak because due to college studies, which Noah is committed to (he also left the WPTC Discord for a couple of months, due to toxicity). I don't really like to take a lot of responsibilities within the 2018 Global FT task force, as I had joined with the intent of helping GA's that involves this year, i.e. like what I did in Cyclone Ava and Cyclone Owen as of now, but with so many of us were forced out of commission due to these problems I mentioned, I and LightandDark2000 had to take much of the responsibility within the task force. Because of this reason, I strongly recommend you, readers of Hurricane Herald, to join this task force to help take pressure off from us. Note that this is not a formal invite, as Wikipedia is free and anyone can edit, but this is what we have to deal with in this current situation, especially because of our real-life problems and commitments. Let's hope that we, including you, can make this through with what we can do!
We are recruiting
If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to LightandDark2000 or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.
Storm of the month and other tropical activity for the rest of January and February
SoTM for January – Cyclone Eloise
Cyclone Eloise formed in January 14, to the east of another system, Cyclone Joshua, in the central South Indian Ocean. The disturbance developed into a tropical depression on January 16, and on the next day, the depression intensified into Moderate Tropical Storm Eloise. Eloise struggled to intensify, due to unfavorable conditions; however, the storm still managed to intensify further into Severe Tropical Storm Eloise on January 19. This strengthening trend did not last long, as Eloise made landfall in northern Madagascar, and interaction with mountains caused Eloise to weaken into a moderate tropical storm once more. Eloise emerged into the Mozambique Channel on January 20 and started intensifying again, despite having recently experienced a sustained land interaction. However, the storm slowed down, due to the location and the surrounding environment. Later on, Eloise managed to intensify into a full-fledged tropical cyclone, before proceeding to undergo rapid intensification as the storm neared landfall. Eloise peaked as a Category 2-equivalent tropical cyclone just before making landfall near Beira, Mozambique, on January 22, which had been affected by Tropical Storm Chalane just weeks prior, and was still recovering from the devastating impacts of Cyclone Idai nearly two years ago. Eloise then degenerated into a remnant low above Zimbabwe on January 25, and per JTWC, the remnants of Eloise soon dissipated above Botswana on January 26.
Eloise caused numerous disasters throughout numerous countries, specifically, in Madagascar, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, and Mozambique. Mozambique was the hardest-hit. In Madagascar, Eloise destroyed 190 homes and caused the death of one person. In South Africa, Eloise caused the deaths of 10 people, four of which were children, in addition to being responsible for making another 7 people go missing. In Zimbabwe, Eloise caused damage and destruction to nearly a thousand homes, some of which were badly affected by Idai two years ago. Three people were also swept away by flooding from Eloise and were presumed to be dead. In Eswatini, over 1,500 people were affected by the storm, two of whom were killed. Eloise also damaged the water system and flooded the gravel roads and low-lying bridges. In Mozambique, the residents compared the cyclone's impacts to Cyclone Idai, which had catastrophically devastated the country two years earlier. This storm caused psychological trauma and mental health crises among the residents of the country. Eloise caused nine deaths in Mozambique, but massive amounts of farmland were flooded, and the storm also damaged over 30,000 houses, the majority of which were destroyed by the storm. 579 classrooms and 86 health centers had to be repaired after the storm.
SoTM for February – Cyclone Guambe
Cyclone Guambe formed as a disturbance in the Mozambique Channel in February 10. The disturbance subsequently transitioned into a subtropical depression two days later, as it made landfall in Mozambique. For the next several days, the system made a slow counterclockwise loop over Mozambique, while slowly organizing. The system re-emerged into the Mozambique Channel on February 16 and was designated as Tropical Disturbance 11. The disturbance was soon upgraded into a depression later that day, and the storm became Moderate Tropical Storm Guambe on the next day. Subsequently, Guambe proceeded to strengthen, intensifying into a severe tropical storm on February 18. Guambe then began to undergo rapid intensification, becoming a tropical cyclone on February 19, before peaking later that day as a Category 2-equivalent tropical cyclone. However, Guambe then underwent an eyewall replacement cyclone and began to weaken on February 20, as the storm accelerated towards the southeast. On February 21, Guambe became extratropical, Guambe was later absorbed by another extratropical cyclone on February 23.
Guambe caused widespread flooding in Mozambique, which displaced over 27,000 people and worsened the ongoing crisis in the region. Prisoners had to be transferred away from the cyclone because of potential flooding. There were no deaths recorded and damages were unknown, however the worst part of Guambe wasn't there yet. South Africa were also flooded by Guambe, which might have been caused by the secondary low-level circulation center (LLCC) of Guambe. This secondary LLCC had caused Guambe to slow down, which probably had devastating effects on Bazaruto Archipelago National Park's marine life, as 186 Spinner dolphins were probably killed by the storm. After Guambe re-emerged into the Mozambique Channel, no additional damage to human property was reported, thus marking the end of Guambe's impacts on land.
Western Pacific – The West Pacific basin saw its first tropical cyclone of the year develop, which was a tropical depression. This storm affected the Philippines for two days, on January 19–20. Another tropical cyclone developed in the next month, which developed into Tropical Storm Dujuan. Dujuan was not as damaging as the first tropical depression, but it ended up being deadlier. Dujuan dissipated soon after impacting the Philippines.
South-West Indian Ocean – Eloise, the seventh named storm of the season, formed on January 14, before becoming a named storm three days later. On January 19, Eloise made landfall on Madagascar as a moderate tropical storm. Afterward, the storm moved into the Mozambique Channel, undergoing rapid intensification as it neared Mozambique, before making landfall near Beira, Mozambique at peak intensity on January 23, as a Category-2 equivalent tropical cyclone, with the storm strengthening all the way up to landfall. Eloise weakened as it moved inland, dissipating on January 25. On January 17, Joshua entered the South-West Indian Ocean basin from the Australian region basin, before dissipating two days later. On January 27, Tropical Low 10U entered the basin from the Australian region, which was classified as Tropical Depression 09. The depression never strengthened into a tropical storm and soon dissipated on the next day. Faraji formed on February 4, and became a tropical storm next day. Faraji explosively intensified to become the first Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone (according to JTWC estimates) in the basin since Fantala in 2016, and the first Category 5-Equivalent tropical cyclone worldwide in 2021. Faraji was projected to restrengthen, and possible threaten land areas as it tracked westward towards Madagascar; however, this threat never materialized, as the storm encountered more hostile conditions and weakened instead. The storm degenerated into a remnant low on February 13, before dissipating 3 days later. Guambe formed on February 10, and became a subtropical depression two days later, while making landfall near Inhambane, Mozambique. The system remained inland until February 16, when it re-emerged into the Mozambique Channel and was designated as Tropical Disturbance 11. The disturbance then began to strengthen, becoming a tropical storm on the next day, and a tropical cyclone later three days later. Guambe peaked as a Category 2-equivalent tropical cyclone on February 19. The cyclone was forecasted to strengthen even further; however, Guambe underwent an eyewall replacement cycle and began to weaken. The storm became post-tropical on February 21 and dissipated two days later.
Australian region – On January 16, Tropical Low 07U intensified into Tropical Cyclone Joshua. Afterward, five more storms developed in the basin within the second part of the month: Tropical Low 08U, Tropical Cyclone Kimi, Tropical Low 10U, Tropical Low 11U, and Tropical Low 12U. Joshua moved into the South-West Indian Ocean basin on January 17. On January 21, 08U made landfall in the Western Territory of Australia, before dissipating two days later. Kimi meandered off the coast of Queensland from January 16 to 19, before dissipating offshore. 10U formed to the southeast of Christmas Island and remained over water throughout its duration. 10U exited the basin into the South-West Indian Ocean on January 27. On January 25, Tropical Low 11U formed, followed by Tropical Low 12U on January 28. 11U became Lucas and exited the basin as it peaked on February 1. Tropical Low 12U remained overland for most of its existence, moving parallel to the western coastline of Australia for 5 days, before emerging over open water on February 4. 12U never reached tropical cyclone intensity, and became extratropical on the next day. However, the storm turned back towards Australia and resumed moving parallel to the coast, before dissipating several days later. Tropical Low 13U formed on February 6, a day after 12U became extratropical, and made landfall near the North Territory–Queensland border, before dissipating on February 8. Another tropical low, 14U, formed ten days later, and lasted for five days before dissipating. Tropical Low 15U formed on February 23 and became Marian. Marian eventually proceeded to undergo rapid intensification, becoming a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone on February 28, making it the most intense cyclone of the season, as of this writing. Tropical Low 16U formed near the end of the month.
South Pacific – Tropical Disturbance 04F developed to the west of Port Vila, Vanuatu, on January 22. Several days later, Tropical Disturbances 05F and 06F developed near Fiji. All three systems organized into tropical depressions by January 28. 04F and 06F never developed into tropical cyclones, while 05F became Cyclone Ana. Cyclone Ana dissipated February 1, the same day that Cyclone Lucas entered the basin. Lucas became subtropical on February 3, before dissipating shortly afterward. On February 7, Tropical Disturbance 09F formed and nearly reached tropical cyclone status, before dissipating. Two weeks later, Tropical Disturbance 10F developed near Wallis and Futuna but never developed into a tropical depression.
South Atlantic – On February 4, a rare, fully-tropical storm was designated in the basin as 01Q by the NOAA. The storm lasted briefly before losing tropical characteristics, with the NOAA discontinuing their bulletins later that day. However, the Brazilian Navy Hydrographic Center never issued advisories on the storm.
LightandDark2000 joined Wikipedia as an IP editor on May 2, 2009. Although a coupleof users encouraged him to make an account early on, he decided to continue editing articles from his IPs for the next few years. He registered his user account in May 2012 and spent another year on Wikipedia as an IP editor, before fully transitioning over to his account in the summer of 2013. He received an invitation to join WPTC in March 2014, which he accepted. Ever since joining WPTC, LightandDark2000 has been a regular editor on tropical cyclone articles and one of Wikipedia's most active rollbackers, putting him on the forefront in the fight against vandals and LTAs, and actively steering the WikiProject out of stagnation. He also defended WPTC from numerous vandals, including the likes of the LTAs IPhonehurricane95 and Lightning Sabre. In late 2014–early 2017, LightandDark2000 largely moved out of WPTC into MILHIST (as well as taking a 3-month WikiBreak in the fall of 2016—due to college work and stress from on-wiki hounding), before returning to WPTC in September 2017, following the devastating landfall of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. From there, LightandDark2000 regularly contributed to tropical cyclone articles, as well as articles on other storms and natural disasters, before taking a series of WikiBreaks in late 2019 through mid-2020, due to college work and real-life activities.
However, LightandDark2000 returned in July 2020, just as the extremely-active North Atlantic hurricane season got underway. By the time the last issue of The Hurricane Herald was released, LightandDark2000 had made a full return and was ramping up activity, even as WPTC was beset by a series of problems within its membership, ranging from blocks to stress-induced WikiBreaks. During this time of crisis, LightandDark2000 stepped up very quickly - first, he helped out a number of users who were struggling with personal issues on the WikiProject. Then, he joined 2018 Global FT (currently the Interim Coordinator, with Hurricane Noah and KN2731 stepping aside due to real-life commitments). From there, he conducted his first GA review, which was for Hurricane Beryl. After that, he took on a major role in the writing of the previous issue of The Hurricane Herald, which as of this writing is the biggest issue of Hurricane Herald ever published, at an excess of 50,000 bytes, as well as being the most visually-balanced Hurricane Herald issue since the first issues of Hurricane Herald (if it were to be viewed using a 1920×1080 desktop using Legacy Vector). For these reasons and his contributions to the WPTC in the past, we will finally thank LightandDark2000 for all of his contributions by rewarding him with the Member of the Month for this edition. It's quite sad that he didn't get this award since the restart of Hurricane Herald in late 2018 to this day, but now, he has the opportunity to win the award for the first time. We are hoping to see more from LightandDark2000 in the future. For example, he joined the 2021 Cyclone Cup (and also volunteered to take on the role of a judge, if necessary), a new competition for WPTC members based on the WikiCup!
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Featured Content
From January 15 to February 28 no featured article were promoted.
From the Main Page: Documents WikiProject related materials that have appeared on the main page from January 15–February 28, 2021 in chronological order.
There are currently no featured article candidates.
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 164 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 133 A-class articles, and 1,010 good articles. There are only 71 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 415 C-class articles, 788 start-class articles, and 182 stub-class articles, with 23 lists, and 9 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
In this section, we want to thank these first-generation WPTC members for being able to stay in here for years before 2020. They (David, Keith, Hylian and Spin) are one of greatest content creators in WPTC history, helping to build and shape WPTC for what it is now today. Without them, we don't know if WPTC would be like today. David Roth's expertise, Keith Edkins' maintenance activities, Hylian's and Spin's content creation skill helped a lot in the early days of WPTC and we hope some of us can replicate what they can do in today's WPTC.
Typhoon2013 first edited Wikipedia in August 2013, and ever since joining Wikipedia, Typhoon2013 has been one of the most prolific editors in Western Pacific basin. Since last November, Typhoon2013 has been working very hard on getting tropicalcycloneintensitylistsofWesternPacificbasin done, lending a hand in creation of named storms lists of C, P, R, and S (alongside finishing List of named storms (T) which I was unable to complete because of college), as well as finishing storm lists of Pacific typhoon seasons from 1980 to 1964. For the efforts Typhoon2013 has done leading to the publishing of this newsletter, I, MarioJump83, as one of many editors of Hurricane Herald, will be picking Typhoon2013 as the Member of the Month (Editor's Pick) and thank him for his contributions to build a bedrock foundation for the rapidly-growing Western Pacific coverage of the Wikipedia. We wish Typhoon2013 best of luck at college!
Was planned to be published in 44th edition of Hurricane Herald, however due to some issue (and per Destroyeraa's request), I have delayed this opinion piece further into this edition. At this point, I do not want to see this opinion piece getting delayed further into May 2021 as I really, really want this OP, alongside my OP below to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. MarioJump83!
I created my Wikipedia account on January 18, 2020. I seems so long ago. My first edit was creating my user page, and my first mainspace edit was on Hammonton, New Jersey. My first autoconformed edit was on my userpage. By then, I was editing about myself and roads. My first tropical cyclone edit was on January 30, on Tropical Storm Nestor, which got reverted. I also edited about the coronavirus epidemic before it became a worldwide pandemic. I edited List of United States tornadoes in April 2020, but got bitten on the talk page, though my love for tornadoes kept me editing pages. I also began editing numerous cyclone pages, and joined WPTC on May 19. It was sad that no one noticed that I joined, and no one welcomed me on my talk page for five months already. I submitted my first article, Tropical Storm Bertha (2020), which was accepted. I was still rather new, and mistook Chicdat as an admin. It was June already. Still, no one welcomed me. Finally, on June 5, Hurricanehink took notice of my edits and welcome me! Around the same time, I downloaded Twinkle. I found the CSD function very cool, and I admittedly didn't read WP:CSD and misused it. One month later, I met my first real vandal, which turned out to be a Force Thirteen kid who was messing around changing everything to Force Thirteen without leaving a source or an edit summary, which most people will take as vandalism. It turned out to be pretty rough, and did not end well for both of us. I was still learning at that stage, as shown here. After that, my experience here got much better. Perhaps it was the "learning-the-ropes" phase that is the hardest for all Wikipedians. I created and wrote some good articles, with my first being Hurricane Dolores, promoted on September 24. I also developed a good relationship with many of my fellow Wikipedians, including the editors/writers of this newsletter and many other newer and older users. Then came the sock block. I'll not get into much detail about that, though I will be forever indebted to the countless users who vouched for me and who welcomed me back to the community with open arms. Thank you. I am glad to be here today.~Destroyeraa🌀🇺🇸
My experiences of tropical cyclones and tropical cyclone editing before joining WPTC - by MarioJump83
I planned this OP way back to September 2020, but because of issues with length and college (also even stress - detailed in my previous opinion piece My stress), I decided to delay this opinion piece until now. I also intend to publish this opinion piece alongside Destroyeraa's OP above, thus pushing back the date where I can publish this opinion piece further. Thus I fully apologize for delaying this opinion piece for way too long. I was unable to spend my time on building this opinion piece because of these issues and thus getting this opinion piece complete in time. By the way, this will be the final opinion piece I will write for Hurricane Herald - I'm done with it after two opinion pieces as SMB99thx and two opinion pieces as MarioJump83. It was so much fun creating opinion pieces, but I don't want to have opinion pieces for four straight issues already since the 43rd edition! I'm still editing Hurricane Herald in the future, but not writing opinion pieces any further - ...unless you're inviting me to write an opinion piecein my user talk page, which I'll do my best to comply.
Hello, WikiProject Tropical cyclones! I want to tell you about the reasons why I liked and loved tracking tropical cyclones and my experience regarding editing tropical cyclones before I joined this WikiProject.
First of all, I have been watching tropical cyclones but on-and-off since 2012. That year, Hurricane Sandy as I remembered it got significant coverage on my country, Indonesia (Badai Sandy). That hurricane was the first tropical cyclone that I had ever known in my life (it's possible that Hurricane Katrina had significant coverage in my country, but I didn't remember anything at all about it), and without it I would never known about tropical cyclones by myself. When that hurricane was about to be finished, I visited the article about 2012 Atlantic hurricane season on Wikipedia, and it was the first article about tropical cyclones that I have ever read on Wikipedia. From that day, my interest on tropical cyclones grew but it was limited to the Atlantic hurricanes only. When 2013 started, if I'm thinking about tropical cyclones I frequently visited 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, and in particular the Seasonal summary section, which drew my eyes into when I didn't edit tropical cyclone articles yet.
In November 2013, however, as I'm becoming an uncle of one (now three), Typhoon Haiyan showed up. That typhoon which devastated the Southeast Asian brother country of Philippines caused my interest on tropical cyclones to grow outside of Atlantic hurricanes. Now I'm finally aware of what's happening in Pacific, and it was the first time that I learned that tropical cyclones are everywhere in the world, not just Atlantic. That time, I read 2013 Pacific typhoon season as well as 2013 Pacific hurricane season (I don't remember reading these kinds of articles before that). When I read about it, I also visited 2013 Atlantic hurricane season once again and I was shocked by that it wasn't active! As such, I didn't watch tropical cyclones that much for most of 2014 and 2015. Hurricane Patricia didn't convince me enough to watch tropical cyclones again. In 2016, things changed again that led me to make my first edits on tropical cyclones in Wikipedia.
Once Hurricane Matthew came and with it significant coverage on Indonesia that I have never seen since Hurricane Sandy, I finally watched tropical cyclones full-time for the first time. That hurricane was the cyclone that finally got me going for the tropical cyclones (not just the recent seasons, but the older seasons and also SHEM) and my quick-growing interest on tropical cyclones led me to find what made me uncomfortable. That led me to make my first edit on tropical cyclone-related articles in Wikipedia - which was to add Central Pacific to a navigation template about leading tropical cyclones in March 7, 2017. Later that month, I made a second edit, which was to remove a year from a link to Hurricane Omar. These additions are quite "cosmetic" (as said by ChessEric about Hurricane Michelle GA), but soon enough in the next month I found more things that made me more uncomfortable - they are legitimate vandalism. The first edit I made in that month was to revert a vandalism on Hurricane Andrew (I edited it again after that, which was to change mb to mbar). On the next day, I fixed another vandalism in 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. That isn't the end yet, as I found one more vandalism in Hurricane Dennis, and I promptly fixedthem.
As I'm getting more invested on tropical cyclone articles, I've eventually heard and found out why some articles didn't have (XXXX year) in them - and it is because that they are primary topics. When I see some articles like Hurricane Linda (1997), which I thought they are primary topics (I eventually realized that they are not, and I have not requested moving these articles under WPTC banner ever since), I sought the same treatment in these kinds of articles that I thought was primary topics and thus I requestedmovesinmanyofthesesaidarticlesunder thatthought. I believed that these requests will garner support by most of the WPTC members (which I thought will think for the same), but never did I know that these requests gained overwhelming opposes, primarily from WPTC members - and they talked to me about it. Of course, I panicked and I have to withdraw some of these nominations.
That didn't stop me from editing more WPTC articles, and I started to do these requested moves again soon after. This is probably the most successful things I have ever done through my pre-WPTC membership career in the WPTC realm. After withdrawing some of these nominations, I began to work on a split of 1940–49 Pacific typhoon seasons article by starting the discussion on one in May 14. Two weeks later, as I said before, I startedrequestingmoreofthesenominationsin a batch on May 27 - which was wildly successful (only one of them were failed, and that was Tropical Storm Bret of 1993). In a month after these nominations, and with the consensus for split, I finally worked on the split itself. 1940 Pacific typhoon season and 1949 Pacific typhoon season has been split from the article much more earlier, with Hurricanehink creating an article for the 1940 season in May 23, 2014 and Typhoon2013 split the 1949 section from the article in December 19, 2016. I continued what Hurricanehink and Typhoon2013 has been doing, with copying content from the original article into the respective season articles. First, I revertedthemto theoriginal before Hurricanehink merged them. Afterwards, I copied the respective sectionsfrom the originalinto respective articles and removed the respective sections in the original article. From the IDs, you can notice that I did this not in order. Afterwards, I moved the original article into 1941–44 Pacific typhoon seasons without moving it's talk page, which I want to admit was a mistake and made a major ramifications (I even started a RfD, which should not happen) in my attempts to get it back without getting it's talk page removed later in October 2020. Once moving the article, I created redirects for the recently moved article (which includes 1941 Pacific typhoon season, 1942 Pacific typhoon season, 1943 Pacific typhoon season, and 1944 Pacific typhoon season, all of which eventually turned into articles), and quickly changed redirects of the respective storms into the newly restored articles. It was a massive effort that day on June 27, 2017, and the experience that I never forgotten.
After that month, I returned into requesting moves once again for the third time, riding on the recent wave of successes. I requested the moves of Hurricane Norman (1978) and Hurricane Liza. Hurricane Liza move request was successful but Norman did not. By that point, the frustration from WPTC members are showing up and by the time I requested moving Typhoon Ida (1958) into Typhoon Ida, I had to be stopped. I also moved Typhoon Pamela (1976) into Typhoon Pamela without any discussion, but you know my intentions by that point, and the move was soon reverted. I had a talk with Yellow Evan regarding these actions, and I soon relented, never requested any moves ever since. I didn't do much for the rest of the year - the most notable moves are moving disambiguation pages Tropical Storm Noru and Tropical Storm Banyan into Typhoon Noru and Typhoon Banyan, respectively. Moving on to the next year, I did not do much once again. Most of the activity that year was working on the most of Tropical Storm Son-Tinh (2018) article. Keep in mind that I plan to return working on that article as a part of 2018 Global FT efforts, and that happened because KN2731 is going to take a break for most of this year.
Onto the 2019, I did something that I think planted the seeds for my future MoTM run and vast WPTC growth in 2020. Most of the activity in general involves creating links to the future articles, but I also fixed redirects for most 1930s seasons and created redirects for the rest of 1960s decade for NIO basin. I planned something greater than that, however, but because I had to use my phone and not my laptop (it was broken) I wasn't able to do so. That plan was a factor leading to me joining the WPTC in July 2020 (after I realized about the benefits of joining the WikiProjects) and I began realizing the plan as soon as I got my laptop back. What I did for the most of August 2020 and September 2020 was mostly set in stone back in the previous year, if you don't notice that. If I didn't plan it back in the day, I don't think I would ever got that MoTM (it would have been Destroyeraa most likely).
That was a story. It is a long story. It took me pains to get myself established in WPTC, but now here I am. If anyone could have invited me back in the year 2018, I would have rejected it like CyclonicallyDeranged, whom I believe has been driven out of Wikipedia. But coming to this year, I realized the benefits of joining the WikiProjects and now, as said by Hurricanehink, I became a vital editor for WPTC.
Hello CycloneFootball71. I'm here to invite you to help me work on this newsletter, and I see you as the most appropriate one for the task. I have set the publishing date into June 1 given your mental health status and the newsletter is nowhere near done yet. I have been working on this newsletter since February 8, but there is not much progress regarding the newsletter unlike The Frozen Times did. Anyway, take care of yourself and hope by the middle of this year you're all right. MarioJump83!13:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
hey @MarioJump83:! Thank you for the invite. I will definitely help work on the newsletter. Luckily, I have been feeling better now as well, and I am returning the Wikipedia more often now. Thanks again, I will help edit the newsletter. Stay safe, I hope you're doing well also.🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox14:39, 4 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Frozen Times is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Non-tropical storms. The newsletter aims to summarize recent developments and activities in the WikiProject, in addition to recent extratropical cyclone activity on a global scale. The Frozen Times has been running since its revival in March 2021, although the first issue was published in February 2008. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the mailing list. This issue of The Frozen Times covers all project-related events from February 2008–March 14, 2021. This edition's authors and editors are MarioJump83, HurricaneCovid, Shift674, and LightandDark2000. Past editions can be viewed here.
WikiProject Non-tropical storms: News and Developments
On the heels of the WikiProject Tropical cyclones revival from 2018–2020, MarioJump83 and LightandDark2000 took the initiative to formally revive this WikiProject on January 15, 2021. Not long afterward, on February 7, 2021, the WikiProject community came to the decision to revive the project newsletter as well. We decided to model the entire WikiProject after WPTC, following a similar format and creating similar project pages for use on WPNTS, since the two projects are closely tied. There was also general agreement among the active editors on WPNTS to coordinate work with WPTC, given the numerous overlaps between the two WikiProjects.
On February 4, 2021, the WPTC and WPNTS communities came together to include WPNTS articles in WPTC's annual competition, the Cyclone Cup, based on a suggestion from HurricaneCovid. The decision was made as a result of agreement between editors over how non-tropical storms (nor'easters, European windstorms, etc.) are cyclones too, and thus merit inclusion as well. WPNTS editors are now allowed and encouraged to participate in the Cyclone Cup, regardless of whether those editors are a part of WPTC or not. Currently, a number of WPNTS users are participating in the Cup, and we hope you will too!
On February 8, 2021, MarioJump83 introduced our project barnstar, which was accordingly named The Extra-Tropical Cyclone Barnstar. It was named based on a pun in which the "Tropical" word in The Tropical Cyclone Barnstar became more 'tropical', so much that it turned The Tropical Cyclone Barnstar to brown. (Hence the name "Extra-Tropical" and the brown cyclone icon). Since there were no barnstars that were shaped like a comma in the Meteorology barnstars category, we had to take one which is available.
On February 24, 2021, we came to the decision to model the project newsletter after the WPTC newsletter, The Hurricane Herald. The first step of that was to give our newsletter a name. Agreement was reached on February 24 to use LightandDark2000's suggested name, The Frozen Times, as the name of the WPNTS newsletter. HurricaneCovid assisted in the creation of the logo for the newsletter, and MarioJump83 aided the endeavor as well.
On March 9, 2021, HurricaneCovid first introduced the idea of modeling North American winter articles after tropical cyclone season articles. While a few editors rejected the idea at first, by the next day most users had shown their support for it and the plan was implemented. The improvements were done over a period of 3 days, mainly by HurricaneCovid and MarioProtIV, and involved the creation or modification of several templates, including a timeline, some new infoboxes, and a button template. The implementation of these new templates has only been completed in one season article, and is still unfinished in most.
New articles since the last newsletter
The number of new articles since the last issue are innumerable. Thus, we will not be able to list them all here.
MarioProtIV joined Wikipedia in 2014, although his activity really ramped up in late 2015. He formally joined this WikiProject in early February 2021, just after its revival. Since and before formally joining, he has been one of the most prolific editors in non-tropical storm articles, particularly being a major part of getting 2020–21 North American winter to greater quality and taking the initiative to constantly update the article, as well as other separate winter storm articles. He has also participated in and started several discussions within WPNTS, further influencing the quality of current event articles in the WikiProject. We would like to thank him for his outstanding work, and therefore jointly give him the Member of The Edition award.
HurricaneCovid joined Wikipedia in March 2020, though he began working with weather-related articles and joined WPTC in November. He joined WPNTS in January 2021, just before its revival, although he had begun actively editing extratropical cyclone articles in December 2020. He has been doing constant work on 2020–21 North American winter throughout the North American winter season so far. He has helped write much of the article, with aid from MarioProtIV, as well as numerous other articles for the most major storms. He was present throughout the barrage of winter storms and the Arctic air outbreak in North America, in mid-February, creating most of the articles for storms in that period. He also helped with the revival of the WikiProject, and it was partially his idea to model this newsletter after The Hurricane Herald. For his consistent work to WPNTS, we are jointly giving him the Member of The Edition award for this issue.
LightandDark2000 joined Wikipedia as an IP editor in May 2009, although he didn't register an user account until 3 years later, in May 2012. He became active on WPTC and WPNTS in 2013, formally joining the projects in 2014 and 2016, respectively. He is one of the most-senior active members on WPNTS, as most of the active participants joined in 2020 or 2021. Soon after formally joining, he largely stopped editing Wikipedia on storm-related articles, turning his attention to MILHIST from 2014–2017, and later took numerous WikiBreaks in 2016 and in 2019–2020, due to real-life activities and college. However, he began making a return to Wikipedia in July 2020, and since then, he has made a full return. In December 2020, he returned to WPNTS, with the start of the climatological winter in North America. He became a main part of the revival and resurrection of WPNTS from January–February 2021, assisting in efforts to revamp the project and helping to coordinate it. During this time, he continued his work on WPNTS articles, including during a historic outbreak of cold temperatures and a barrage of back-to-back winter storms in North America, in February. For his aid in the revival of this WikiProject, and his work on WPNTS articles, we are jointly giving him a modification of the MoTE award.
MarioJump83 first joined Wikipedia in 2013 as SMB99thx, although they first began working with storm-related articles in August 2020. They joined WPNTS in November 2020, quickly becoming the main coordinator and most active user in terms of getting the project restarted. They did outstanding work in terms of modeling the project after WPTC, with the aid of LightandDark2000, and got the project's act together. They took the initiative to formally restart the project in January 2021, and continued work restoring, improving, and creating project pages, including this newsletter. LightandDark2000 was along every step of the way, and helped out MarioJump83 create and improve project pages, modeling after WPTC. We would like to thank their outstanding work in getting the WikiProject together, and are thus jointly giving them a version of the MoTE award.
For the time being, there will be no user nominations, as this WikiProject is currently relatively small; however, once we gain enough participants, we will begin nominating members for MoTE.
Storms of The Edition over the last five newsletters
The February 13–17, 2021 North American winter storm, also referred to as Winter Storm Uri, was a strong and destructive winter storm that affected areas from the West Coast of the United States, through the Deep South and Northern Mexico, to the Northeast and Eastern Canada. The second of three major winter storms to affect the continent within the month, the system originated as a powerful low-pressure area in the Pacific and came ashore as a frontal system on February 13. The system then dived southward along a trough in the polar jet stream, while also strengthening, and began producing snowfall in the Deep South. The storm system then began expanding in terms of size, and the main low spawned a secondary low in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Florida on February 15. As the storm grew more organized, it spawned another low pressure center to the north on February 16, which quickly became the main low-pressure center. When the system exited the continent early on February 17, almost 75% of the continental U.S. was covered in snow, which almost broke a record. The newest low moved up the coast of Nova Scotia, beginning to strengthen faster along the way. It then began to quickly intensify, while approaching landfall on Newfoundland, reaching a central pressure of 985 millibars (29.1 inHg) by 12:00 UTC on that day. The system then began meandering across the Atlantic, while proceeding to strengthen further, reaching a peak intensity of 960 millibars (28 inHg) on February 19. Afterward, the storm then began weakening rapidly, dissipating southwest of Greenland on February 24.
The storm system resulted in over 170 million Americans being placed under winter weather alerts, reaching as far south as Galveston, Texas. The swath of snow and ice it produced stretched from Washington to Maine. It ranked as a Category 3 winter storm on the Regional Snowfall Index (RSI) scale, and it became the second of three Category 3+ winter storms to affect North America in February 2021. The system caused over 9.9 million power outages, with 5.2 million in the U.S. and 4.7 million in Mexico, making it the worst blackout event recorded in North America since the Northeast blackout of 2003. The hardest hit area by both the severe winter weather and long-term power outages was Texas, with the 2021 Texas power crisis taking place due to the storm. Some long-term power outages in areas of the Deep South lasted over one week long. It also brought destructive severe weather to parts of the Southeastern U.S., spawning five tornadoes, including an EF2 and a high-end EF3 tornado. In total, the storm resulted in at least 136 fatalities, with 124 in the U.S. and 12 in Mexico, making it the deadliest winter storm in decades. Damage from this system is estimated to cost at least $195 billion (2021 USD), making it the costliest winter storm on record, as well as one of the costliest natural disasters in the modern era.
Other significant storms
Post-Tropical Cyclone Zeta – The post-tropical remnants of Hurricane Zeta began interacting with another storm system on October 29, 2020, as rain overspread the Eastern U.S. However, as a cold front came through overnight allowing a blast of colder air, precipitation began switching over to snow in parts of New England. By the next day, the remnants of Zeta passed south of New England and moved out into the Atlantic, strengthening on the way. Zeta became the first tropical cyclone to produce accumulating snowfall as an extratropical storm since Hurricane Sandy, resulting in several thousand power outages in New England and up to 6.5 in (17 cm) of snow.
December 15–17, 2020 nor'easter (Winter Storm Gail) – The December 15–17, 2020 nor'easter, also unofficially referred to as Winter Storm Gail, the only Category 2 winter storm on the RSI scale in December, formed from a disorganized low pressure in the Southern Plains on December 14. The low pressure began organizing the next day, meandering east before it came offshore of the East Coast on December 16. It then rapidly intensified, reaching a peak intensity of 985 millibars (29.1 inHg) off the New England coast on December 17. The system then moved into the Atlantic, weakening slowly until dissipation on December 19. The nor'easter produced significant snowfall up to 15 in (38 cm) along the I-95 corridor, with over 3 ft (36 in) in parts of the interior Northeast. In total, it caused 7 fatalities and over 56,000 power outages. The nor'easter is estimated to have caused at least $125 million (2021 USD) in damages.
Storm Filomena – Storm Filomena, the eighth named storm of the 2020–21 European windstorm season, formed over the Atlantic near the Canary Islands on January 7, 2021. It then slowly meandered northeastward, crossing the Iberian Peninsula over the next few days, producing heavy snowfall on the way. The storm then accelerated east, reaching a peak intensity of 995 millibars (29.4 inHg) and crossing Italy and Greece from January 11–13. Filomena then began rapidly weakening, and dissipated in interior Europe on January 15. It was significant because of unusually heavy snow up to 24 in (61 cm) in the Iberian Peninsula, which caused a total of 5 fatalities. Filomena is estimated to have caused at least $2.2 billion (2021 USD) in damage.
January 31 – February 3, 2021 nor'easter (Winter Storm Orlena) – The January 31 – February 3, 2021 nor'easter, also unofficially referred to as Winter Storm Orlena, the first of three Category 3+ winter storms in February 2021, formed as a powerful low pressure off the Pacific coast on January 25. The slow-moving low pressure meandered off the U.S. West Coast for several days, causing an atmospheric river event and producing heavy rain and snow. On January 30, the weakening low pressure crossed the Rockies and moved into the Midwest, producing a second low pressure off the North Carolina coast on January 31. The second low slowly meandered up the East Coast from February 1–4, reaching a peak intensity of 985 millibars (29.1 inHg) on February 3. The system then accelerated into the Atlantic, weakening and dissipating on February 5. The system caused up to 100 in (250 cm) of snow in the Sierra Nevada and 18–24 in (46–61 cm) in both the Boston and New York City metro areas. In total, it caused 7 fatalities and resulted in over 575,000 power outages. The system is estimated to have caused at least $100 million (2021 USD) in damages.
February 15–20, 2021 North American winter storm (Winter Storm Viola) – The February 15–20, 2021 North American winter storm, also unofficially referred to as Winter Storm Viola, the last of three Category 3+ winter storms in February 2021, formed on February 14 as a strong low pressure in the Pacific. The next day, the weakening low came ashore in the West Coast and the main low spawned several other low pressures on February 15, connected by a series of fronts. One of the low pressures to the south quickly took over, moving east over the next few days. It then spawned another low pressure to the east, which moved up the East Coast from February 18–19, becoming a nor'easter. The low reached an initial peak of 990 mb (29 inHg) as it exited the coast on February 19. The system then bombed out, reaching a peak intensity of 952 millibars (28.1 inHg) on February 22. It then slowly began to weaken, while moving northeastward, and dissipating on February 26. The storm brought a second round of snow and ice to the Deep South just days after another destructive storm came through the same areas. In total, the storm resulted in at least 29 fatalities and caused over 4 million power outages. The system is likely to have caused approximately $1 billion (2021 USD) in damage.
New WikiProject members
More information can be found here. The following list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the last issue.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the tasks or to-do lists towards the bottom of the newsletter for tasks that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
Note that most of the members listed here are inactive now, with the majority of them moved having been moved into the inactive list.
Featured Content Update
New featured articles (February 2008–March 14, 2021)
Assessments are valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics.
As of this issue, there are 8 featured articles and 1 featured list. There are 21 good articles, but only 1 A-class article, perhaps because most articles of that quality already passed an FA review. There are 53 B-class articles, 110 C-class articles, 172 start-class articles, and 52 stub-class articles, with 14 lists. These figures mean that roughly one-fifth of the project is rated B-class or better. Tropical Storm Rolf was the 20th GA in the project.
The following is the current progress on the two milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. Updates on the following goals can also be found on the project home page.
Since this is the first issue of The Frozen Times since the revival of WPNTS, I thought we should have an opinion piece detailing the reasons based on which the revival took place. And the project member who would know these reasons the best would be none other than the main resurrector of the WikiProject, MarioJump83! HurricaneCovid(contribs)
Hello, WikiProject Non-tropical storms! I am the one who first took the initiative of this WikiProject's revival. While most of my work here is mostly related to maintenance work and some coordinating before resigning after the revival of this newsletter (I would like to say that LightandDark2000 is the coordinator of the project now given he is the only active member to join before 2020), there are reasons why I took the initiative to revive the project.
Firstly, WPTC members, for some reason that was unclear to me, began joining the project in droves beginning in late 2020 and continuing into 2021. This surprised me since normally, people don't join defunct WikiProjects in large numbers. Secondly, many WPTC members, many of them based in either the United States or Europe, continue to edit extratropical cyclone articles, even when climatological winter ends in the Northern Hemisphere. This suggests that there is a space for WPNTS to spring up once again. Third and lastly, WPNTS-covered articles are quite active for a defunct WikiProject. I honestly think that this WikiProject shouldn't have been considered defunct in the first place.
Ultimately, these reasons drove me to revive the WikiProject on the heels of Wikipedia's 20th anniversary on January 15, 2021. It's short, but it's what I can say for the reasons why I came to the decision to revive this WikiProject. I hope this WikiProject lasts for a long time, even when I'm not present as part of it. MarioJump83!
This is your April Fools' warning, you are currently being civil and kind with others. Please do not stop. If you do stop, you may be blocked from editing with further notice. This is obviously a pattern of behavior that has continued for many months now. Don't stop. We are grateful for your kind demeanor. Anyway, happy April Fools Day (in UTC). Got you!CodingCyclone!🌀📘02:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if I can help make you feel better, but here's this kitten for you. I'm really sorry about the chaos and negative conduct on WPTC recently. I know that we can't control the actions of others, but it's still horrible that stuff like this has happened on WPTC. Dealing with LTAs is one thing, but seeing our own members at each others' throats is a completely different kind of threat. And it's very distressing to watch. I truly hope that this storm will pass soon, and it is my belief that it will. BTW, I finally managed to convince Destroyeraa to return when he gets out of school this summer. It was very hard (I kid you not, his faith in WPTC was shattered and he really wanted to leave for good), but I've managed to convince him to give it another shot. He's doing it mostly for those of us who saw him as a friend or a role-model, including the two of us. Of course, the chaos on our WikiProject has to end first for that to happen. And I'm planning to help put an end to it. Because if things stay as they are, or if they continue to spiral out of control, then I will be leaving as well. I hope I managed to make your day at least a little bit better. Hang in there. The tough times will pass. Your friend,
@LightandDark2000:, Thank you for the kitten, it did make me feel a bit better. I know it isn't your fault that all of this is happening, but I appreciate the apology. I agree that it is horrible that this is going on, and I hope that we can get things back to normal. I am very saddened that our own editors are being so aggressive, and I agree that it is horrible to see. I also agree with you in the belief that the storm will pass. I am very happy to hear that you were able to convince Destroyeraa to eventually come back, as he is a vital editor for the WPTC and a good friend, as are you. I definitely believe that you when you say that he was going to leave for good, because the recent events have really shown to be discouraging for many. I will also try to help anyway I can to put an end to the chaos, after a take a short break away from WP. Thank you for sending me a kitten because it definitely helped me feel better now. Thank you again, and I hope you hang in there as well. Thanks friend
The Hurricane Herald is the semi-regular newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The newsletter aims to provide in summary the recent activities and developments of the WikiProject, in addition to global tropical cyclone activity. The Hurricane Herald has been running since its first edition on June 4, 2006. If you wish to receive or discontinue subscription to this newsletter, please visit the member list. New members will automatically receive this newsletter. This issue of The Hurricane Herald covers all project related events from March 1–April 30, 2021. This edition's editors and authors are MarioJump83, Chicdat, Super Cyclonic Storm Corona, HurricaneEdgar, Dam222, AwesomeHurricaneBoss, LightandDark2000, LowercaseGuy (one of the editor's picks for Member of the Month), and our Members of the Month, CycloneFootball71, and CodingCyclone! Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve the newsletter and other cyclone-related articles. Past editions, including past MoTMs and SoTMs, can be viewed here.
After Destroyeraa became inactive (due to school), Hurricane Noah took on the role of the main judge of the Cyclone Cup, starting from the final week of Round 1. He clarified the rules, making it clear that completing a secondary review for Featured or Good Articles, or bringing an article to a peer review was not a way to get points; instead, you have to be the original reviewer of that article. However, for FAs, GAs, and A-Class articles, those who nominate and improve those articles to promotion will earn points for their promotion. This was done to make the Cyclone Cup's rules run closer to those of the WikiCup. In addition, the lengths of Rounds 3 and 4 were extended, to make them more uniform. Rounds 1–3 now last 2 & 1/2 months each, while Round 4 lasts for 2 months, pushing back the end of the Cyclone Cup to October 31. After Noah became the main judge, the first round of the Cyclone Cup ended at 11:59 p.m. UTC on March 31, 2021. LightandDark2000 was the leader in the first round, with 110 points, mainly due to him creating several new articles and getting Tropical Storm Rolf to GA status. MarioJump83 and HurricaneCovid also scored a lot of points this round, raking in 85 and 70 points, respectively. Jason Rees and CodingCyclone also qualified, with 15 and 10 points, respectively. Skarmory and CycloneFootball71 were eliminated for not having any points and also for not ranking in the top 5.
On April 6, 2021, WPTC was notified of an ongoing process to merge all meteorology projects (except WikiProject Climate Change) into one, WikiProject Weather. This was because many of the weather-related WikiProjects (excluding WPTC) have long suffered from inactivity and a lack of active members. Once merged, the project would run in a similar way to the Military History WikiProject, meaning that it would be a large WikiProject with a broad scope, and the individual WikiProjects would become large Task Forces within the broader WikiProject. The former WikiProjects will essentially continue to function as they do now; the biggest differences will be in the names of the former WikiProjects/new Task Forces and also how the relevant articles are categorized, in addition to more coordination and pooling of resources. The current Task Forces within each WikiProject will also continue to exist, as subdivisions under the larger, primary Task Forces within the Weather WikiProject. The merging process is expected to take a few months as of this issue (May 1, 2021). The actual merger will not be completed until everything is ready.
Over the past couple of months, WPTC and some of the other Weather WikiProjects went through a period of turmoil, mostly involving perennial edit-warring and hostile behavior from some users (including a handful from outside of the Weather WikiProjects). The negative environment created by these events led two WPTC members to retire (one of whom later opened up to returning) and several others to either go on WikiBreaks or withdraw in some other way. While the worst of the troubles have passed, the WikiProject is still recovering from the fallout. There will be more monitoring of users within and outside of the WikiProject to prevent incidents like these from recurring in the future.
Sennecaster found some extensive copyvio in quite a few articles under the scope of WPTC, with quite a few coming from WPac articles. She notified the project in late April, and there are a few editors working on finding, removing and reporting copyvio. All articles must be checked as part of this sweep. If you are able to help, your service would be greatly appreciated, Please note that you must contact Sennecaster or someone else who is experienced in fixing copyvio before starting. In addition, please get Sennecaster's consent before starting, as the project is going on in her userspace.
In this edition of Hurricane Herald, I (MarioJump83, one of the Hurricane Herald editors) am going to pick Akbermamps and LowercaseGuy. Both of them contributed to nearly all of the new articles since the publishing of the last issue (and also they contributed to the last issue itself). All of these articles primarily covered the Western Pacific basin, but also they worked on missing Tropical cyclones in xxxx articles and Southern Hemisphere articles. They both were driving factors in some of the greatest growth the WPTC has ever seen since Issues 42, 43, and 44. Both of them are hard workers, who remain civil, and treat others with kindness, despite hardships. Akbermamps also has reverted many nonconstructive edits from many different articles, plus they have made many great edits to tropical cyclone articles, as said above. LowercaseGuy also has made many great edits, per above, plus they have kept the newsletter up to date with all of the new article creations, new GA's, and A-class articles within the project. Because of this, I can only say that I am very proud of them!
Since the last issue of this newsletter, I have noticed that there is an uptick of activity involving 2018 Global FT topic recently. Hurricane Noah came back from almost-retirement, then afterwards improved Hurricane Olivia (2018) into A-class, 2018 Pacific hurricane season within striking distance of it and Timeline of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season potentially became the second featured list we are going to have this year. Meanwhile, I have been focusing all of my efforts in WPTC at improving Cyclone Owen, by Chicdat, into GA status and end all drama between him and all other WPTC editors. Two MoTMs that I have personally picked, Akbermamps and LowercaseGuy, joined the fray (not joining us officially) and improved some 2018 Pacific typhoon season articles that I have created, including the creation of both two articles listed above (and as of right now, Akbermamps is building up Timeline of the 2018 Pacific typhoon season article in his sandbox). I'm very glad to see this happening and I hope this newly found activity could be kept up in the next two months. During these months, I am hoping that Noah might make efforts at improving Hurricane Bud (2018) towards FA eventually. MarioJump83!
We are recruiting
If you are interested in writing new articles, promoting articles to GA, or helping with the FAC review process for the Global 2018 FT project, please reach out to LightandDark2000 or any other member of the 2018 FT task force.
Citation needed:
Make sure articles such as Pacific hurricane and Tropical cyclones in year articles are cited properly. (LightandDark2000 has provided a tutorial for citing sources in his opinion piece.)
Expand:
Newer tropical cyclone intensity list articles, Seasonal summaries and global condition sections for nearly every tropical cyclones by year articles, Pacific hurricane season timelines and earlier season articles in 1950s, 1941/1942/1943/1944 Pacific typhoon seasons, Tropical cyclones in Indonesia, most of the List of named storms articles, and most of the WPAC Storm articles created in August and September 2020
Cyclone Niran originated from a developing tropical low off the coast of Queensland on February 27. Afterward, the system slowly began to strengthen, while making a slow clockwise loop, bringing heavy flooding to parts of Queensland. On March 1, the system strengthened into a Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Australian region basin scale, and was given the name Niran by the BoM. On March 3, Niran began to undergo rapid intensification as it began accelerating away from the Australian coast, towards the southeast. On March 5, Niran crossed over into the FMS's area of responsibility, in the South Pacific basin. Soon afterward, the cyclone reached its peak intensity as a Category 5 tropical cyclone on both the Australian region scale and the Saffir–Simpson scale (SSHWS), with maximum 10-minute sustained winds of 205 km/h (125 mph), maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 mph), and a central minimum pressure of 931 millibars (27.5 inHg). Several hours later, Niran underwent an eyewall replacement cycle and encountered wind shear, which caused the storm to begin weakening. The storm continued moving towards the southeast at a rapid pace, and on March 6, the storm struck the island of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, as a Category 3-equivalent tropical cyclone on the SSHWS, although the storm's eye stayed offshore. On March 6, Niran transitioned into an extratropical cyclone, and two days later, Niran was absorbed into another larger extratropical storm to the south. Niran caused at least $200 million (2021 USD) in damages, the vast majority of which came from banana crop damage in Queensland. No deaths were reported from the storm.
On March 19, the BoM began monitoring a developing tropical low to the south of Timor, which they designated as 22U. On April 3, the system fully developed into a tropical low. For the next couple of days, the system made a slow counterclockwise loop over a part Indonesia and over Timor, gradually strengthening as it did so, causing torrential floods that killed at least 229 people. On April 4, the system strengthened into a Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Australian region scale and was named Seroja by TCWC Jakarta. On April 5, Seroja began moving southwestward, away from Indonesia. The storm encountered wind shear during this time, but the storm maintained tropical cyclone intensity. On April 7, Seroja began closely interacting with Tropical Low 23U to the northeast, which later became Cyclone Odette, as a result of the Fujiwhara effect. The two storms began closely interacting on April 8, as the two storms drew closer to each other. The interaction initially caused both storms to weaken, though Seroja eventually restrengthen and 23U strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Odette later that day. However, soon afterward, Seroja became the stronger storm and begen to absorb Odette into its circulation. On April 10, Seroja absorbed Odette, before turning to the southeast and strengthening again. The system continued stregthening up until landfall, and the system made landfall on April 12 near Gregory, Western Australia, at peak intensity, as a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone on the Australian region scale and a Category 1-equivalent tropical cyclone on the Saffir–Simpson scale. Afterward, Seroja weakened as it moved inland, and the system transitioned into an extratropical storm, before emerging into the Great Australian Bight. Later that day, Seroja was absorbed by a larger extratropical cyclone to the south. Seroja killed at least 229 people and left another 102 missing, making it the third-deadliest tropical cyclone recorded in the Australian region basin. The storm also caused over $490.7 million (2021 USD) in damages.
Typhoon Surigae near peak intensity on April 17
Western Pacific – On March 14, a short-lived tropical depression formed near the Philippines, before dissipating later that day. On April 12, Typhoon Surigae, the fourth depression, second named storm, and first typhoon of the 2021 Pacific typhoon season, formed on April 12. It began a period of rapid intensification on April 16, undergoing a brief eyewall replacement cycle, and reaching its peak intensity on April 17, becoming the most intense typhoon to form in the month of April. At its peak, the storm had a minimum central pressure of 895 mbar (895.0 hPa; 26.43 inHg), maximum 10-minute sustained winds of 220 km/h (140 mph), and maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 305 km/h (190 mph), making the storm a powerful Category 5-equivalent super typhoon on the Saffir–Simpson scale (SSHWS). Afterward, the storm underwent two eyewall replacement cycles, after which the storm became annular by April 20, with a symmetrical shape and a large eye, while moving northwestward, off the coast of the Philippines. Afterward, the storm gradually began to weaken, and its structure began to degrade on April 22, as the system turned northeastward. Weakening accelerated after that, as the storm encountered more unfavorable conditions. Surigae transitioned into a subtropical storm on April 23, before becoming extratropical on the next day. On April 26, Surigae's extratropical remnant underwent explosive intensification as it accelerated northeastward, reaching an extratropical peak of 944 mbar (944.0 hPa; 27.88 inHg) on April 27, as a powerful hurricane-force extratropical cyclone. Afterward, Surigae's remnant gradually weakened, as it turned eastward. On April 30, Surigae's low-pressure center dissipated and was replaced by a new one later that day, marking a center reformation, with the new low-pressure center quickly dominating the storm. Afterward, Surigae's remnants moved into the Gulf of Alaska, before slowing down and turning to the northwest, while rapidly weakening. On May 2, the storm was absorbed into another extratropical cyclone near the Aleutian Islands, on May 2. Late on May 6, this storm was absorbed into yet another extratropical cyclone to the southeast, within the Gulf of Alaska. Surigae brought tropical storm-force winds to Micronesia and Palau and grazed the Philippines as a powerful storm, causing over $10.45 million in damages in U.S. dollars and running the cargo ship LCU Cebu Great Ocean aground, killing 10 people and leaving 8 others missing.
North Indian Ocean – On April 2, Depression BOB 01, the first storm of the season, developed over the Andaman Sea. For the next couple of days, the storm slowly moved northward, towards Myanmar, before dissipating on the next day.
Australian region – Cyclone Marian moved into the South-West Indian Ocean basin on March 1, before moving back into the Australian region basin on the next day. The storm gradually weakened while moving southeastward, before becoming an extratropical cyclone on March 9. Cyclone Niran, which had formed on February 27, peaked as a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone on March 5, before exiting the basin into the South Pacific basin soon afterward. The storm damaged many of the banana crops in Queensland, causing at least $180 million (2021 USD) in damages in Australia. During the remainder of the month of March, Tropical Lows 18U, 19U, 20U, and 21U formed, but each of those storms dissipated without ever having any significant impacts. On April 2, Tropical Low 23U formed around Indonesia, followed by Tropical Low 22U on April 3; these storms developed into Cyclones Odette and Seroja, respectively. 23U gradually moved southward, before interacting with Cyclone Seroja on April 8, and strengthened into Cyclone Odette later that day. However, the storm was gradually drawn into Seroja's circulation, and on April 10, Odette was absorbed into Seroja. Tropical Low 22U made a slow counterclockwise loop over Indonesia and over Timor from April 2 to 5, causing destructive flooding, and killing at least 229 people. The system strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Seroja on April 4. On April 5, Seroja began to leave Indonesia and moved southwestward. From April 8 to 10, Seroja interacted with the nearby Cyclone Odette, before absorbing the latter on April 10, and turning southeastward. Soon afterward, Seroja strengthened further into a Category 1-equivalent tropical cyclone, strengthening all the way until its landfall near Gregory, Western Australia on April 11. The system became extratropical on April 12 and re-emerged over open water, before being absorbed into another extratropical cyclone later that day. On April 9, a short-lived tropical low formed, before dissipating later that day. On April 23, yet another short-lived tropical low developed, before dissipating on the next day. This was the last storm of the season. The season officially ended on April 30.
South-West Indian Ocean – On March 1, Cyclone Marian briefly entered the basin. During that time, MFR decided to defer advisories to the BoM, as the cyclone was expected to re-enter the Australian Region within a short period of time. On March 2, it exited the South-West Indian Ocean basin. The same day, the precursor to Cyclone Habana formed as well as an invest which would become Cyclone Iman. Habana was named 2 days later, and Iman was named on March 7. Cyclone Habana stayed out to sea and did not cause any known damage or deaths. It was quite long lived, spanning 2 weeks and reaching Intense Tropical Cyclone (and Category 4-equivalent) intensity. On the other hand, Cyclone Iman made landfall in Madagascar and Réunion, causing moderate rainfall in the former country and flash floods and heavy winds in the latter. Tropical Depression 15, a brief storm, also formed in late March. After a period of inactivity, Moderate Tropical Storm Jobo was named on April 20. For the next several days, the storm tracked westward, before weakening into a remnant low on April 24 and making landfall on Tanzania shortly afterward. The storm dissipated later that day. On April 30, the season ended for most of the basin, except for the region around Mauritius and Seychelles, for which the season will end on May 15.
South Pacific – On March 5, Tropical Depression 11F formed to the southeast of Port Vila, Vanuatu, before dissipating on the next day. On March 5, Cyclone Niran also entered the basin from the Australian region basin, as a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone. The storm gradually weakened as it quickly moved to the southeast, before striking the island of Grande Terre in New Caledonia as a Category 3-equivalent tropical cyclone on March 6. Afterward, the storm raced off towards the southeast and became extratropical later that day, before dissipating on March 8. Niran did at least $20 million in damages in New Caledonia, bringing the storm's damage total to at least $200 million. The storm did not have any reported deaths. On April 9, a tropical low entered the basin from the Australian region basin, which became Tropical Depression 13F. For the next couple of days, the system moved southeastward, making landfall on New Caledonia in the process, and strengthening after it moved back over open waters. However, the system rapidly weakened on April 11 and dissipated later that day. On April 24, the JTWC began monitoring a subtropical system in the eastern part of the basin, which they classified as Subtropical Cyclone 96P. The system was short-lived, as it dissipated late on the next day. No more storms developed in the basin that month. On April 30, the season officially ended.
South Atlantic – According to the Brazilian Navy, an extratropical system transitioned into a subtropical depression on April 19. On April 20, the system strengthened into a subtropical storm and was named Potira. The system slowly moved towards the southeast, before dissipating on April 25.
In this edition of Hurricane Herald, we present CycloneFootball71 and CodingCyclone as the Members of the Month. Both users joined Wikipedia and WPTC in the year 2020, and they helped us navigate into a better place during the COVID-19 pandemic and during the WPTC conflicts in 2020 and 2021. Their participation lifted and maintained our spirits during the tense situations and what's happening in the world. CycloneFootball71 is the kindest WPTC member we have ever seen, actively giving out barnstars and writing out statements that can be considered as "motivational", never targeting anyone, while also making contributions to articles, and participating in talk-page discussions, and occasionally, reverting vandalism. CodingCyclone, meanwhile, gave Wiki-project Tropical Cyclones the first featured list in years, and she helps out with wording, current cyclones, and other neglected timelines, and all around is kind, and thoughtful to everyone within the Wikipedia community. She is someone who has matured to become a great, and experienced editor here. We thank her for all of her contributions, and hope she continues to keep up the great work, and kindness.
Unfortunately, 2020 was not a kind year for the two of them, particularly for CycloneFootball71, as he suffered from numerous illnesses, a few injuries, the loss of a friend (offwiki) and he retired (though he came back, thankfully) numerous times; these troubles even continued into 2021. Meanwhile, CodingCyclone stayed, but she entered a semi-WikiBreak, due to real life matters she had to attend to. However, both of them are editing at full speed now, and helped us realize what 2021 should be, full of hope and a better year than 2020 was.
New WikiProject Members since the last newsletter
More information can be found here. This list lists members who have joined/rejoined the WikiProject since the release of the last issue. Sorted chronologically.
To our new members: welcome to the project, and happy editing! Feel free to check the to-do list at the bottom right of the newsletter for things that you might want to work on. To our veteran members: thank you for your edits and your tireless contributions!
JavaHurricane, one of the prominent Wikipedia rollbackers since 2019, decided to quit WikiProject Tropical cyclones in April 7, 2021 after series of arguments regarding how the merger of Tropical storms Amanda and Cristobal was handled (though this was later resolved). This followed a series of events that included numerous edit wars, hostile interactions (involving both members and non-members of the Weather WikiProjects), incompetence issues, and trouble dealing with a number of serial vandals. These issues added on more and more stress to some of our members, with the botched handling of the Amanda/Cristobal merger being the last straw, which culminated in several WPTC members, especially the younger ones, to leave the project. Destroyeraa decided to fully retire from Wikipedia, but LightandDark2000 managed to get him consider rejoining WPTC after a lengthy series of off-wiki discussions, contingent upon the WikiProject improving its conduct. A MoTM of this edition, CycloneFootball71 also decided to retire, following the decision of Destroyeraa to quit WPTC, but quickly reconsidered and instead took an indefinite WikiBreak, which later became a Semi-WikiBreak. LightandDark2000 himself also considered quitting from WPTC and leaving Wikipedia entirely (since WPTC activities are his primary reason for being on Wikipedia in the first place), but he decided to stay for now (unless things continue to grow worse, in which case, a full retirement as a registered user is likely). Another MoTM, CodingCyclone, went on a semi-WikiBreak instead of quitting like some of others did.
Although the worst of the turmoil seems to be over now, WPTC is still slowly recovering from the damage. However, it is clear, unfortunately, that JavaHurricane will not return to the project, due to the loss of faith and time. We hope that this will never happen again. To JavaHurricane himself: thank you. Thanks for all the edits you've made in 2020 and in 2021. You are one of the building blocks that led to the WPTC revival last year. Without you, we would have had more difficulty combating some of the LTAs we've recently dealt with. You've made plenty of quality improvements and also carried out a decent amount of anti-vandalism activities. If you ever wish to rejoin the project, you will always be welcome here. We wish you luck in your future endeavors.
Featured Content
From March 1 to April 30, one featured list was promoted.
Tropical Storm Rolf, also known as Tropical Storm 01M, was an unusual Mediterranean tropical storm that brought flooding to Italy, France, Spain, and Switzerland in November 2011. Rolf originated from an extratropical system near western France on November 4. For the next few days, Rolf moved eastward into the Mediterranean Sea, before making a slow clockwise loop off the coast of France. Despite the generally unfavorable conditions in the Mediterranean Sea, Rolf transitioned into a subtropical depression on November 7, before becoming a tropical storm later that day and turning northeastward. On November 8, Rolf reached its peak intensity, with 1-minute sustained winds peaking at 85 km/h (50 mph, 45 kn) and a minimum central pressure of 991 mb (29.3 inHg). During the next day, the storm turned westward and made landfall on the island of Île du Levant, in France, and soon afterward, near Hyères in southeastern France. Following its second landfall, Rolf quickly weakened, dissipating on November 10. Rolf was the first tropical cyclone ever to be officially monitored by the NOAA in the Mediterranean Sea.
Rolf caused widespread flooding across southwestern Europe, especially in France and Italy, with the majority of the damage from the storm occurring in those two countries. Torrential rainfall from Rolf caused multiple rivers to overflow their banks in France and Italy, flooding multiple cities and resulting in extensive property damage. The storm forced numerous schools and businesses to close temporarily, and also caused significant damage to 300 farms in France. Floodwaters from Rolf's rainfall also cut the power to over 8,000 customers and necessitated thousands of rescues, in addition to forcing thousands of evacuations. The storm also caused the largest flood event seen in Gipuzkoa, in northern Spain since 1983. Rolf killed 12 people, and the storm was also the costliest Mediterranean tropical-like cyclone in the 2010s, with the storm causing at least $1.25 billion (2011 USD, €925 million) in damages.
Current assessment table
Assessments valid as of this printing. Depending on when you may be viewing this newsletter, the table may be outdated. See here for the latest, most up to date statistics. As of this issue, there are 166 featured articles and 70 featured lists. There are 135 A-class articles, and 1,012 good articles. There are only 120 B-class articles, perhaps because because most articles of that quality already passed a GA review. There are 416 C-class articles, 832 start-class articles, and 200 stub-class articles, with 27 lists, and 7 current articles. These figures mean that slightly more than half of the project is rated a GA or better. Typhoon Warren was the 1000th GA in the project.
The following is the current progress on the three milestone goals set by the WikiProject as of this publishing. They can be found, updated, at the main WikiProject page.
How to Cite Sources on Tropical Cyclone Articles, by LightandDark2000
In my years of experiences here on WPTC (and on Wikipedia, in general), I've noticed that citing sources properly is a skillset that many editors are lacking in. While a good number of the experienced editors are familiar with how to fill out citations on Wikipedia, this is something that the most of the newer editors struggle with, especially those who have never written a research paper before. Given the influx of new members in WPTC over the past year, I've decided to write a simple tutorial on how to properly complete citations in tropical cyclone articles.
First of all, lets start with a standard citation template. This format will be used for the vast majority of citations on tropical cyclone articles: <ref>{{cite web|url=|title=|website=|author=
|publisher=|location=|date=|access-date=}}</ref>
Every citation template is enclosed by the "<ref></ref>" tags. Since we are using a reference template instead of a bare citation, we also have double brackets enclosing the interior of the template. We are citing a web page, so we will enter in "cite web" after the first set of brackets. You can either type out the entire template manually, copy and paste the citation template from above, or use a citation tool (if you know how to use those).
To cite this source, first, create or paste the citation template above right after the chunk where you want to cite it (immediately after the period, comma, or whatever punctuation mark is present). Copy the website url (https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2020/al09/al092020.update.08040316.shtml) and paste it after "url=". For NHC and CPHC advisories, please DO NOT EVER use the live/refresh links. Those links are unstable and change each time a new advisory is issued. Only use the links from the Advisory Archives, such as this archive for 2020.
Next, copy the title of the advisory and paste it after "title=". The advisory/discussion titles for NHC publications are near the top of the page, below the page heading and below the first lines of text identifying the publication. For NHC publications, the title is located on the third line of text, on the second "paragraph" or group of text. The title for this advisory is "Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update".
If the source is in a language other than English, then we will also add the "|language=" parameter and specify the language. However, if the source is in English, then this parameter isn't needed.
Then, enter in the website title or url for the "website=". For most citations, we use either the "website=" or "publisher=" parameter instead of using both of them; however, we can use them both if the title of the website is significantly different from the name of the publisher. In this example, the website url is "nhc.noaa.gov", so we would enter in this url address after "website=" if we were to use this parameter.
After that, enter in the name of the author. We either use the "Last name, First name (and middle initial)" format, or the "Full name (first and last names)" format. Use only one format for consistency. For this example, we will use the "full name" format, as it would naturally appear on print. If there are more than one author, we would add a number after the "author=" parameter, such as "author1=". There are three authors for this advisory, whose last names are: Brown, Zelinsky, and Beven. Simply entering in the last name is NOT ENOUGH. We need their full names. For the NHC and NWS employees, you may need to do a little bit of research to find out their full names (or ask another more experienced editor here on WPTC), which isn't that difficult. A quick Google search shows that their full names are: Daniel Brown, David Zelinsky, and Jack Beven. So then, fill out the author portion of the citation template as follows: "author1=Daniel Brown|author2=David Zelinsky|author3=Jack Beven".
Then, enter in the name of the publisher, at "publisher=". For our example, this would be the National Hurricane Center. Since this is an official advisory/bulletin involving a government agency/organization, we also need to fill out the "location=" parameter to indicate the location of the agency's headquarters (we don't need this parameter for citing standard news articles or webpages). The NHC is based in Miami, Florida, so we would fill out the next part of the citation as "location=Miami, Florida".
After you have completed the previous steps, enter in both the date and the access-date. We use either the "Month Day, Year" format or the "Day Month Year" format for our citations (the name of the month is fully written out). For the sake of consistency, please use ONLY ONE format. It should remain consistent throughout the article. For this example, we will use the "Month Day, Year" format used in American English, since the NHC's areas of responsibility primarily involve the United States and the Western Hemisphere. The "date" is the date on which the publication or article was published. We use UTC time to determine the date. The advisory was published on 11:15 EDT on August 3, 2020. This is roughly equivalent to 03:15 UTC on August 4, 2020, so the date is "August 4, 2020". The accessdate is the day on which YOU accessed or read the publication. Let's say that you read the advisory on August 6, UTC time. Then, the accessdate would be "August 6, 2020". The dates for this citation should be filled out in this manner: "date=August 4, 2020|access-date=August 6, 2020"
Once you have done all of this, your completed citation should have the following code: <ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2020/al09/
al092020.update.08040316.shtml |title=Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update|website=nhc.noaa.gov|author1=Daniel Brown|author2=David Zelinsky|author3=Jack Beven|publisher=National Hurricane Center|location=Miami, Florida|date=August 4, 2020|access-date=August 6, 2020|language=en-US}}</ref>
With this tutorial, hopefully you now know how to properly cite sources within tropical cyclone articles. Properly citing sources is a crucial skill on Wikipedia. It allows you to make complete, professional references that can be accessed and reused by just about any other editor. Additionally, creating incomplete or improper citations forces other more experienced users to clean up after you, which not only wastes time, but also prevents an article from becoming a Good Article or Featured Article until these issues are completely resolved. Citing sources is an important skill and one that every experienced editor is expected to master. Citing sources takes time to learn, so don't be discouraged if you don't fully master the art at the beginning. As with everything else in life, new skills require "practice" to perfect, and as you cite more and more sources, you'll find that citing sources becomes easier and faster for you. I hope you find this guide useful in your journey on Wikipedia. May it help mold you into a superb writer, like many other experienced editors who have come before you. Best of luck, and happy editing! ~ LightandDark2000 🌀
^Daniel Brown; David Zelinsky; Jack Beven (August 4, 2020). "Hurricane Isaias Tropical Cyclone Update". nhc.noaa.gov. Miami, Florida: National Hurricane Center. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
Destroyeraa registered his account on Wikipedia in January 2020. He gained experience like all of us, and received several user rights in the process. He improved several articles to GA status, the first being Hurricane Dolores (2015). He made WikiProject Tropical cyclones a good place to be. He made some mistakes, of course, but learned from them quickly. But by 2021, real life seemed to be catching up to Destroyeraa. He went into periods of semi-wikibreaks. His editing became more sporadic. He has not edited since March 3, 2021. WikiProject Tropical cyclones has experienced plenty of turmoil since then, especially in late March and early April. Some users have been very hostile. There has been copyright problems. Drama is being created. With the exception of a few remarks by LightandDark2000 on-wiki, the project has not heard from him for a long time. I wish that he would come back, and I miss him. When Destroyeraa went, it seems that the short revival of WikiProject Tropical cyclones went with him as well. I came as the renewal of WPTC was beginning, so I knew no other state of the project.
To Destroyeraa himself: Please come back. You made the WikiProject a good place to be. I miss you so much; you were like a real life friend. ~ 🐔ChicdatBawk to me!
Destroyeraa was the person who invited me to the project. Like many others, his hard work and diligence made him a role model to me. Without him, I probably wouldn't be where I am today. He gave me advice when I was trying to improve Hurricane Fran (which I never completed, but would like to do as an honor to him) and helped me realize some of my earlier edits were a bit CIR-y and disruptive (albeit unintentionally). He was always unfailingly civil and helped other editors when they were down. He also created the Cyclone Cup which is actually really fun and something that I personally would never have thought of, and is helping to drive some people to create and improve more articles. To me, he was a symbol of the rebirth of WPTC. When he left, it seemed as though that age disappeared. I know that real life always takes precedence over Wikipedia, but hopefully he can figure out how to balance the two and come back soon. CodingCyclone!🌀📘
Destroyeraa has had a profound effect on the WPTC. He has been so helpful and kind throughout his time on Wikipedia, and I want to thank him for that. He has done so much for us throughout his time here, and Wikipedia has not been the same for the project since he left. He has helped me through lots, during some very difficult times, and he has been a great friend. He helped me create my first Opinion piece ever, which helped me get into editing these newsletters for the editors of this project. Despite some mistakes, he overcame these and became even better than before, and he really inspired me to improve myself in the realm of editing tropical cyclones. He did so much for this project, and me and the rest of this Wikiproject want to thank him for all that he has done. I am not sure what else to say, as Chicdat and CodingCyclone said everything that was in my mind. However, he was a great friend. Destroyeraa, you will be missed here on Wikipedia. I hope one day you may return and regain your faith in WPTC again, but for now, I only hope and wish for the absolute best for your life. Thank you again. 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox
Destroyeraa brought me to speed during my initial WPTC tenure as SMB99thx, since I was not that active in my first years and also not aware of Wikipedia's changing guards, like newer users having advanced permissions so quickly, having many user scripts, very communicative on-and-off-wiki (i.e. using Discord), and so much more that I don't understand back when I first joined in WPTC. By learning from him, eventually, I did have the same advanced permissions like his up to last month, having many user-scripts, as well as using a custom theme for Wikipedia, which is not Vector, and its very cool! Without him, I may have been going into a path Chicdat is currently taking right now, as Chicdat wasn't able to stay as a page mover and a rollbacker early in his Wikipedia career, then got into several troubles which led me into adopting him. Now, I am going to give him lessons that I learned from Destroyeraa himself. Other than that, I don't have anything much to say about him, but I hope he's back again to help me once more, and bring me further growth as an editor going forward, which could potentially assist me at shepherding Chicdat into a better place. MarioJump83!
The others above have pretty much captured what I would like to say, and since Destroyeraa and I have stayed in contact off-wiki, I'll make this brief. Destroyeraa was a one-of-a-kind. I've been here for 12 years now, and I have to say that I've rarely ever come across someone like him; even less so in real life. The work he has done in just one year on Wikipedia (as a registered user) is absolutely astounding; it took me 6 years for my editing to reach that level of professionalism. I have not seen anyone like him show up on WPTC since Hurricane Noah joined in 2017. He is really smart, and he is also one of the nicest people I've ever met. And he's a very good friend as well. Destroyeraa, I bet you were able to guess most of what I said here, but you should know that you're a real gem. Those of us here miss you, and there are others as well. And I did tell you that your absence would be felt, didn't I? Regardless of what you think, what you do here does and will affect us. I'm very happy that you've decided to come back this summer, once you get out of school. I hope to see you around the place then. Your friend, LightandDark2000 🌀
Hello. Your account has been granted the "pending changes reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on pages protected by pending changes. The list of articles awaiting review is located at Special:PendingChanges, while the list of articles that have pending changes protection turned on is located at Special:StablePages.
Being granted reviewer rights neither grants you status nor changes how you can edit articles. If you do not want this user right, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time.
@Woodroar:, Thank you for undoing the edit. I was originally replying to a user on the thread regarding FleurDeOdile, and you're probably right about the edit conflict. Thank you again for fixing that. 🌀CycloneFootball71🏈 |sandbox01:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's alright, the word umbrage, meaning mildly annoyed, is an old English word which is hardly used in modern English nowadays and on its own, not a harmful word etc. It is Ng's usage of the word during a press conference which caused an outrage in Singapore which lead to the page being badly vandalised with the usage of the word, went into semi protection before changing to pending changes. I understand you have your pending changes right granted recently and might not be so familiar. Personally I treat all pending changes as potential vandalism unless proven otherwise (there is a reason why a page is in pending changes) and if in doubt, leave the decision to other editors. Nonetheless, I appreciate your efforts! --Justanothersgwikieditor (talk) 01:19, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Mental health is a bitch. Make sure you take care of your own happiness, and find a nice safe way of getting your state of being back to a good. We've all been through a lot over the last year. I hope this kitten greets you well, and may you find better days ahead.
I'm very sorry to learn that you are dealing with mental health issues. Stay safe and well. It can be very challenging at times, but hopefully there are better times ahead. You aren't alone in this fight. codingcycloneplease ping/my wreckage17:28, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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