Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Global tropical cyclone tracks

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[edit] Global tropical cyclone tracks

This is an informative and detailed map that shows the tracks of all the tropical cyclones to form in the last 55 years. Created by Nilfanion from PD data.

• Self-nominate and support, edit 2. - Nilfanion (talk) 22:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support, awesome! —Keenan Pepper 22:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I really like it, and will support if someone can answer. I am worried about copyright. Who owns the map on which this was drawn? --liquidGhoul 22:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It's Image:Whole world - land and oceans.jpg, made by NASA. —Keenan Pepper 23:00, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Great! Support Edit 2. --liquidGhoul 23:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Oh, you (yes you) know why. :P íslenska hurikein #12 _(samtal) 00:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Great job. Hurricanehink (talk) 02:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support Impressive. --64.12.116.201 06:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC) Terribly sorry, I forgot to sign in as Tewy, but here you go:
• Support Impressive. --Tewy 06:11, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support the newer version, both because it's indeed more accurate and aesthetically pleasing, but it is a shame that it doesn't cover quite as many possibilities of tropical cyclones in the past. --Tewy 19:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support edit 2. Very nice, a good overall edit that took everyone's opinions into consideration. I like the line thickness, the accuracy of the cyclone placement (post '85), and how nothing is cut off. Excellent work, Nilfanion. --Tewy 02:30, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support brilliantly informative, and amazing. --Thelb⁴ 07:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment what on earth was the person thinking putting circles, triangles and squares on the image? It's informative really close up, but quite ugly from the normal resolution - a bit less information and a bit more effort on appearance would be nice? Stevage 09:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• The reason for the 3 different shapes is mainly for consistency with the hundreds of individual storm tracks. The width of the lines and the size of the shapes could be increased, which would improve things in the normal view at the cost of some detail in close. It's a balancing act between the two I suppose.-Nilfanion (talk) 10:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • It can't be seen except at the highest resolution. Better to make the image just contain one type of storm (if the distinction is important) or blend them all together (if it's not). Stevage 07:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
    • The newer version addresses that issue, all the points are circles. The distinction isn't that important and there is a technical issue too.--Nilfanion (talk) 07:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Wait a minute. What cyclone went over mainland Australia and down into Tasmania? That seems extremely unlikely! --liquidGhoul 10:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Its a genuine storm (#28 of 1955-56) according to the JTWC data (Unisys's track of this storm). I agree it seems absurd, it actually strengthened overland? The JTWC admits (here) that its older tracks are not of high quality. However, to do anything about that would be OR.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

How different would the 1985-2005 map look? If it is similar to this one, but more accurate I think it would probably be better. Also, it wouldn't be OR as it has already been stated in the article that old reports should be used with caution. --liquidGhoul 11:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

At a guess it will look significantly more sparse. I meant discounting that particular storm, while keeping other older storms would be OR. I'll have a go at generating it.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:17, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• I've uploaded a new version of the image. I think this one handles the comments raised by Stevage and liquidGhoul. Only circles have been used to plot points, and I have made the lines significantly wider and the circles larger, individual tracks are clearly visible in the "normal" view. Despite the fact the new version only shows half as many storms as the original, it gives the same overall appearance in the thumbnail. Its probably improved, in that more individual storms can be identified "in close".--Nilfanion (talk) 14:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thankyou for going to the effort. I hope it wasn't too hard! I like that it is more accurate, and it hasn't changed the density too much. However, aesthetically, it seems worse because of the think lines. The original looked wispy, like wind. Now it looks blockier. --liquidGhoul 22:55, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• It wasn't that much effort actually, the program used to make them is efficient. I may have overthickened the lines that time, but we could tweak things all day…--Nilfanion (talk) 23:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• This is funny; you're making a FP by request. If it's really not that much of a problem, I like the thin lines too, because there's enough contrast in the colors to see them even when they're that small. --Tewy 23:22, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Well, thats not that unusual, photos get edits in response to their FPCs. I think I'll upload a third version later, to try and get it perfect.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

• Comment If you do upload another version i'd rather have with all the full number of storms illustrated rather than with a reduced numer of cyclones. You can really see the diference around New Zeland.Nnfolz 05:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Support Either version. Great work. Good idea, and the result is fascinating. --Fir0002 12:38, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support Wow! Agree with Fir. I'm starting to feel a litle sorry for Japan though.Nnfolz 05:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support Either Great work! -- Froggydarb ^croak 10:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support either version; I loved this when I first saw it in an article. I would suggest including a key for the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, however, as the colors could otherwise be a bit confusing. —Cuiviénen 01:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I just noticed that most of Africa and Europe are cut off. Even though they are never hit by tropical cyclones, they should still be included if it is to be a map of the world. (Also, I believe the 1991 Angola cyclone is cut out of the image.) —Cuiviénen 01:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I don't know. Is it really necessary to have parts of the globe that never experienced tropical cyclones? It doesn't omit any tropical cyclone tracks, which the picture is. Also, the Angola cyclone, along with the January 2004 South Atlantic cyclone didn't have tracks, nor were they official storms. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
    • It looks like a few European cyclones are cut off on the upper right. --Tewy 03:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
      • For the most part tropical depressions do not have track data available; you only picked up on the S Atlantic ones as they are obvious. A copy of {{Saffir-Simpson small}} on the image description would suffice. The European cutoff can and will be fixed next one I upload.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:01, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support Either*** - Awesome. --Iorek85 02:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
• Comment, I've uploaded another version, sorry to be a pain. This one uses only the more accurate post-85 data, has a line thickness somewhere intermediate between the first two, a key on the image description, fixes the European cut-off issue and all but a narrow strip of the globe is now shown.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support edit 2 is awsome, great idea, great execution. -Ravedave 19:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support edit 3, to cut off some cyclones just seems silly. CheekyMonkey 21:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Support either edit. Wow, that's just a spectacular image. Kudos to whoever came up with the idea. --Nebular110 05:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Promoted Image:Global_tropical_cyclone_tracks-edit2.jpg (Edit 2) BrokenSegue 17:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)