Talk:List of Atlantic hurricane seasons

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Contents

[edit] Post Archive Completion and Awards

(NOTE: See here for context.)

I guess that answers that question. The archive is done! Woohoo! Hurricanehink 13:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations. You did an astounding job! -- RattleMan 13:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
All right! Fantastic job guys. Now lets meet at my place and we can spray each other with champagne! :D Seriously, my many thanks to all of you. I think an award should be given to the people who wrote more than ten hurricane season articles, this is fantastic!
E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 16:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Agreed (sprays everyone with champagne). This was a long project for everyone, and it's finally done! Thanks for the compliment Rattleman, but you too did an astounding job. E. Brown, get those awards ready, cause you're getting some! Hurricanehink 17:15, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks [shakes up bottle and sprays Rattleman in the back]. It is a good cause for celebration here. And now that we're all dripping in virtual champagne, should the awards be put in a template format or something else?
E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 22:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Right here on the talk page is fine. I nominate you for the longest time spent on the archive. How long have you been working on this?!?! Hurricanehink 00:02, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

I worked on this from Novemeber of last year to about May or June of this year. So about 8 months on and off. 40 articles total. You've created close to that much.
E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 21:34, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
True, but not nearly that length of time. I just piggybacked at the end. Hurricanehink 02:48, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How Far Back Does "Officialness" Go?

Someone has been writing into the records of the hurricane seasons of centuries past that they "officially began" June 1 and ended November 30 just like modern hurricane seasons.At what time was this definition arrived at?...it can not be said to "officially" apply to any season that occurred before it was invented;some other terminology should be used to indicate retrospective criteria are used.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 04:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

"How far back does 'officialness' go?" Why should we care? What's the importance? Even when there wasn't an "official" hurricane season, it was generally accepted that they were usually summer and fall events. The original acceptance, from my understanding, was that the season ran from August through October. July was very shortly added. Some people have argued that July was accepted from the beginning, and I am not in a place to argue with them. June was added next with a temptation to add May that never materialized. November was added relatively recently. In the fifties I think, but I could easily be wrong. These dates were set in stone sometime around then. November was viewed as a ha, ha, month, given that it was the quietest by a large margin. As activity has increased, that margin, and the laughs, have decreased significantly. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 23:09, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok, here's the part where I suggest we should remove those paragraphs entirely. The reason is that they are tedious details that are only accurate for modern seasons (though as Eric says, that doesn't really matter) and don't give useful information that couldn't be summed up in half the amount of text. While it may seemingly be helpful to have a consistent intoduction to every season article, the reality is that this first paragraph un-grabs the reader's attention right from the start. This paragraph should be moved out of the intro and into the first "section" of the article, and the intro should instead go straight into the meat of the summary. Jdorje 19:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and another problem is that they are identical for all seasons. We should be using a template for them anyway. Jdorje 19:52, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Jdorje, we need an encyclopedic uniformity to all the hurricane season articles. Those sections are basically telling the reader what the hurricane season is. That's why they should head each seasonal article. It's not a tedious detail, it's what the season actually is. This is supposed to be kind of like "Hurricane History for Dummies". -- Hurricane Eric archive -- my dropsonde 21:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What should this article be?

What should this article accomplish? Currently it is simply a list of links. This is fine for the job it does, but as an article it is hardly more than a stub, and doesn't do anything that isn't already accomplished by Category:Atlantic hurricane seasons. But what more could it contain? Take a look at List of Category 5 Pacific hurricanes and what Michelle has done there. We could add more season statistics to this page, mostly moved over from List of notable Atlantic hurricanes (season statistics don't belong in that page anyway). Jdorje 04:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

This article is a list of Atlantic hurricane seasons. It should stay that way. It is a great place for links to general hurricane articles that fit nowhere else. It's a portal to all the fine research done on this expansion project. -- §Hurricane ERIC§ archive -- my dropsonde 04:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
It could just be a disambiguation. No need to add glamor to this type of page. Hurricanehink 12:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2009/2010

Those articles exist. Maybe they shouldn't exist. But if they do, they need links. — jdorje (talk) 23:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is if they are deleted, someone will just create it. In addition, there is no need for links from the page, simply because they have no real information aside from names. A list of names is not enough for it to live, and there's no point to link to somewhere that won't have any real information for 3-4 years in the future. Hurricanehink 23:53, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. General agreement was no links to seasons more than two years in the future, hence the warning message. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 04:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
But those articles exist! This page should be a complete list of AHS articles, and right now it's incomplete. Maybe those articles shouldn't exist - I don't support linking to nonexistent articles, and I wouldn't object to deleting them - but as long as they do they should be linked. — jdorje (talk) 06:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, I saw the warning message but it isn't really very specific. — jdorje (talk) 06:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree whole-heartedly that they should be deleted. The only problem with that is someone will some along and remake it. It has happened quite a few times, and every time a vote for deletion occurred it was for keep. 2009 and 2010 aren't even part of the list of Atlantic hurricane hurricanes yet. They are just future dates that are expected to occur. What if, by some reason, the NHC changed naming lists, or there were no storms after next year? It is simply too far in the future to have any decent content. Perhaps they could be merged? This way they wouldn't be deleted, but the link will still exist. Hurricanehink 12:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
How about a single article "Future Atlantic hurricane seasons" or "Post-XXXX Atlantic hurricane seasons" that just gives the lists of names, dates, and other information? — jdorje (talk) 16:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. All we really need is 2006, so anything after that as one season isn't a bad idea. Perhaps anniversaries could be included? Like 2007 would be the 50th anniversary of Audrey, 2008 would be the 20th anniversary of Gilbert, etc. Hurricanehink 17:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Well then what do we do when those "future years" become the present? Do we just switch out seasons? -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:55, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
After or during 2006, the Post-2006 Atlantic hurricane seasons article is moved to Post-2007 Atlantic hurricane seasons and updated appropriately. 2007 Atlantic hurricane season is then created. — jdorje (talk) 23:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
This could actually work. The years are far in the future, and why not put them all in one? I'm for it. Hurricanehink 00:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
All right, I did that. I think that works better than having little content articles. I also added some anniversaries, but some of them are in excess. Feel free to remove the stupid ones (like Diana or Gracie) if you don't think they should be in there. Hurricanehink 20:06, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
So we're going to have to rename that article after every year. That sounds like more trouble than it's worth, which isn't much. The article adds little value. The future lists up until 2010 are already listed on the List of tropical cyclone names page and the anniversiaries thing isn't notable at all. I say merge it with List of tropical cyclone names, it serves little valuable purpose. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 21:01, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
It is very little trouble renaming it every year. The article is better than having four pointless years of future hurricane names. The aniversaries are there to put in perspective of the time period, like mentioning Floyd's 10 year anniversary in 2009; that seems fairly notable. Not every name will stay, but I just did that for now so I didn't forget any. This also solves the problem of users adding pointless future articles to the list, as the future years are already redirected. I don't see what the big deal of having this is. There is very little trouble in having one article that has to be changed once a year, rather than having 4 articles that offer next to no content that shouldn't even exist. Hurricanehink 21:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
If the future lists are already posted on the List of tropical cyclone names page, they why put them anywhere else? I understand that it might deter idiots from adding anymore future years but the article itself has little useful content. And I still don't see how the anniversaries are notable. Ooo, wow, it's been ten years since Opal kicked our butts. Hooray! Let's celebrate!(*cough*cough*). Those aren't occations people really want to remember. Perhaps for the cataclysmic ones like Andrew, Audrey, or Galveston for the sake of remembrance of those historic tragedies. But not for less-than-epic disasters like Floyd, Fran, or Opal. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 00:44, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I forgot they were on the list of tropical cyclone names. I made the page to stop the future seasons, which would likely occur if this page didn't exist. I said from the beginning that the "anniversary" list would be much less than what was put, but I didn't know what ones to take out, so I put all of them in in hope someone would remove the stupid ones. I don't see the harm with keeping it. It simply lists what we know of the future seasons. Hurricanehink 00:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it's nothing to get bent out of shape about, but I just don't see much useful content in it. But if it keeps the idiots happy then I'm happy to let it stay. I'll cut the anniversary list down to size. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 02:46, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. You are right, there is little useful content in it, but I would rather see what little useful content there is in one page rather than 4 future seasonal pages. Hurricanehink 02:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes you just have to compromise. :) -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
True ;) The only problem is some people have added some others... oh well. For the most part, the major storms are represented, and few minor ones are in there. Hurricanehink 01:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

For the record, I added Katrina to the list of 2010 anniversaries only to see if anyone was paying attention. I don't really like the anniversaries system since there's no limit to how much detail you can go into. Evidently someone was paying attention since Wilma was immediately added right below. — jdorje (talk) 07:49, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Basically, that should give the important anniversaries of the most notable hurricanes. 5 years is too short to give an anniversary for Katrina or Wilma, IMO, so I removed those. The way I did it was every 5 years (starting at 10 year anniversary) until 50 year, then every 10 years. For me, the only storms that should appear in the system is very memorable hurricanes. The reason I put them in is for historical reference, like in 2009 it will be Floyd's 10 year mark. Should we continue the discussion over on that page, or is here fine? Hurricanehink 13:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Storm tracks

I know we've chewed over this before, but having those tracks leaves a lot of white space on some articles. Several would look better without them in my opinion. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 02:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Since we have season tracks for many of them, made by the official folks, I don't see why we need to duplicate it with individual tracks in most cases. --Golbez 02:26, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Sorry Jdorje, but every storm is not needed prior to... let's say 1980. The date could change, but 1950-19?? seasons does have a lot of white space. By ending at 1980, it could end with the storm pics and paths. Hurricanehink 04:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly disagree. 1. Before 1995, the seasonal tracks are tiny black-and-white scanned documents and are nearly useless. 2. The storm track images show the best-track, which is more accurate than what's released at the end of the season, particularly for older seasons; although they're not made "by the official folks" the data they contain is more official than what those maps have. 3. For active seasons, the seasonal tracks are not very useful (1995 is a good example, and don't even get me started on Image:1933_Atlantic_hurricane_season_map.png; I dunno how they'll do this with 2005). 4. Ongoing improvements in the track generator and best-track data allow the tracks to be improved in future. 5. For seasons with satellite images attached (admittedly those since 1980), attaching the storm path image cuts down amount of whitespace since it consumes horizontal rather than vertical space. 6. The storm path often gives more useful and accurate data than the storm history text, particularly since it comes from the best-track data and there is never any issue of having to track down sources to verify it. 7. The only places that have excessive whitespace (with my browser width and font size) are those with not enough detail; this includes several seasons in the 1960's where "important" storms are given just a couple sentences as well as some storms in 1995 that (presumably because of article length) are given less detail than a similar storm in another season would have. 8. For even older seasons (e.g., 1893), the best-track information is just about all that's available, and a map is the best/only way to present this information that's useful to the casual reader. — jdorje (talk) 06:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Here's a thought then, jdorje - perhaps you could create full season maps for those seasons which lack them? --Golbez 07:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I did think of that; in fact it's quite easy to do so. The problem is that the storms are not labelled on the tracks, nor are the dates or directions of the storms. Plus there are all the same problems as the number of storms increases. I did think of creating one track map per month for 2005, however - this matches up nicely with the current section organization and gives a reasonable number of storms per track - but the lack of labels is still a fatal flaw I think. One idea for older seasons that don't really have any information available outside of best-track data is to use a gallery instead of the "one storm, one section" setup. Then we'd probably have one short paragraph for each storm, with a gallery of all images at the bottom. — jdorje (talk) 07:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
The dates and directions aren't listed on the induvidual tracks either and the storm labels should be easy to put in. Doing that would make the articles incredibly more attractive and reduce the amount of uploaded images. The pros far out weigh the cons, which you seem focused on and not willing to look at the pros. You failed to address the white space issue, which is a big one. In the past, you've said "Well just expand the sections then." We shouldn't have to. It'd be a helluva lot easier just to change the tracks. You have a natural bias towards them because you created them. In reality, having the induvidual tracks there makes the article look emaciated and incomplete. List of Atlantic hurricane seasons is not UNISYS. Having a composite of the tracks, which you already have on the freeciv site, would reduce the white space and greatly improve the appearance and quality of the article. Those induvidual storm tracks are ridiculously overused IMO. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:53, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't quite follow...can you be more specific? "The pros far outweigh the cons", you say. I listed the pros of including the storm tracks above. Can you list the cons? Is there more besides the whitespace problems? — jdorje (talk) 21:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Overloading the server with images and being, on the whole, detrimental to many articles. Can't you see that just uploading one track image per season for the pre-1980 seasons is much better than uploading ten or twelve? We have the composite images there already, from NOAA and on the freeciv site, it would be much easier to just upload that one image (per season) and most if not all the formatting issues would be solved. This is not a hurricane track database. We don't need all these track images. They're a royal pain and don't add enough value to the article for the annoyance to be worth it. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 23:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
I still don't really follow your argument. "Overloading the server with images and being, on the whole, detrimental to many articles" doesn't make sense to me. Why do you think it's detrimental to the articles? And how is the server being overloaded? To take a particular case, 1979_Atlantic_hurricane_season is the first of the pre-1980 seasons. You really think the tiny black-and-white map in the infobox can substitute for the individual tracks? How would this article be improved by removing the individual tracks? — jdorje (talk) 23:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
Look at 1958 Atlantic hurricane season or 1963 Atlantic hurricane season. Those white spaces are absolutely atrocious. Getting rid of the tracks would get rid of all that white space and you could put in your composite image to make it more colorful if you want. Those white spaces have to be fixed. The tracks are causing more problems than they're solving. With 1979, there's enough information there for the tracks to stay. I'm talking about the earlier years where there is less info. Having the tracks there makes the article look painfully vacant with all that white space. One track image would be so much better. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 14:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
OK, good examples. Excess whitespace is and always will be simply a formatting issue, and can usually be solved by a slight reformating. Several possibilities here are alternating the sides of the pictures (now done), putting the pictures in a gallery/galleries, or simply putting them in a row down one side with no textual whitespace. These two seasons (and others from the late 50s and early 60s) do need some work on the texts which are generally too short; in particular the '63 season has just one sentence about the most notable storm of the season. — jdorje (talk) 18:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Anything to get rid of those obnoxious white spaces. I still think the tracks are causing more problems than they're solving though. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:57, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Records section

Should we add a section to this list detailing Atlantic seasonal (in)activity records? For example, we could have a table detailing the season(s) with the most/fewest tropical storms, namable storms, subtropical storms, hurricanes, major hurricanes, hurricanes of each category etc. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 22:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, it would be a good way to expand it beyond the current style. Good idea. I did a bit of original research (sorry, can't include it in the article), and have the following statistics. If you can find a site that says this, then great! 2005 was the most active (28), followed by 1933 (21), 1887/1995 (19), and 1969 (18). 1914 was the least active (1), followed by 1983 (4) and 1962 (5). Note: many pre-1900 seasons had 4 storms, though due to lack of data I didn't include them. 2005 had the most hurricanes (15), followed by 1969 (12), 1887/1916/1995 (11). Many had 10 and 9. 1914 and 1907 had the least with 0, followed by 1925/1919/1905 (1). Many had 2. The least hurricanes in a recent season is 2 in 1982. The most major hurricanes is 1950 (8), followed by 1961/2005 (7). Many had 6. 1887 had the most out of season storms (5), though the most out of season storms in a recent year is 3 in 2003. 2005 had the most storms before August (7). 6 other seasons had 5 (1887, 1933, 1936, 1959, 1966, 1995). 1966 had the most hurricanes before August (4), which was also tied with 1886. 1959 and 1916 both had 3, while many had 2. 2005 and 1916 both had 2 major hurricanes before August, a record. 2005 had the most post-September storms with 11, followed by 9 in 1887 and 6 in 1953/1969. 1870 had the most post-September hurricanes with 6, followed by 5 in 2005/1950. 1916/1950/1961/1964/1995/2001/2005 had the most post-September major hurricanes with 2. 1974 had the most Subtropical storms with 4, though 2000 and 2001 had 4 storms that were subtropical in their lifetime. That's where I get lazy and stop. Hope you enjoyed the show. Hurricanehink (talk) 23:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
What pills are you on Hink? Give me some please, lol. Come on sourcing is easy - just link to the HURDAT (the easy-to-read version?)--Nilfanion (talk) 23:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
LOL, just a few months of research right there. But that's original research. You can't exactly verify that 1950 had the most major hurricanes, for example. How do you know that another season didn't have more? Hurricanehink (talk) 23:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
That's where the word "recorded" comes in to play: "1950 had the most majors in recorded history". :) Also, that's some pretty awesome research you did above. -- RattleMan 23:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I suppose that works, then. The only problem is it hasn't been updated for 2005 yet. Hurricanehink (talk) 23:57, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, the NHC's version is updated but is hard for a non-expert to read. The other comment is there needs to be a comment about how reanalysis could change things (we KNOW there will be changes, you never know 1933 might become number 1 again.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:20, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh, cool, and that's fine. As long as we understand it and can prove the records, there's no problems. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:27, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

So, what are we going to regarding this? It was brought up at the project assessment page again a couple days ago. It's a really good idea. -- RattleMan 19:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Updated

There is now an official list for Atlantic storms from 1700 to 1850. The seasons need to be updated reflecting this. Here's the link. --Hurricanehink (talk) 18:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Awww, they don't have the HURDAT details...--Nilfanion (talk) 18:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
Yea, if that would have happened I would have skipped work and instead just enjoy that. It's great to finally have some semi-official info from that era. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
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