Template talk:Most intense Atlantic hurricanes

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Hurricanes
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Contents

[edit] Usage

Available templates are:

Each takes one parameter: the alignment.

Simply include the template in your article as

{{most intense Atlantic hurricanes|align=left}}
{{most intense US hurricanes|align=right}}
{{costliest US Atlantic hurricanes|align=right}}
{{deadliest Atlantic hurricanes|align=right}}
{{deadliest Pacific hurricanes|align=right}}
{{Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes|align=center}}
{{Category 5 Pacific hurricanes|align=center}}

[edit] Editing

If you add/remove a hurricane from these lists, you should update that hurricane's article to add/remove this template from it.

All lists must have sources.

[edit] Discussion

[edit] Horribility

Can this be changed? I've been looking up hurricanes lately, and it looks horrible - how the template takes up 90% of the page and the word wrapped text is two words wide. I don't know how it would be fixed, but I was thinking of putting it on its own line, like with the npov or dispute templates. Hbdragon88 21:02, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Okay, fixed it up...removed the float and clear tags. Hbdragon88 21:05, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Split

This should be split into two templates, one for each column. The two columns don't really have much in common with each other (only 3 hurricanes overlap both lists), and the size of the template means it doesn't integrate well with the text of articles. Jdorje 22:25, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

That would be {{most intense US hurricanes}} Jdorje 00:37, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Costliest hurricanes

[edit] Sources?

This template needs sources. Jdorje

[edit] 2005 hurricanes

I removed Katrina from the list, and updated the disclaimer to be 1851-2004 (records go back to 1851). The alternatives were to add estimates for Rita ($16B) and Wilma ($24B) to the list, and since all three numbers are basically speculation I don't think it's appropriate for them to take up 60% of the list! Jdorje 22:31, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I added Katrina and Wilma back, based on List of notable tropical cyclones. Jdorje 07:18, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
The Wilma $24B was never a US estimate, but a total estimate for all areas affected (now at $16-20B). Also I'd increase this chart to a top 10 list. CrazyC83 20:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The problem with making it a top-10 list is that a number of the articles show several different lists (costliest, deadliest, most intense: there's a lot of overlap) and for some of the shorter articles this becomes a formatting problem. However I think all lists should be equal length...currently one list is 10 long and the others are all 5 (IIRC). Jdorje 21:55, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New one

There is now 15 storms instead of 10.HurricaneCraze32 18:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

11-20 Most intense Atlantic hurricanes
Intensity is measured solely by central pressure
Rank Hurricane Season Minimum pressure
11 Isabel 2003 915 mbar (hPa)
12 Opal 1995 916 mbar (hPa)
13 Hugo 1989 918 mbar (hPa)
Dean 2007 918 mbar (hPa)
15 Gloria 1985 919.5 mbar (hPa)
16 Hattie 1961 920 mbar (hPa)
17 Floyd 1999 921 mbar (hPa)
18 Andrew 1992 922 mbar (hPa)
19 Beulah 1967 923 mbar (hPa)
20 David 1979 924 mbar (hPa)
1853 Verde 1853 924 mbar (hPa)
1910 Cat4 1910 924 mbar (hPa)
Source: Atlantic hurricane seasons &

Most intense Atlantic hurricanes/List
It's way too big. I would even consider dropping the number of storms to 5. — jdorje (talk) 22:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
How's this?Its 11-20.HurricaneCraze32 20:28, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Interesting idea. The list is wrong, however; you need to find a real source if you're going to make such a list. — jdorje (talk) 20:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
All I could use. I fixed 19th for a tie.HurricaneCraze32 20:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Shall I publish this?HurricaneCraze32 20:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
No. It is still quite wrong. See Template talk:Most intense Atlantic hurricanes/List. — jdorje (talk) 20:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
That list also has errors-Gloria has 919 not 920. Now.Is that correct?HurricaneCraze32 21:18, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
If you'll read the caveats section, you'll see that list isn't precise either. As for Gloria, you'd have to look in the TCR to see why the value is different. — jdorje (talk) 22:40, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I put /920 after it. I shortened the link. Is it accepted now?HurricaneCraze32 23:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Um. 919-920 isn't a real pressure. We have to find out the actual pressure. — jdorje (talk) 23:57, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I'll Leave it as 919.5 until we figure it out.Whats Dr.Avila's e-mail? He's my idol.HurricaneCraze32 23:58, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
???Why don't you just look at the Gloria article??? — jdorje (talk) 00:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
That was for something else.HurricaneCraze32 13:57, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
(indent reset) Wouldn't this be better as a parameter to the current template if you want top 15/20? --AySz88^-^ 00:43, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
We had that.Jdorje found it too big.HurricaneCraze32 14:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
It's too big to just show the top 20...we could have a parameter showing which set you want though: {{most intense Atlantic hurricanes|which=5}} to show the top 5, or 15 to show 10-15, etc. It would take some qif ugliness however (perhaps better done as a wrapper for Template:5 most intense Atlantic hurricanes and so forth. Personally I think 5 is a better size than 10...10 is really big. — jdorje (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Worked on it.What shall i fix?HurricaneCraze32 19:55, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
11-20 Most intense Atlantic hurricanes
Intensity is measured solely by central pressure
Rank Hurricane Season Minimum pressure
11 Isabel 2003 915 mbar (hPa)
12 Opal 1995 916 mbar (hPa)
13 Hugo 1989 918 mbar (hPa)
Dean 2007 918 mbar (hPa)
15 Gloria 1985 919 mbar (hPa)
16 Hattie 1961 920 mbar (hPa)
17 Floyd 1999 921 mbar (hPa)
18 Andrew 1992 922 mbar (hPa)
19 Beulah 1967 923 mbar (hPa)
20 David 1979 924 mbar (hPa)
1853 Verde 1853 924 mbar (hPa)
Source: Atlantic hurricane seasons &

Most intense Atlantic hurricanes/List

[edit] Automated margins

This was broken. It was obvious to me because I use full justification. It is now fixed but is probably still broken in all the other templates. TimL 19:44, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This doesn't make sense....

I don't understand this template at all ({{Most intense US hurricanes}}). Why does it list the storms by their lowest pressures instead of their pressures at landfall? By the logic of this template, a storm could make landfall as a tropical depression, do no damage, but make this list if at some point it had a pressure of 900 mb. Just doesn't make sense to me...this template should list the landfall pressures. -Runningonbrains 13:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, this template makes no sense at all. The pressure at landfall is what should be listed and ranked by. TimL 03:04, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Someone who didn't understand the point of the template ahd made it simply a list of intense hurricanes. I've fixed it. —Cuiviénen 00:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Katrina Source and problems

I added the Katrina citation to this template as it was not included in the table citated reference. Unfortunately, footnote citations will not work in this template. The item is flagged as footnote 19 in Hurricane Andrew article, but it does not show up in the references section. Possibly this template should be generalized to be a simple top ten table? Alan.ca 05:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table class?

What is table class? I've never seen it anywhere else, and it makes this template show up in Category:Unassessed meteorology articles. -RunningOnBrains 16:32, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3 hurricanes?

Most intense landfalling Atlantic hurricanes
Intensity is measured solely by central pressure
Rank Hurricane Season Landfall pressure
1 "Labor Day" 1935 892 mbar (hPa)
2 Gilbert 1988 900 mbar (hPa)
3 Dean 2007 905 mbar (hPa)
Source: National Hurricane Center

Why is there only 3 hurricanes on the most intense landfalling list? It looks much to short. Surely it needs at least 5-10 entries to be useful? Jamie|C 15:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Find a source for a longer table. The NHC should have one but I couldn't find it. Note, simply making one up ourselves is not good enough. — jdorje (talk) 18:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I have e-mailed the NHC. I take it an e-mail cannot be used as a source, so I am hoping for a link to somewhere on the NHC site. Jamie|C 19:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that Hurdat doesn't list data points for landfalls, and the NHC only started adding them (which contained landfall pressure) in around 1983. Seeing as the NHC has a page for the extreme, but it only includes a document for US stats or a page of deadliest basin-wide storms. They would have to make another page, or, ideally, include a top 10 basin-wide most intense landfalls in the monthly summary. Either way, I'm not optimistic. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Most intense Atlantic hurricanes
Intensity is measured solely by central pressure
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
Rank Hurricane Season Min. pressure Min. lf. pressure
1 Wilma 2005 882 mbar (hPa) 927[1]
2 Gilbert 1988 888 mbar (hPa) 900
3 "Labor Day" 1935 892 mbar (hPa) 892
4 Rita 2005 895 mbar (hPa) 937[2]
5 Allen 1980 899 mbar (hPa) 945[3]
6 Katrina 2005 902 mbar (hPa) 920[4]
7 Camille 1969 905 mbar (hPa) 909[5]
Mitch 1998 905 mbar (hPa) 987[6]
9 Dean 2007 906 mbar (hPa) 906
10 Ivan 2004 910 mbar (hPa) 946[7]
11 Janet 1955 914 mbar 914
Indeed. However as I think of it I'm more optimistic that one could assemble such a list yourself reliably. Just take the list of most intense hurricanes (that list we can find) and look up the NHC or MWR info for the landfall pressure - although it's not in the best track they do have this information. For instance Camille had a landfall pressure of 909 mbar, to determine that it was #4 on the list you'd have to look up every sub-909 hurricane and verify that it had a higher landfall pressure than 909. Then same with Janet at 914 mb for #5 (hypothetically). Only 10 hurricanes had sub-914 pressures so those are the only 10 you'd have to check to extend it to a top5 list. It would be convenient if the hurricane infobox had information about landfalls, however. — jdorje (talk) 04:40, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
As a side note it's extremely disturbing that the majority of the hurricane articles do not give a landfall pressure in the storm history section. — jdorje (talk) 05:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
The NHC replied, and they do not have the page we need. Would assembling a table ourselves not be original research? Jamie|C 12:56, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Jdorje, I'd say landfall pressures are not necessarily worth mentioning. Charley had 5 landfalls, there is clearly no need to include the pressures at both FL landfalls. I'm extremely hesitant to say we can compile a list. We only have full landfall information back a relatively short period. There is no way we are going to be able to create a listing back to 1935 (to include Labor Day) without running into original research issues. We can source all the pressures sure, but we need a source to say "this was the xth lowest" - like happened for Dean. Any compilation of landfall pressures had best been done systematically. Only then can we see what we have...--Nilfanion (talk) 13:28, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
All of the storms in the proposed template (except Janet) are also in the top ten lowest pressures teplate; if the data is good enough for that template, why not a landfalls template? Jamie|C 23:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Because the data doesn't give us that information. It gives us peak but not landfall pressures. There is no compilation of landfall data and it is impossible to create one that is good enough with the many information gaps. To fill the gaps requires OR.--Nilfanion (talk) 00:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The logic is simple and it's not original research, just convoluted data mining. The sources are all present in the hurricane articles themselves (TCRs or MWR) and the most-intense list. Janet had a landfall pressure of 914 mbar, only 10 hurricanes ever had recorded pressures lower than that. Thus to assemble a list of hurricanes with a landfall pressure of 914 mbar or lower, we need only look at those 11 hurricanes which is easily done since minimum landfall pressures for each are already recorded. To go much further up the list (past janet at #5) will become progressively far more tedious since we'd need to find and source a rapidly growing number of landfall pressures. For instance Andrew at 922 mbar fits somewhere on the list but to determine where we'd need to find and source the landfall pressures of every hurricane that ever achieved 922 mbar which is a rather large number. As for recording of landfall pressures in general in the articles I quite understand that it is a tedious and space-consuming task since there is no upper limit on the number of landfalls a hurricane can have - including them in the infobox (up to 5 should be easy enough I'd think) is a possibility but for SURE the storm history section should cover this. Everyone seemed surprised a few weeks back that the Gilbert article didn't mention its landfall pressure but this actually seems to be the norm. — jdorje (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Your trust in the TCRs and MWRs is misplaced. I've started to compile a comprehensive listing (for personal use more than anything) and I cannot give you full information for storms since 2000, never mind earlier. The point is we need to be able to point to a reliable source we cannot simply do the data mining ourselves. With the most intense storms we can point at HURDAT and anyone with a knowledge of basic search terms can verify independently. It is not possible to verify landfall data with a single source like that, as no such source exists. The reason for not including all of the landfall data in the storm history is there is a point where it gets redundant and frankly dull. If you want such a listing, talk nicely to the NHC... but we cannot get anywhere ourselves ;)--Nilfanion (talk) 00:46, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Unrecorded landfalls and lack of data are a problem for many storms. However you can't say "we can't assemble such a list" since I already did, above, which conclusively documents the 5 most intense landfalls. Edit: it is pretty easy for the top 11 storms which do have good records, it's only as you go further down the list that documentation is sketchy. — jdorje (talk) 01:02, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes of course we can assemble such a list. But we cannot do so in a way that is acceptable to use under Wikipedia policy; just how would I go about verifying it independently of your research? In any case, there is no real need for such a template. 4th strongest landfall isn't that interesting!--Nilfanion (talk) 01:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Every item in the list is sourced. There are 12 sources you have to verify to convince yourself the list is correct: the 11 sources given for each storm plus the NHC list that claims only those 11 storms were 914 mbar or lower. — jdorje (talk) 01:21, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
For the top3 list you still need at least 3 sources: the NHC list claiming those are the lowest 3 plus actual references for Gilbert and Labor Day. Whether #4 and #5 is worth the extra 8 sources to be verifiable is debatable; I'd tend to think a top5 list is a pretty good number and not too hard to justify. Taking it past 5 would be quite tedious however. — jdorje (talk) 01:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
You don't have to convince me, you have to provide reliable sourcing to be able to use it. Giving me half a dozen links is not that, its asking me to replicate your original research. The top 3 is possible, beyond that is not unless the NHC (or someone else) compiles it. Incidentally, you are probably wrong. Camille made 2 landfalls in the United States; what was the pressure of the final landfall? The table isn't useful IMO.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
How does the fact that it comes from multiple sources make it original research? Numerous articles make use of multiple sources and serve as a compilation of the information therein, but that does not violate wikipedia policy. By that logic including Hurricane Felix in List of Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes is also original research since we don't have a single source containing the entire list. As for Camille, 909 is the listed landfall given by that article, as you note I didn't give direct sources for every storm in the table (which is just for demonstrative purposes at this point). — jdorje (talk) 02:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Original research?

(indent)Please read Wikipedia:No original research. Specifically: WP:PSTS and WP:SYN. The first subsection I refer to says "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source." and "only make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge". The second, SYN is especially relevant. "A says this storm had a landfall pressure of 909", "B says only these 3 had a lower pressure" therefore "This storm is the 4th" is exactly the original research that you did here. As HURDAT doesn't give landfall pressures it is not a tautology the claim your are attempting the demonstrate. We can cite that Janet had a landfall pressure of 914. We cannot say that is the 5th lowest without interpretation of data.

Consider what would happen if the NHC released such a listing (for all sub-950 say). It would not just be a table with all the individual pressures cited. In addition, it would describe the assumptions that they made, any interpolation attempted, values dismissed... Bear in mind not all data is of equivalent quality. That is why you are synthesising something, you are accepting the data you have at face value without any quality assessment, as any scientist writing something we could use as a secondary source would have done. There is no such problem with the inclusion of Felix in the list of Cat 5s. We have a source to say it is Category 5, that's all the list claims!

Furthermore I'll reiterate. There is no real need for this template even if it was feasible. Its not worth the time or effort (an extension to 10 would be needed to be useful imo).--Nilfanion (talk) 09:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't debate your last point, that it is unnecessary. But I still dispute your logic, or at least I feel you are applying it too narrowly if it is to be applied at all. Really the only interpretation that is being done here is simple integer greater-than-or-less-than-comparison. It is unclear to me if this qualifies as original research. But if it does, then there are VERY MANY other places throughout hurricane articles that perform similar logical operations. I give just a few examples from articles I'm familiar with but the pattern should be evident.
  • In Hurricane Janet, the MWR points out damages done in each area of the storm's path. The article sums these to achieve a (minimum) damage total. I have little doubt this is done throughout a number of hurricane articles.
  • In 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane (a FA), the basic toll of deaths comes from the NHC most-deadly article. However that article is out of date and does not include the most updated death toll from the U.S., which also comes from the NHC. Again the wikipedia article does the "original research" of adding the values together to arrive at a new death total.
  • In List of Category 5 Atlantic Hurricanes (a FL) a similar conflict of sources takes place. When listed by date, we have the problem of conflicting sources as the time as a cat5 is given; for current-season storms this requires some interpretation (addition of all time listed in the advisories) that is different from what is given for older storms (addition of all time listed in the best track). Likewise when "listed by intensity" there is a similar comparison done as the lowest pressure given in the advisories must be compared against that given in the best track or other secondary-source list, using a similar integer comparison method done in this template. Your argument following "bear in mind not all data is of equivalent quality" surely applies to this inclusion of data just as much as it would apply to the template we're discussing here.
  • For that matter, the same logic applies when taking the top3 most intense landfalls. We only have a sketchy NHC forecast discussion entry giving the order of storms, for the actual pressures we must again go to other sketchy sources of varying qualities (MWR).
— jdorje (talk) 19:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem is what you aren't seeing. To state Janet is the 5th most intense landfalling storm you need:
  1. A source for Janet's pressure at landfall.
  2. A source saying as of 2005 (say), only these 3 storms "beat" it. HURDAT does not give landfall information by itself.
There are many storms for which the peak strength is not recorded in HURDAT: (2004) Jeanne's minimum pressure was 950, the minimum in HURDAT is 951. That lower pressure corresponds to a landfall of course. Therefore checking all "sub-914 storms in HURDAT" does not imply you have all sub-914 landfalls. What you need to get anything done, is a source that lists landfall pressures. We don't have that, and you are attempting to disguise what has been done as not an "analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claim" by saying it is elementary mathematics. It is not, as you would need to evaluate from the full set of landfalls, not peak pressures. Obviously its absurd that a storm goes from 979 to 900 to 985 in 6 hours, but can you prove that it didn't? The original research is in saying "this is a list of intense storms, from this I can deduce landfall pressures". Show me a source giving an most intense landfall list (like an extended version of the one in the Dean discussion), do not synthesise that source yourself!--Nilfanion (talk) 21:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't need that to convince myself (or any reasonable person) that Janet is the 5th most intense landfaller. I *might* need it to state it under wikipedia rules, if basic logic is counted as original research. What I have is

  1. A source stating that only 11 storms have had pressures of 914 mbar or lower.
  2. 11 sources stating the landfall pressures for those 11 storms.
  3. A mathematical comparison tool (greater than/less than) to put them in order by landfalling pressure.

You seem to be objecting to steps 2 and 3, and for somewhat valid reasons. Step 2 takes sources of differing reliability and applies them together in the same article (template). However this is not really any different from what's done in every article individually. You take reliable sources when you can get them, and less reliable ones when you can't. Note that none of those 11 storms has landfall pressures that are controversial (none come from HURDAT directly, which as you say does not always give peak intensities if they fall between data points). Step 3 does some interpretation, via simple integer sorting; this is arguably original research however IMO it is so simplistic that it doesn't qualify there. Whether these violate wikipedia rules I can't say. But I am arguing that the logical interpretation used here is no different from that used elsewhere. Again I use the List of Category 5 Atlantic hurricanes as an example. Here a similar list is made of peak intensities of storms, sorted but in this case without a ranking assigned. The sources for the storms are not given (they all come from the articles, perhaps, and therefore from different sources of varying reliability, namely the MWR or TCRs; with the exception of Andrew as you point out the hurdat does not reliably include peak intensities). So what is present here is

  1. A source stating that only those 31 hurricanes were of Category 5 strength.
  2. 31 sources stating the peak intensity for those 31 storms.
  3. A mathematical comparison tool (greater than/less than) to put them in order by peak pressure.

Again, my point is that this is IDENTICAL to my logic above. (Note, I do ignore in both cases 2007 storms and the fact that they aren't included in the "main source" giving the list of hurricanes in step 1. Whether adding on current storms into an already-sourced list from last year constitutes original research is a separate, and IMO foolish, argument.) — jdorje (talk) 22:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Although I do agree with you, those two are not the same, as only the first one is attempting to link two sets of previously unconnected data. Forging the links would be the OR. Jamie|C 22:27, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that's the case. The Cat5 list connects unconnected data in the exact same way: those lists of pressures do not come from the NHC, they are given without sourcing in the list article and taken from the wikipedia storm articles. The storm articles get them from a variety of places, including the best-track (which we all agree is unreliable here, note the <= symbols for some storms, even so I'd bet money that at least one of them is wrong), the TCRs, and the MWR. The only difference in the lists is that the template list here does a cutoff above 914 mbar, and that it assigns an actual numerical ordering (a minor issue IMO, as the point of that section of the Cat5 list is clearly to order the storms). Note that in many cases landfall pressures are less reliable than peak pressures, but in the cases of these two lists the opposite is actually true: those 11 landfall pressures are reliably known, whereas peak pressures for many of the Cat5 storms are not. Now, I'm not even sure what my 'argument' here is in favor of, I'm just trying to understand why you'd think wikipedia rules prevent the one list while they allow the other, when to my closest examination the methodology used to assemble the two lists is identical. — jdorje (talk) 19:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Its the difference between ordinals and cardinals; the Cat 5 list does not actually claim this storm is first, this second, and so on. The fact several (should) have <= means that is not strictly in order; and I'd agree there are discrepancies likely in the Cat 5 list. The problem you are not seeing is that the key premise of your logic is flawed. HURDAT is not a good source for these purposes; its merely a good starting point for further research into this set of statistics.
To verify that Janet is #5 on the landfall list you need to verify landfall pressures not only the 11 that have a lower pressure mentioned in HURDAT, but also provide a justification for ignoring the others. If you say "its possible to compile a full listing of all the info from all TCRs, MWRs..." that is not strictly true either. For it to be included in a journal as a comprehensive top 50 listing say, you definitely would be doing research beyond number-crunching. There are storms without a landfall pressure. Consider the 1932 Bahamas Hurricane, which had a Category 5 landfall. HURDAT doesn't give us a peak pressure, the reanalysis project has not considered it yet, the MWR gives us a recorded pressure that may or may not be the strength... We don't know its peak, never mind its landfall strength. We have no source telling us either "its landfall pressure was X" or "Janet was stronger". Therefore we cannot place this storm in relation to Janet without substantiative research, which would be OR by ourselves.--Nilfanion (talk) 21:24, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
The logic isn't wrong, I think you just don't understand it. We know from the first source (NHC "most intense hurricanes in the atlantic") that only those 11 hurricanes had recorded pressures of 914 mbar or lower. Thus by making my list it conclusively demonstrates that janet is the 5th lowest landfall among those 11. And since no other hurricanes are recorded anywhere at 914 or lower we know that at 914 janet must be #5 overall. If you argue that other unrecorded landfalls have taken place lower than that, well, of course I agree. But these are unrecorded, not just unknown to us but not on record at the NHC either. Now, if you claim the cat5 list doesn't claim an exact ordering...I'll agree they are not numbered, but listing them "by pressure" and putting them in order by pressure does indeed seem to be claiming an ordering to me. — jdorje (talk) 00:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
And what does that unknown bit at the bottom signify? Are you really saying you believe Dog is one of the weakest Category 5's ever recorded?--Nilfanion (talk) 00:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
It signifies that whoever wrote that article didn't do their research. The lowest recorded pressure for dog was 979 mbar. — jdorje (talk) 00:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Lowest recorded pressure does NOT mean the same thing as peak pressure; and the actual source will not claim that. All we know is Dog was at least 979 (and obviously a LOT stronger). All the <= mean that it is not strictly a numerical listing. Incidentally, the actual source for the top ten list I would not consider totally reliable as it does not give any consideration to such concerns. Lowest recorded pressure is not the same as peak pressure. I do not object to us having a "by landfall intensity table" going "Labor Day, Gilbert, Dean, ..." I do object to that table being "1 Labor Day, 2 Gilbert, 3 Dean". That is what form in the template would do. The act of adding the numbers goes beyond our bounds.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Sorry for the flippancy (fixed that now). In answer to your real question, it means that unrecorded pressures do not count. Since dog had no recorded pressure at all below 915 mbar, arguing that it might have had a landfall under 915 mbar is a non-starter. — jdorje (talk) 01:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
To which I say {{fact}} (regarding intensity). We have no reliable source on Dog's true strength, so we cannot make any further deductions without some rationale. Any serious consideration of these issues will have the table, and several sources, etc etc to justify applying the numbers. Either that or cop out by saying recorded.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:17, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Um...of course you have to cop out by saying recorded. Surely nobody in their right mind would think that there were no unrecorded hurricanes stronger than those on our lists, no matter which list we are talking about. Good god, do all our tables neglect this? — jdorje (talk) 01:34, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Ahh, and incidentally, none of the 12 sources given is the HURDAT. I agree that one is not reliable (though it is used elsewhere, in the cat5 list for instance). — jdorje (talk) 00:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)