Talk:Tornado

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Featured article star Tornado is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.
Main Page trophy This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 24, 2007.
WikiProject Severe weather This article is part of WikiProject Severe weather, an attempt to standardize and improve all articles related to severe weather. You can help! Visit the project page or discuss an article at its talk page.
Featured article FA This article has been rated as FA-Class on the assessment scale.
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance within WikiProject Severe weather.
Peer review
 This article has been assessed by editors of the WikiProject.
Maintained The following user(s) are actively involved with this article and may be able to help with questions about verification and sources:
Runningonbrains (talk · contribs)
Evolauxia (talk · contribs)
This in no way implies article ownership; all editors are encouraged to contribute.
Archive
Archives
  1. February - October 2004
  2. April 2005 - July 2006
  3. August 2006 - November 2006
  4. December 2006 - April 2007
  5. April 2007 - March 2008


Peer review This Natsci article has been selected for Version 0.5 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia. It has been rated FA-Class on the assessment scale (comments).
Tornado is included in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools, or is a candidate for inclusion in future versions. Please maintain high quality standards, and make an extra effort to include free images, because non-free images cannot be used on the CDs.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.7
 This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.
Article assessment An assessment of this article took place along with other articles about Natural disasters during the week starting 20 February 2006.


Contents

[edit] BTI Tornado Index Indicator

I'm wondering if we could add details about the tornado index indicator which are used in most live radars which are a scale of 1 to 10, the highest the number is, the most likehood there is a tornado on the ground. --JForget 17:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Given the tornado article is more general, that's probably too specific. Radar aspects in general and the TVS and other algorithms aren't discussed in any detail (if at all), so I don't see privileging a proprietary thing (which I guess you mean is used by most television weather broadcasters [in the US] although I haven't found that to be the case). In interest of science and transparency, I'd also want to know more about where it comes from; specifically how it developed and what goes into the calculation. That information is guarded for obvious reasons.
It could conceivably fit into an article detailing tornado prediction/detection or radar analysis (perhaps in weather radar, but again, this is probably too specific an example for inclusion there). The closest to that right now probably is convective storm detection which isn't yet ready for primetime. Evolauxia (talk) 02:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
VIPIR is also a possibility. Evolauxia (talk) 02:51, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I've added a section on the BTI to the VIPIR page, I've tried to find who was the first station to use the index, even though this video showing coverage from the Super Tuesday Outbreak indicated that WMC-TV was the first to use the product or at least those circle indicators.--JForget 16:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shaturia, Bangladesh, tornado

April 26, 1989: Shaturia, Bangladesh, 1,300 people died and 500 were left homeless in what is often called the world's deadliest tornado. Can anyone confirm this and add if appropriate? Alpheus (talk) 10:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Already in there (Tornado#Extremes), and has its own separate article (Daultipur-Salturia Tornado) although admittedly it is a pretty pitiful article for being the deadliest tornado in world history, I hope to improve it sometime this summer. -RunningOnBrains 01:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Most tornados

The article (2008-05-17) states "Although tornadoes have been observed on every continent except Antarctica, most occur in the United States." with a reference. Yet QI stated that this was a fallacy and that the UK had the most tornados - they just weren't very intense. Anyone know which is correct? -- SGBailey (talk) 22:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What is QI's source? Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 22:58, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
This bit of trivia has been mentioned time and again and it annoys me. Britain rarely has a tornado stronger than T3 (high-end F1) intensity; European windstorms tend to create very short-lived, weak tornadoes, and so per unit area Britain has more tornadoes than the US. This is subject to debate, due to Britain's much higher population density (and therefore higher rate of tornadoes being reported). However, Britain does not even have the highest tornado-per-unit-area, the Netherlands does! (see Tornado#Climatology, second paragraph). So I don't know where QI was getting their info, but it was wrong. -RunningOnBrains 01:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Would it be (more) proper to refer to these as so-called gustnadoes? I didn't know the UK and Netherlands have the same type of geography and meteorology which allows classic supercell storm development (and attendant high F-scale tornado damage). 68Kustom (talk) 06:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
As far as I know no official weather service keeps track of the number of tornadoes designated "gustnadoes" (in fact, in damage surveys it is impossible to tell which type of tornado occurred), but I suspect that many of the tornadoes in Britain are. In the Netherlands, I believe, a majority of reported tornadoes are landspouts or waterspouts moving onshore. Don't quote me on it though. -RunningOnBrains 09:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Time for a Featured Article Review

This article has changed a lot since it became a Featured Article. I still believe it meets the criteria for an FA, but I believe it needs a review by the community to be sure. Unless there is significant objection to this, I'll post it myself.-RunningOnBrains 22:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I submitted the article for Peer Review instead, since FAR seems to be for articles with genuine delisting concerns. -RunningOnBrains 09:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)