Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather

2024–25 WikiProject Weather Good Article Reassessment

I would like to announce that a new task force has been created to re-examine the status of every GA in the project. Many good articles have not been reviewed in quite a while (15+ years for some) and notability requirements have changed quite a bit over the years. The goal of this task force is to save as many articles as possible. Anyone not reviewing an article may jump in to help get it up to par if it does not meet the GA requirements. The process will start officially on February 1 and will continue until every article has been checked and either kept or delisted. The task force may be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather/2024–25 Good Article Reassessment. Noah, AA^Talk 15:22, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Articles under review

• 1949 Texas hurricane (review)
• Windsor Locks, Connecticut, tornado (GAR)
• Wind shear (GAR)

Requested move at Talk:List of United States tornado emergencies#Requested move 19 November 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:List of United States tornado emergencies#Requested move 19 November 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Raladic (talk) 22:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Jet stream

Jet stream has been nominated for a 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. Z1720 (talk) 16:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

List of tornadoes in XY trivia concerns

A user recently added tags to a lot of articles including List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023 stating that the article contained overly trivial content appealing only to a specific audience. I disagree with this assertion, so upon removing these tags and explaining in the edit summary that the article is standard, the user reinstated the tags and stated they're going to stick with this assertion even if it is a project-wide standard. So, I suppose, consider this a heads-up for a future RfC, because I have aspirations of getting the 31 March outbreak to a good / featured topic and these tags are killing those plans in their tracks. Departure– (talk) 20:59, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It would probably be good to ping this user in the article's talk page and ask for specific details on what they mean before escalating further. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 21:47, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

The specific diff is here and the edit summary back-and-forth went as such:

• 2 December: Added {{Excessive examples}} and {{Overly detailed}} tags
• 6 December: Undid revision 1260738230 by Fram (talk) remove tags - this is a standard "list of tornadoes in xy outbreak" page and this one shouldn't be singled out, if there's a problem with these page's notability it'd be better to take it to Wikiproject Weather instead of this page
• 6 December: Undid revision 1261573129 by Departure– (talk) If the issues xith this page are standard with this project, then geel free to alert the project thzt they will have to cleanup the other articles as well. This is a list with way too much trivia

I understand their assertion and think that it would have been made inevitably. @Fram, could you please clarify your specific concerns regarding the "list of tornadoes in xyz" page format? I understand your position is that these pages consist entirely of trivia outside the scope of Wikipedia. I don't agree with that position but if you have any further comments please do share. Departure– (talk) 22:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this and pinging me. I´ll have more time to answer on Monday probably. I don´t consider the whole list to be trivia, but way too many if the minor tornadoes and their (lack of) damage and so on is of no importance at all. Fram (talk) 22:51, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

That's a fair assessment to make, but consider also that the list of tornadoes is usually included in the outbreak's article itself, and is usually only split off once it reaches 100 entries or so. If you want a really extreme example of this, see List of tornadoes in the 2011 Super Outbreak or List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 2019 - these both have nearly double what the 31 March outbreak article has, and having them as separate from the outbreak's article seems obvious. I should also state that the list articles can be useful in illustrating the widespread nature of any given tornado outbreak, and remember that even a "weak" EF1 tornado can change lives, as we saw at the Apollo Theatre on 31 March. Even EF2 / EF3 tornadoes can fail the notability test for article sections, even if they have plenty of coverage and do deserve at least a mention in reference to the outbreak, and the list articles do just that. Once you have those, it's clear that including even the weak tornadoes that caused no human cost should be included. I'll compare it here to American Dad! season 20 which has a list and brief description of each episode - as a whole, these episodes have enough information to comprise a list, even those with bare-bones notability and importance. Their absence would be detrimental to the list as a whole. Departure– (talk) 23:03, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

An episode seen by 300,000 people in the US alone, shown in other countries, repeated, perhaps a DVD, ... vs. a tornado which caused little or no damage or is only seen by some security camera or one or two people. More on monday! Fram (talk) 23:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

This list (and many similar ones) want to describe every single tornado, no matter how minor. I see no reason why we would want to have so much unimportant, minute details, taking away the attention of the actual more major tornadoes by putting every little thing down. We don't do this for other events or accidents, we wouldn't list every car accident or building fire because some of them are important, notable, deadly, and we also don't list every damaged property, affected village, uprooted tree in the case of non-tornado storms. ... In the example list, we have 146 tornadoes, 12 of them major (EF3/4), 32 average, and 103 minor or unknown. Some of these minor ones are more notable than others, due to where or when they happened, but the vast majority are really of very passing interest only. Briefly mentioning the minor ones as groups (genre "14 EF0 en EF1 tornadoes occurred in Wisconsin, causing damage to properties and uprooting trees") and only giving more attention to the more notable ones would solve WP:UNDUE issues, not inundating the reader in countless details where minor and major stuff is given equal weight. Fram (talk) 13:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I get that they may not all be inherently notable, but the main reason I'm willing to die on this hill is I'm trying to get the March 31, 2023 tornado outbreak to featured topic status, which will require to get this article to featured list status. The criteria for featured list has the following:

• Comprehensiveness.
  • (a) It comprehensively covers the defined scope, providing at least all of the major items and, where practical, a complete set of items; where appropriate, it has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about the items.
  • (b) statements are sourced where they appear, and they provide inline citations if they contain any of the four kinds of material absolutely required to have citations.
  • (c) In length and/or topic, it meets all of the requirements for stand-alone lists and includes at minimum eight items; does not violate the content-forking guideline, does not largely duplicate material from another article, and could not reasonably be included as part of a related article.

There's no reason in my eyes not to list every tornado, but a significant amount of the tornadoes were weak EF0 and EF1 tornadoes and including at the very least a one sentence summary for them would be preferred to increase the quality of the article. I'm not aware of any list where entries deemed minor or unimportant are stripped of their right to a summary, especially when there are reliable sources to put descriptions of said entries. Departure– (talk) 13:42, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I'll also say that this is a much more specific and inclusive page than the parent outbreak's article, Tornado outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023. That, in fact, does have descriptions of six individual tornadoes that day under the section #Confirmed tornadoes, and each is given around 6000 words of prose. I agree that it would be absurd to give that to each tornado in the outbreak - hence why the list is used for less notable tornadoes. Departure– (talk) 13:45, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

But the same is done when there is no main article, or when the tornadoes are just a more or less random grouping, as in List of United States tornadoes from July to August 2023. This is not an outbreak but an arbitrary period, with at first glance one tornado which caused considerable damage plus deaths and will have plenty of sources, but of the 250+ other tornadoes, probably 10 or so will have received local coverage, and the others are just entries in the NCEI database. Fram (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

We have been doing monthly tornado lists like this for a while. We usually merge months together unless there are more than about 150 tornadoes in a given month. One thing worth mentioning is that yearly tornado articles keep a tally on the number of tornadoes by rating, which would be quite difficult without some kind of list. TornadoLGS (talk) 02:57, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

We should hardly keep articles in the mainspace just for the sake of a yearly tally. I see that e.g. 2017 had 1418 tornadoes in the US, so hardly a rare event. Apart from counting them, what is the purpose of listing and describing all of them, no matter how minor? Fram (talk) 15:43, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

What would be the appropriate namespace then? TornadoLGS (talk) 18:51, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

If the project needs this, then projectspace. Fram (talk) 08:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I have serious doubts that putting these pages in project space would fix the problem, and also doubt the problem exists nearly to the point of removing a significant amount of projectspace pages. There just aren't many reasons to make an article on, say, Hurricane Milton's tornado outbreak, despite producing multiple significant tornadoes responsible for multiple deaths, when it's summary at List of United States tornadoes from August to October 2024 fits that just fine. A lot of more minor outbreaks aren't good fits for pages but are still clearly fits for Wikipedia. It's entirely practical to list every tornado in the country. These articles pass WP:NLIST, as the 2024 tornado season has been discussed independently in reliable sources (a list of tornadoes in 2024 would be too long, so splitting it into smaller articles is practical). It's by no means of little interest to the general public and still gets an average of 89 page views per day over the last month. Even barring that, the fact is that most tornadoes nowadays have their best summaries on Wikipedia and choosing to not have these summaries on the grounds of "not being of interest to the general public and being too similar to other outbreaks, and giving too much details to unimportant events" strike me as nonsensical.

Tornadoes, even weak ones, can and do change lives, and enough of them happen each year to establish their notability; we're describing and listing them as a group, whether or not they hit anyone, because we recognize their importance and agree that it is indeed practical to list every tornado in a season / outbreak / part of a year. Departure– (talk) 13:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

But the vast majority of these tornadoes don't change lives, and "enough of them happen each year to establish their notability" doesn't make any sense: the fact that there are notable X doesn't mean that every X is notable. The same arguments can be made about car crashes, house fires, ... some of them are notable, change lives, have lasting importance: but that doesn't mean that we would list every car crash if we had some public database of them. What makes extremely minor tornadoes different from extremely minor car crashes? Fram (talk) 13:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Your point is understandable and I acknowledge we wouldn't be having this discussion if there was a proper policy setting in stone the procedure for individual weak tornadoes. But I will say that you are the first to state that you believe these pages have notability issues; the consensus in the weatherspace of Wikipedia is, from what I can tell, that these articles do belong in mainspace as they are. I don't feel like discussing this further as i believe we've reached deadlock with both sides raising valid objections, so expect an RFC to be opened later today regarding this topic, where you will be welcome to argue your position on this matter in a more formal consensus-building setting. I'll admit I'm not a die-hard on keeping the tornadoes, but the alternative requires changing the status quo and gutting articles that have been untouched for years, including a few featured lists (List of California tornadoes, List of Connecticut tornadoes, Hurricane Katrina tornado outbreak, List of tornadoes in the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007). Good day to you. Departure– (talk) 13:52, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Just a P.S. for Fram: Referencing car accidents isn't a good argument since over 36,000 car crashes happen per day in just the U.S., which means more car crashes happen in 1 day in just the U.S. than tornadoes worldwide in just the 21st century (roughly 1,600-ish tornadoes a year worldwide). Honestly, the list of tornadoes is closest to something like the Lists of shipwrecks, where it goes year-by-year, month-by-month, and even in the List of shipwrecks in 2024, Day-by-day. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Then replace car crashes with bus crashes. As for the shipwrecks, most of these are at least a lot more substantial than "two storm chasers drove through this short-lived tornado which did no damage" and similar entries. They are also referenced to actual major news sources in many cases, not a government database, so they have clearly received independent attention. Fram (talk) 14:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

rther comments should be discussed in the RFC at the bottom of this page. Departure– (talk) 14:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)u

Requested move 8 December 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved as proposed. If any of these need further changes, feel free to start a separate RM (or just move them BOLDly). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

---

• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 7–11, 2008 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of May 7–11, 2008
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of April 15–16, 1998 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of April 15–16, 1998
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of April 6–8, 2006 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of April 6–8, 2006
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 22–27, 2008 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 22–27, 2008
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of June 3–11, 2008 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of June 3–11, 2008
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 10–13, 2010 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 10–13, 2010
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 18–21, 2013 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 18–21, 2013
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of April 27–30, 2014 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of April 27–30, 2014
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of April 22–25, 2010 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of April 22–25, 2010
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 14–31, 1962 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of May 14–31, 1962
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of April 2–5, 1957 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of April 2–5, 1957
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 26–31, 2013 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 26–31, 2013
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 4–6, 2007
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of April 25–28, 2024 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of April 25–28, 2024
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 21–26, 2011 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of May 21–26, 2011
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of April 14–16, 2011 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of April 14–16, 2011
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of December 10–11, 2021 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of December 10–11, 2021
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 19–27, 2024 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of May 19–27, 2024
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of May 6–10, 2024 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak of May 6–10, 2024
• List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 2019 → List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of May 2019

– Literally any article entitled "List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak / tornado outbreak sequence of XY" renamed to drop the second "tornado" in the title. It lets each article have a shorter title, and the fact that it's a tornado outbreak is obvious given that it's a list of tornadoes, established in the title. The only exception is for named outbreaks like the 2011 Super Outbreak - this is for genericly named outbreaks only. Departure– (talk) 03:02, 8 December 2024 (UTC) Departure– (talk) 03:02, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:06, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Also Support --_ZZ^Z'S 06:12, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support. = paul2520 💬 20:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support ModdiWX (You Got Mail!) 14:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support — Penitentes (talk) 20:14, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

  Weak support. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 01:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  I do think there should be (partial) exceptions for tornado lists pertaining to derechos though. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 01:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  These aren't derechos, though. Nor are they severe weather sequences. They're just generic outbreaks. Departure– (talk) 01:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  Like I said @Departure–; for generic outbreaks, I am fine with moving them. I’m just saying if it’s something like a derecho (eg: April 2nd), the derecho part should still be mentioned. That’s all. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 20:05, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

  So, would you support "List of tornadoes in the outbreak and derecho of XY", or would you prefer the status quo "List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak and derecho of XY"? Departure– (talk) 20:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

  It really just depends on the case. But the first option if it’s a generic case. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 21:48, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

  I also think there should be exceptions for events like the Blizzard of '93 outbreak/derecho. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 18:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

  If there's an example you can think of that isn't listed above, it's safe to assume it's exempt. Departure– (talk) 19:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

New severe weather terminology drafts

I have created two draft articles pertaining to severe weather terminology (in Germany and New Zealand) and I’m about to create a draft for Australia warnings. I encourage anyone who wants to do so to help with the draft. Thank you. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 01:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I do invite anyone who wants to to help with these drafts. I think I have the format right on the Germany article but I don’t know for sure.

Will definitely need help on the rain-related alerts because the units used by the DWD are “l/m2” which I presume is liters per cubic meter but I don’t know for sure. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 21:52, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

RFC on tornado lists

Should weak and unimpactful tornadoes be included in list articles? Departure– (talk) 14:20, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Opening comments: This all began because of an above discussion, where an editor placed a tag on List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023 article for "excessive examples", and upon discussion stated that weak tornadoes with little effects were getting too much prose in the lists given their impact and shouldn't be listed in the same manner as other tornadoes. This goes against the status quo of the "List of tornadoes in the XY outbreak" and "List of United States tornadoes from X to Y, YYYY" list articles which have remained largely untouched in policy and unquestioned on notability since their origins. I personally believe that, since other tornadoes in the list are practical, all tornadoes that can be reliably sourced to be included should be listed with a brief summary. Another potential solution which I personally oppose but could be implemented is prose in the articles for EFU/0/1 tornadoes, stating that "X weak tornadoes producing little impact were also observed". I'll also state that this statement will make tallying tornadoes harder, given the lack of specificity that can lead to under or overcounting. Whatever the outcome of this RFC, I merely hope the solution will prevent this issue from producing policy-based stalemate with maintenance tags having no clear and easy solutions as we have at the first article I mentioned. Departure– (talk) 14:27, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• WP:CSC: "Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of objective criteria:" When we apply this to e.g. List of United States tornadoes from July to August 2023, we see that it certainly doesn't meet #1 (not all these tornadoes are independently notable), it doesn't meet #2 (some of them are notable (e.g. Tornado outbreak sequence of August 4–8, 2023), and it doesn't meet #3 ("reasonably short (less than 32 KB)": the example article is more than 200K, and is already a random subdivision of US tornadoes of 2023). Fram (talk) 14:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
• Cherry picking certain tornadoes to include here would be overly subjective and impossible, so it’s really an all or nothing scenario. I support including all tornadoes as is done currently, with no changes needed to the current core status of the lists. The only way these lists can be totally objective as Fram mentioned above is to include all of them. United States Man (talk) 19:22, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  That´s the same kind of argument used for years for sports, everyone who played one game is the only objective measure. Didn´t fly there, doesn´t fly here. Including e.g only tornadoes of, say, EF2 and above is equally objective. Or all rornadoes which have at least one non-local reliable source apart from the curre t database. Or probably other rules, these are just some first thoughts. Fram (talk) 19:40, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  Actually no, there are numerous cases where EF1 and even EF0 tornadoes include more damage description and even media coverage than some EF2s, so then again, it is subjective. You can frame this anyway you want, but your argument here is actually not an improvement and is detrimental to the Wikiproject and the flow of information of Wikipedia as a whole. There are actual issues afoot here in this wikiproject, such as mass creation of tornado articles with bad grammar, multiple factual errors, and content-fork creation. The list pages are not a hill to die on for you imo. United States Man (talk) 19:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• I've been following this discussion without really chiming in, so I will offer a possible solution. Noting, if I was actually choosing, I choose to not alter anything. However, this is a possible compromise to the dispute:

1. Monthly U.S. tornadoes articles remain stand-alone list articles (merges to combine additional months open to case-by-case basis).
2. Any tornado that has one non-NOAA source is automatically notable for summary details (i.e. summary details as the lists have now).
3. The leader is altered slightly from the current lead versions to denote this includes notable tornadoes (i.e. at least one non-NOAA source)
4. In the lead, any weaker tornadoes are noted without full summaries. For a hypothetical example: "In the month of July, 20 tornadoes occurred across the U.S., with 3 rated EF2, 10 rated EF1, and 22 rated EF0."
5. The hypothetical example above would be cited by the NOAA database set just to the monthly tornadoes, which is a reliable source.

As mentioned, I don't necessarily support this at this moment, but I wanted to throw a possible solution into the water. If consensus/compromise would be falling towards allowing this type of solution, I would be for it. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

That´s more or less what I intended with my second suggestion, and seems like a good basis for discussion. Fram (talk) 20:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Almost every single tornado will have a non-NOAA source if you look for them (i.e. local news). So we’d end up excluding maybe 2-5%, so why not just include all of them and be done? United States Man (talk) 21:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

If almost every single tornado has local news coverage... what's even the point of being selective? Wouldn't they all be considered notable? Departure– (talk) 21:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s my point. United States Man (talk) 21:18, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Playing devils advocate for a moment: Then the local news coverage source should also be listed with the NOAA primary source. While those of us (y’all and myself included) generally understand that fact, I’ll be honest, in the example article listed by Fram above, List of United States tornadoes from July to August 2023, there is 0 non-NOAA sources outside of the lead. Out of the entire list article, which has 262 sources, 260 comes from NOAA and 2 come from non-NOAA sources. Part of the overall issue is that WikiProject Weather got in the habit of citing NOAA and then not anyone else since the info was already cited. The topic of “Is NOAA a primary source” has come up multiple times and the answer is yes it is (WP:VNTIA). So technically, if we look at Wikipedia policy to the letter, that article is basically cited entirely by WP:PRIMARY sources, which is actually cautioned against, not secondary reliable sources, which is preferred over primary sources. Basically, a possible solution to not even change the list is to just add a secondary reliable sources to the tornadoes. Then, see where it goes from there. Anyone else think that may be a good idea? Actually see how many tornadoes do/do not have secondary sources?

If one or two do not, then the list, bluntly, is fine (once non-NOAA is actually added). If 20+ do not in a monthly list, then we may have a true problem. As I see it, the problem is that primary is being used and secondary is basically being ignored, leading to Fram’s conclusion that most of the tornado may not be notable enough for the list. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:54, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it should be mentioned in the list as its omission would be misleading (showing less tornadoes than there actually was), less accurate, and less comprehensive. I'm fine with a brief summary, mention, or omission of some of the events outside of the list only if certain details of the tornado would be inappropriate or rule-breaking. _ZZ^Z'S 05:00, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) - Yes, if I understand the question. All tornadoes are sufficiently eventful and concerning that, if there is a list, they should be included in a list. Tornado warnings are disruptive. People who have been disturbed by tornado warnings and have headed for cover when there was no damage would still like to see that event in a list. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:06, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Tornado warnings are general, not for a specific tornado. "All tornadoes are sufficiently eventful"? Many tornadoes are likely to remain undetected as they are very minor and shortlived and if no camera or storm chaser is nearby and they happen on unpopulated land they will likely not be noted. Even among the ones listed. Look at e.g. List of United States tornadoes from July to August 2023#July 7 event; none of these 4 tornadoes were, as far as we know, eventful; we have no idea if tornado warnings were given, and if so where and when. As an aside, I have no idea why this is called the "July 7 event", these were not one event but can perhaps be considered two events (the ND ones and the Texas one have nothing to do with each other). Just labeling it with the date (so here "July 7") would be at least better. Fram (talk) 12:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

There are times when it's useful to list (or attempt to list) every tornado (like List of Australia tornadoes). I guess the bigger questions comes down to the effort to document every tornado in the United States each year, and how best to do that. The way we do it now, we have the yearly Tornadoes of 2024, plus monthly lists in the US such as List of United States tornadoes in May 2024, as well as individual outbreak articles, such as Tornado outbreak sequence of May 19–27, 2024, and sometimes those outbreak articles have individual lists, such as the List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 19–27, 2024. While that might seem like a lot of overlap, any single tornado has the potential to be notable. Take the EF2 tornadoes for example: none of the EF2 in the List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 19–27, 2024 get a mention in the main outbreak article. But given the current length of the outbreak article (7,500 articles), it would be too much to include every single EF2. Now most of them weren't that significant, but an EF2 can still destroy a building, so they still deserve mention. Even EF0 and EF1's have the potential to cause significant impacts - the most recent tornadic death in New Jersey was caused by an F0. In the interest in being inclusive, I don't think it makes sense to be unnecessarily restrictive. At the same time, requiring non-NOAA sources could be tricky, since a lot of news sources just regurgitate NWS reports. I realized that while working on List of California tornadoes. I think the way that the severe weather project has been handling tornadoes is honestly pretty impressive. I should also note the importance of digging into each tornado directly, rather than just relying on random NCDC links, as there can be multiple reports for the same tornado if it crossed state/county lines, or if the tornado touched down multiple times. In short, I don't think much needs to change, other than maybe summarizing more here and there, and trying to include non-NOAA sources (when the info doesn't just repeat what's in the NOAA sources). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Here’s my opinion: if it’s a list of tornadoes in a specific outbreak: I believe that ALL tornadoes that occurred in that outbreak, even if their impacts were trivial; need to be included. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 20:01, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

If we’re referring to the Tornadoes of YYYY articles and the like, then I think WP:TornadoCriteria should be followed. And only list the more notable ones. But it really depends on the case. But if it’s concerning individual outbreaks; then every tornado needs to be listed. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 20:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

If we're only listing tornadoes notable enough to be mentioned in the yearly article anyway, what's the point of even having the list? In any case, if we make such a move, there will still need to be a list of all tornadoes in project space so we can keep an accurate tally. TornadoLGS (talk) 05:38, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Tornadoes of YYYY isn't the same as the "List of tornadoes from M to M YYYY" lists that get created every year. Departure– (talk) 12:54, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

What may be more prudent here would be to split those M to M lists into monthly lists rather than omit tornadoes. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 18:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

So, in all honesty yes even weak and unimpactful tornadoes should be included in these lists. If the lists grow too long; we should instead split the lists. Hurricane Clyde 🌀^{my talk page!} 18:50, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

List of United States tornadoes in May 2024 is a list focusing on one month and already reaches 118kb in size. This is why I in particular beg for a {{cite pns}} or {{cite storm events database}} template. I'd wager there's a non-zero chance that the Storm Events Database is the single most used citation across all of Wikipedia, and these lists are a big part of that. Cutting down the size in bytes can also be done by cutting summaries of tornadoes from outbreaks and simply including a main article tag with the small table, rather than the excerpt format used today. Departure– (talk) 19:31, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:2020 Cookeville tornado

An RfC has been started to challenge to authenticity of a supposed picture of the Cookeville tornado that was pulled from Reddit and added to the article. United States Man (talk) 19:48, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Proposal for Template:Cite storm events database

Per the above comment by User:Departure– above, we should probably have template for referencing storm events, since, as the user said, "there's a non-zero chance that the Storm Events Database is the single most used citation across all of Wikipedia." Every single URL has the same beginning, so such a template might also need something like Template:NHC TCR url, which shortens the URL for TCR's released by the NHC.

There is a little bit of inconsistency over the publisher and author, but since we don't know the people who actually write the event reports (other than the local NWS office), I think the default publisher should be "National Climatic Data Center". Does anybody with template knowledge think they could work on this? I can try tackling it after the new year if no one does it. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:28, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

On the database I've been experimenting with a citation that displays as "Storm Events Database (LWX survey BALTIMORE MARTIN ST, 2024-06-05 20:27 EST-5). I think the WFO and ID are all that are needed, but I'm definitely in support of the begin location or timestamp being alongside the WFO. Departure– (talk) 20:38, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I have previously wondered about setting up a template similar to the NHC TCR URL one before now, however, I'm loathed to as I have previously been informed that the URL ID changes from time to time.Jason Rees (talk) 22:09, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

As long as the time between when the URL is put into the article, and there is an archives of that URL, then it shouldn't matter too much for when it changes. Linkrot is a problem that's avoidable. Data compression is also helpful for articles loading faster, so a template would be useful. As for what User:Departure– made, I think it should have the "National Climatic Data Center" as the publisher, but "Storm Events Database" should be the series, if that's possible. The details about the exact time and location is good, but that is ultimately extra coding being added to one of the most common citations. Perhaps a title of just "[Weather type] event report"? The weather type would be whatever is the first entry. That way the NCDC URL could be used all across the weather project. For example - "High wind event report" or "Hurricane event report" or "Tornado event report". If we wanted to be more specific, maybe add location, so you could have "California high wind event report", or even "Monroe County, Florida tornado event report". There are options, but seeing how often the NCDC reports are used, there should be some discussion on it. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:05, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

List of South America hurricanes nominated for featured list removal

I have nominated List of South America hurricanes for featured list removal. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks; editors may declare to "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Yilku1 (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

March 31 featured topic

As I'm sure everyone here is aware, this year's off-season hasn't proved to be particularly interesting. So, if you're looking for something to edit, why not work on the March 31, 2023 tornado outbreak topic? Me and EF5 began working on this a while ago, but the goal is to get everything regarding this topic to at least good article status. My personal goal is to see the March 31 outbreak as a featured topic by March 31 of next year. If you're up for this project, consider contributing to any of the articles below - especially the C class and draft articles.

Tornado outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023

7 articles

List of tornadoes in the outbreak of March 31 – April 1, 2023

2023 Wynne–Parkin tornado

Belvidere Apollo Theatre collapse

2023 Covington tornado

2023 Little Rock tornado

2023 Robinson–Sullivan tornado

My personal to-do list is getting the Little Rock article published, adding NCEI references to the List article (and bringing it to FL status), and finishing my FAN of the Belvidere theatre collapse, as well as potentially creating original media for the articles in need of path, etc. photos.

Cheers and happy editing! Departure– (talk) 15:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Criteria for individual tornado articles

Should we have notability standards for individual tornado articles? We already have informal inclusion criteria for "Tornadoes of YYYY" articles. Below is a preliminary proposal for such criteria, with the hope that it can evolve into a formal guideline that can possibly be referenced in future AfD discussions.

Previous discussions: New tornado articles and the news, Proposal - Criteria for inclusion on Tornadoes of XXXX articles

This has been nagging at me for a while now, and since another editor has talked to me about this issue, I think we bring this up. Since we have a sort of "inclusion criteria" for "Tornadoes of YYYY" articles, I suggest we come up with notability criteria for individual tornadoes as well. I'll be copy-and-pasting this from User:EF5/My tornado criteria:

EF5's Tornado AfD Table

Criteria no.	Sub-criteria	Description	Pass?	Fail?	Comments
1 (Coverage)	1a	Any coverage?			Quick-delete if criterion is not met
	1b	Any significant coverge? (e.g. CNN or the NYT)
	1c	Any lasting coverage past 6 months after the tornado?			Usually a quick-keep
2 (Strength)	2a	Was the tornado EF0-EF2?			Usually a sign of non-notability, there are exceptions to this though
	2b	Was the tornado EF3?			May be a sign of notability
	2c	Was the tornado EF4?			Usually a sign of notability
	2d	Was the tornado EF5?			If a post-2013 EF5, then an instant keep. Usually a quick-keep
3 (Damage)	3a	Did the tornado kill at least one person?			Usually a sign of notability
	3b	Did the tornado injure at least one person?
	3c	Did the tornado cause monetary damage totaling over $200,000 USD?
4 (Aftermath)	4a	Did the tornado significantly damage a town?			If not, then usually a sign of non-notability
	4b	Any notable deaths?			Usually not the case, can be skipped
5 (Content)	5a	Is the article not a CFORK of an existing section?			Merge if criterion is not met
	5b	Can the content not be easily merged into a section?			Merge if criterion is not met
	5c	Is the article longer than the page on its respective outbreak?			Usually a quick-keep
	5d	Is the article a GA, FA or has recently been featured on DYK?			Usually a quick-keep
6 (Overall)	6a	Are at least five of these criterion met, with exceptions made if needed?			If at least 1b, 3b, 3c, 5c and 1c are met, then a keep is warranted. If not, then a delete/other option is warranted. Exceptions can be made.
Final verdict:

This is my very primitive way of determining the notability of several tornado articles I've written, and am hoping that it could be integrated into a refined set-in-stone WPW policy that could be used in actual AfDs. I'd assume that the table will be gotten rid of and turned into a list. This has been discussed in the past, but never really came to anything. Maybe it could be... WP:NTORNADO (with it's own project page)? Starting an RfC, since obviously community input is needed. Also pinging @Departure–:, who suggested this. :) E_F⁵ 18:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I support these guidelines, but please see my suggestions on the talk page - the wording around fail-if-pass criteria make this much more difficult to read than it needs to be. Perhaps putting them in their own section separated from the other criteria would resolve this. Departure– (talk) 19:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

@EF5: Please add a brief and neutral opening statement that does not include a table; this has broken the RfC listing pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

How about now? waddie96 ★ (talk) 11:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

These two edits merely lengthened the existing overlong statement. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:52, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok fix it yourself. waddie96 ★ (talk) 21:34, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm pulling this RfC on the grounds that it is invalid. Please read WP:RFCST before trying again. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:46, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Please explain specifically what is invalid about the RfC, preferably quoting from WP:RFCST, as mentioned by you. waddie96 ★ (talk) 11:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Here are the relevant portions of RFCST:

4. Include a brief, neutral statement of or question about the issue in the talk page section, immediately below the {{rfc}} tag
5. Sign the statement with either ~~~~ (name, time and date) or ~~~~~ (just the time and date). Failing to provide a time and date will cause Legobot to remove your discussion from the pages that notify interested editors of RfCs.
6. Publish the talk page. Now you're done. Legobot will take care of the rest, including posting the RfC in the proper RfC lists. Whilst Legobot normally runs once an hour, it may take it up to a day to list the RfC, so be patient.

The first link yields three relevant paragraphs:

Keep the RfC statement (and heading) neutrally worded and short. Statements are often phrased as questions, for example: "Should this article say in the lead that John Smith was a contender for the Pulitzer Prize?"

Legobot will copy the markup of your statement (from the end of the {{rfc}} tag through the first timestamp) to the list of active RfCs, if it is sufficiently brief; a long statement will fail to be copied. For technical reasons, statements may not contain tables or complex formatting, although these may be added after the initial statement (i.e., after the first timestamp). ... If the markup of the RfC statement is too long, Legobot may fail to copy it to the RfC list pages, and will not publicise the RfC via the feedback request service.

If you have lots to say on the issue, give and sign a brief statement in the initial description and publish the page, then edit the page again and place additional comments below your first statement and timestamp.

The statement was in no way brief. It also included complex formatting (that table). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Support waddie96 ★ (talk) 11:50, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Good article reassessment for Noctilucent cloud

Noctilucent cloud has been nominated for a 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. Z1720 (talk) 17:52, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

RFC: Rating of the 2005 Birmingham tornado

There is an ongoing RFC to determine which source should be used for the rating of the 2005 Birmingham tornado. You can participate in the discussion here: Talk:2005 Birmingham tornado#Should the article’s infobox indicate EF2/T4 or F3/T5-6?. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 03:25, 20 December 2024 (UTC)