Talk:2006 Atlantic hurricane season/Archive 9

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Gordon's category

This article once said Gordon was category #3, but then it changed to #2. What happened?? Georgia guy 14:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

It weakened. It is moving over colder waters.--Holderca1 14:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

What exactly is the policy on that by the way? Do we change the cat to reflect the current status while the storm is active, and then change to its max category once it dissipates? -Runningonbrains 14:43, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

That is correct. The infobox used while it is current says current storm imformation. It would be confusing and misleading if it said category 5, but the wind speeds said 75 mph. Once the storm is gone, the infobox changes and max cat is used. --Holderca1 14:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. The current intensity is used on {{infobox hurricane current}}; then, when we switch it to {{infobox hurricane small}} after the storm dissipates, we use the peak intensity, in max. sustained winds and min. atmospheric pressure. Titoxd^(?!?) 17:19, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe that isn't fully true; I've always followed the practice of keeping the name in the infobox at its highest (e.g., calling it "Hurricane Ernesto" - but only in the infobox - even while Ernesto is a TS). I think that was used in the past. – Chacor 17:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense now 192.28.65.210 05:18, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

ACE mean and NOR

I quote the article,

As of September 18, even though the current pace of the season is two tropical storms ahead of what is average[1], the total energy for the season is slightly less than the mean.

Is the mean ("This table shows how the average ACE, and the number of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes, develop with the duration of the Atlantic Hurricane Season. Calculated from NOAA Hurricane Best Track Files (HURDAT)[2] for the same period (1951-2000) used for seasonal ACE norms.") not considered original research? – Chacor 06:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look like it to me, it looks like the original research was done by NOAA or am I missing something? --Holderca1 16:14, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

If the NOAA has not published the actual mean, us "calculating" it would be OR, no? I'm not sure. – Chacor 16:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

No, why would it be? Extrapolating data from info already available is not OR. bob rulz 16:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

From WP:NOR: "articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published arguments, concepts, data, ideas, or statements that serves to advance a position." For what's worth...--Holderca1 16:51, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I always thought that extrapolating data from existing sources (like bob has said) is just simple logic, not original research. For instance, all the available best-track data shows that Ivan is the most southerly Cat. 5 on record in the Atlantic, however I have yet to see a source which actually says this in writing. Does that make such a statement wrong? Pobbie Rarr 18:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

From WP:NOR: "Research that creates primary sources is not allowed. All articles in Wikipedia should be based on information collected from published primary and secondary sources. This is not 'original research'; it is 'source-based research'." (emphasis mine) So, no, this would be source-based research, instead of original research, as we can always back up the statement with the HURDAT files. Would it be ideal for TPC/NCDC to provide the mean? Sure, and they probably do somewhere. Is it bad for us to do it? No. Titoxd^(?!?) 18:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps e-mail the NCDC and see if they'll provide the value? --Coredesat talk! 06:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively maybe User:Thegreatdr can check it up for us if he has the time? – Chacor 06:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

So far, this season well demonstrates that the ACE figure can be dominated by storms which are not memorable for other reasons such as destructiveness, and by quite short periods of activity compared to the length of the season. On September 11 it was noted that the ACE figure of 23 was less than half the long term mean (47.5) for that date. By the end of September 20 Hurricanes Gordon and Helene will have brought it up to the long term mean of 61.8. Even so, this does not reflect the fact that the current pace of the season is two tropical storms ahead of what is average.

This sounds like a bit too much of commentary for an encyclopedia. – Chacor 11:32, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I actually have a problem with "By the end of September 20 Hurricanes Gordon and Helene will have brought it up to the long term mean of 61.8." Sounds a bit like crystal balling. How about we wait until the end of the day when it has caught up to the mean to say that it has, rather than saying what it will do. On second look, I don't like the entire paragraph, "this season well demonstrates that the ACE figure can be dominated by storms which are not memorable for other reasons such as destructiveness." The ACE does not take into account whether a storm makes landfall or not. A landfalling storm that causes a billion dollars worth of damage does not get ACE bonus points. --Holderca1 12:24, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it 1 not 2 storms ahead now? How about simply stating 'ACE is a measure of a season's activity not its destructiveness which depends on a mere 2% of the tropical cyclone activity.' Is that what the paragraph is trying to say? Is going from half the mean up to the mean really significant enough to comment on (when ACE is meant to be a measure of a season's activity). crandles 15:07, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Dear me, what I lot of trouble I seem to have inadvertently caused. To respond:

On the NOR matter:

a) I would say that what I produced is a tabulation or presentation of a (single, cited, reputable) dataset rather than an analysis of it, and therefore falls short of the definition of OR

b) It is less OR than is Talk:2006 Atlantic hurricane season/ACE calcs - where every individual figure has been extracted from a separate web page

c) In any case, these are both covered by the getout: No original research applies to articles, not to talk pages or project pages. Oddly there doesn't seem to be a prohibition of linking from articles to talk pages. Maybe this is the (unwritten) rule I have violated?

On crystal balling, there is no shortage of this in Wikipedia. At Transit of Venus, 2012 we read "The next transit of Venus will occur on June 5–June 6 in 2012." At 2012 Summer Olympics "The 2012 Summer Olympics ... will be held in London, United Kingdom from 26 July to 12 August 2012." The first of these is the nearest to a certainty there could be. Any of a number of (mostly unfortunate) situations could intervene to prevent the second. Given the state of the mathematics and physics at the time I would say the certainty of my "will have brought it up" was nearer to the first than the second. It was only temporary for a few hours (while the previously wording about being slightly below the mean was no longer significantly true), anyway. And it was, as it turned out, correct.

On the wording generally, I believe a more encyclopedic paragraph is now in place.--Keith Edkins ( Talk ) 08:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The difference of the two examples you listed and the one that was found in the article is that the two examples have ample sources documenting them, the one in the article has none. --Holderca1 15:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

A small landmark

The ACE has passed 66 so this season is sure to qualify as (at least) 'Near normal'.--Keith Edkins ( Talk ) 08:17, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Which makes Ivan's ACE of 70.4 all the more impressive. We still haven't reached it through 10 storms, which even includes a few Cape Verde hurricanes. --Holderca1 15:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Another reminder of how unbelievably insane the past two years have been. -- §HurricaneERIC§ archive 04:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Thiis is strange: Before Florence, Gordon, Helene and possibly Issac formed, Ernesto was the biggest ACE holder of the season at 5.17, but since then we've had 3 storms with an ACE of 10+.HurricaneCraze32 aka Mitchazenia 19:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

NCDC updates

The National Climatic Data Center now has storm event reports up to July 31, 2006. The Alberto article should be adjusted accordingly, as there are now damage totals (around $400,000). There's no reports on Beryl, so that does not need to be updated. Hurricanehink (talk) 18:01, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

They were able to assess for such a small number? CrazyC83 00:08, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I bet the WFOs involved were able to assess it, if there is a number listed. Remember, the NCDC data is reported by the WFOs involved. NHC estimates are just insurance claims doubled. Thegreatdr 00:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Whoa, hang on a minute. We're talking just deaths and damages right; the Butcher's Bill? Nothing else from NCDC would be official since they aren't the hurricane specialists. -- §HurricaneERIC§ archive 04:23, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

If you don't trust the offices that actually report the relevent data to NHC, for their use, then you don't understand how the whole process works within the NWS. WFO data, which is archived by NCDC in various ways, is also the primary NHC source for storm reports, not the other way around. The NWS works as a team, which includes the national centers. No national center can do its job without the work of the WFOs, which includes the collection of data and the maintenance of the COOP and first order reporting sites. Calling NCDC (the official NWS archivists) unofficial would be like considering the Library of Congress and the National Archives an unofficial source for information for the United States. Thegreatdr 01:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Question

What will happen if the NHC uses up all of the greek names? Do they resort to the military alphabet, barrow names from other basins or make up the names themselves if that happens. Storm05 13:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if they have considered that, but given that a season that got that far (> 45 (21 normal +24 greek) storms) would be even more beyond the 2005 year than the 2005 year was beyond the any other recorded year since at least 1950, it is unlikely to be a problem. Naraht 13:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It may very well become a problem, say, when the next hurricane peak hits 30 years from now. The NHC has stated that greek names can be retired, so the list of greek names could concievably shrink over time, if we keep having 2005-like years! (This is all assuming they don't change the naming system in the near future) -Runningonbrains 15:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

There has never been 46 named storms in even the Western Pacific, so that is quite an extreme thought... CrazyC83 15:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Well 39 is pretty close, but you do have a point. Runningonbrains, I prefer to keep my glass half full rather than half empty. Concievably, you and I and the rest of the world could be vaporized by a giant asteroid in the next hour, but you don't see too many people walking around in sandwich boards that read "The end is near". So let's try to avoid apocalyptic thoughts. -- §HurricaneERIC§ archive 23:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

In that case that we get more than 45 hurricanes, the last thought on everyone's mind will be what to call the hurricanes. Reub2000 06:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

^ now that's a more reasonable statement. -tcwd 22:32, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

CSU October

http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/2006/oct2006/

Calls for 2 named storms and 1 more hurricane this season, totalling 11/6/2. – Chacor 16:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Assigned numbers

How come we refer to storms in the Atlantic by just their number, while in other basins, we use a letter and a number? We have A, W, E, S, and P. The correct letter for Atlanitc storms is L, right? I had a heckofa time trying to figure out what to call storms in the Southern Hemisphere seasonal page. I gave up a few times until I decided to ignore the ones with F and R (Fiji and La Reunion). JTWC doesn't assign those (or they don't use them at least). The point is, isn't it more correct to use the number followed by the letter L for unnamed Atlantic storms? Good kitty 17:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

We use the official NHC name, which doesn't include the "L". (E.g., Isaac as a depression was AL092006 Tropical Depression NINE) – Chacor 17:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Follow-up to myself: To be fair, the NHC doesn't add -E to their model runs for EPac storms, although they do add -E for their advisories. – Chacor 04:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Realistically, to avoid POV problems, it wouldn't be a bad thing to call, for example, T.D. #9 in the Atlantic T.D. 9L. However, outside the ATCF numbering in the compute data and related NRL links, there are no advisories that state this designation. My guess is, if you wanted to add an L, you'd run into problems due to this fact. Thegreatdr 19:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the Extratropical Transition

Why is it that the new storms on the 2006 season article have track maps that don't include the extratropical portion of the track? The maps for Image:Alberto_2006_track.png, and Image:Beryl_2006_track.png have the extratropical portion of the track, but Image:Ernesto_2006_track.png, Image:Florence_2006_track.png, Image:Gordon_2006_track.png, Image:Helene_2006_track.png, and Image:Isaac_2006_track.png don't. Is anyone going to add the extratropical portion later, or is it just going to remain this way? Personally, I don't think tropical storms dissipate when they become extratropical, they just lose their tropical characteristics. On the Storm Articles, the Information box which displayes the max. winds, lowest pressure, etc, usually says a storm dissipates when it becomes extratropical. This is not fully true. Tropical storms can strengthen when they become extratropical, and can still do a lot of damage. So why ignore a storm when it's still dangerous? P.S. Sorry if i took up too much space on the talk page, I wasn't sure how to just post the link instead of the whole image. (someone fixed that, thanks) AstroHurricane001 21:44, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The older stoms have a "best track" released by the NHC from their post-storm analyses, which includes positions while the storm was extratropical. Wikipedia has a No Original Research policy, so we cannot add the extratropical positions until they are specified by the NHC, which is the ultimate authority on these matters. Once the Tropical Cyclone Reports on the other storms are released, those positions will be added to their respective maps. -Runningonbrains 23:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

In reply to the second part of that question, there has been discussion about the exact wording of "dissipated" in the infobox. What is certain is that pressure and max winds always use the tropical value; if one is available the extratropical value is sometimes included in parenthesis. And as far as I know, all deaths and damage (regardless of tropicality) currently counts in the totals. – Chacor 03:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

You know, there were more advisories for Ernesto while extratropical, but no one's added them and I don't know how and I don't have any time to learn how. íslenskur fellibylur #12 _(samtal) 01:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the HPC did release advisories on extratropical Ernesto. – Chacor 03:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for clarifying that up. By the way, I remember the remnants of Ernesto tracked up into Southern Ontario, and moved into Quebec and Atlantic Canada. AstroHurricane001 21:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)