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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Carmen/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 02:47, 26 June 2010 [1].

Hurricane Carmen

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Hurricane Carmen (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Juliancolton (talk) 17:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC), User:Cyclonebiskit[reply]

With the advent of hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean today, I present the article on Hurricane Carmen for consideration to become a featured article—my first nomination in several months. This entry covers a relatively destructive 1970s tropical cyclone whose most significant effect was the destruction of sugar crops in the United States. Despite sparing two major population centers and causing less damage than initially feared, the hurricane's severity justified the retirement of its name the following year. Credit goes to Cyclonebiskit (talk · contribs) for writing most of the info on Carmen's effects outside of the United States, and to Finetooth (talk · contribs), among others, for copyediting and reviewing the article. Juliancolton (talk) 17:12, 1 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments

It is great to see some work on more important hurricane articles. Not to discourage, but I think it's lacking a bit. IMO, it might be on the short side, and glaringly there is no aftermath section. Here are some things that stood out at me.

We discussed this a few weeks ago. I was unable to find any substantial aftermath info, except for some duplication of the sugar crop shortage. Juliancolton (talk) 20:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • the hurricane began to rapidly deepen over warm waters of the Carribean Sea - you should link "rapidly deepen" so people know what it means.
  • Early on September 2, a double eyewall appeared on satellite imagery, indicating an extreme tropical cyclone - I think "extreme tropical cyclone" should be in quotes, since it's not an official term and otherwise might seem confusing.
  • its northern jog spared Belize City from a direct hit. - was Belize City supposed to be hit?
  • You go into some meteorological details in the met. history, but it doesn't paint a complete picture for me. What caused the steering currents to weaken? What allowed Carmen to restrengthen so significantly in the Gulf of Mexico? How big of a storm was it? What caused it to turn northward in the gulf?
  • Some individual replies:
  • [2] explains that the steering currents became weaker due to pressure falls over the GOM, but since I fail to see the correlation there, I won't risk incorporating mis-information.
  • The discussions don't seem to mention why it intensified.
  • [3] does not have size data available for this time period.
  • Same story for the northward turn. Juliancolton (talk) 13:13, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • People purchasing emergency supplies crowded stores in New Orleans, where secretaries moved files to upper floors of the courthouse in Pointe à la Hache - this sentence stood out as being awkward how it tries to combine two completely different pieces of info.
  • Preparations for Carmen were particularly thorough with Hurricane Camille in recent memory - perhaps specify that Camille was five years prior?
  • Following Carmen's passage, officials feared the worst for an area of 1,000 mi2 (2,590 km2) where communication was lost in Belize - just how bad was it? You mention the crop damage, but you don't say how bad it was overall in the country.
  • Winds approaching gale force affected several islands - that is right after mentioning Puerto Rico. Do the "several islands" refer to islands in the territory of Puerto Rico, or islands of the Greater Antilles?
  • Any impact in Texas, Alabama, or Florida?

If I had to !vote, I would oppose. Good work on the article, but not good enough, IMO, for FA status. --Hurricanehink (talk) 02:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you said a couple months ago you thought it was good enough for FA, so this is really surprising. But thanks for the review; I'll deal with these this afternoon. Juliancolton (talk) 13:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I've started a line-by-line prose review on the article's talk page here. Please respond to individual concerns there. I also have one non-prose issue I'd like to bring up: The lead should summarize every major section of the article. It currently does not have any content relating to the Preparations section. I am now satisfied with the prose of the article. The only two issues remaining in my review are requests for minute details which may not even be available in the source material. I'm sure that if either of these details becomes available, Julian would be quick to add them. As such, I am happy to lend my support to this article. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:45, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, I'll deal with those later. Preparations are generally not significant enough for inclusion in a short summary of a tropical cyclone, with the exception of extreme cases like Hurricane Rita. I can add a couple sentences about the evacuations if you think it would be an improvement. Juliancolton (talk) 13:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Preparations section makes up nearly 20% of the article, so I definitely think it should be represented in the lead. Even something as simple as "Neither Mexico nor the United States enforced any official evacuations." would work. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 15:22, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I support. This is a great article! Leave Message, Yellow Evan home

Support Comments by Finetooth.

I peer-reviewed this in May and thought it was close to FAC. I agree with Hurricanehink that the article is short relative to many hurricane articles, but that seems actionable only if significant RS data exists and has been neglected. Has it? In any case, I found a few more minor things on this read-through that I think need attention:
Meteorological history
"Under outflow conditions favorable to the storm's intensification, produced by an upper-level high pressure area, the system gradually strengthened as it moved through the Lesser Antilles." - I think the "produced" clause is intended to modify "conditions" rather than "intensification". If so, would this be better: "Under outflow conditions produced by an upper-level high pressure area and favorable to the storm's intensification, the system gradually strengthened as it moved through the Lesser Antilles"?
"... by 1800 UTC, it had strengthened... " - Should UTC be linked on first use to Coordinated Universal Time? Should UTC be spelled out on first use: UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)? I think readers know a.m. and p.m. but maybe not UTC.
Impact
"Following its usage, the World Meteorological Organization retired the name Carmen... " - The word "usage" stopped me because I immediately thought of "dictionary". Maybe "After the storm" would be better than "Following its usage".
United States
"Nonetheless, tidal flooding from the Gulf of Mexico and coastal bays, lakes and bayous was severe." - Can tidal flooding come from a lake? Would "estuaries" be a better word since it makes clear that these "lakes" (like Ponchartrain) are connected to the sea?
I think "coastal" already indicates that, but I can change it if needed. Juliancolton (talk) 13:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are right about "coastal"; it should suffice. Finetooth (talk) 19:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Losses to Grand Island State Park totaled $114,600, although the majority was due to lost usage." - Does that mean entrance fees? Otherwise, it's hard to see how not using the park would cause a loss.
"The oil and gas industry was also affected, and its estimated $24.7 million in losses were primarily a result of damaged equipment and offshore facilities." - Maybe "resulted mainly from damage to equipment and offshore facilities" to avoid any hint that the offshore facilities caused the damage.
"Down time in production from the storm ranged from 24 to 48 hours, leading to 1.4 million barrels of lost oil." - Was the oil actually lost, or does this mean "The storm diminished oil production by 1.4 million barrels when it shut down operations for 24 to 48 hours at various locations"?
Finetooth (talk) 15:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done most of these. I've addressed the lack of an aftermath section below, but since multiple users have raised this concern, I'll try one more time to dig up some info. Thanks for the detailed review. Juliancolton (talk) 13:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

"Following its usage, the World Meteorological Organization retired the name Carmen from the rotating list of hurricane names.[25] However, due to a change in the naming scheme in 1979, it was not replaced by any particular name." - This is OR IMO, as the WMO did not dictate the naming lists at that time - The Us Weather Beauru did. Otherwise it looks goodJason Rees (talk) 23:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; fixed. Thanks! Juliancolton (talk) 00:12, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: Hurricanehink (talk · contribs) is apparently on self-admitted wikibreak, so his above oppose is no longer actionable; I believe I have, however, addressed many of his concerns in any case. Juliancolton (talk) 01:04, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I still find it surprising there is no aftermath section, not even any disaster declarations, no homeless people in the US in need of shelter, no return to normalcy. It's not a strong oppose by any means. If I had to pick support or oppose, I'd just pick oppose. --Hurricanehink (talk) 01:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for revisiting. As I believe I said even before this FAC was initiated, I looked for aftermath info and came up with nothing substantial. (Don't take my word for it.) The only thing I can find is that a governor of one of the affected states said a disaster declaration would be "useful", but nothing that indicates he actually issued one. Juliancolton (talk) 01:34, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I followed the link provided by Julian and eventually found that FEMA made a Carmen disaster declaration (FEMA-DR-448) on September 23, 1974. This can be verified by more than one source, but nothing that I found gave enough detail to create a separate Aftermath section. A long PDF document published by the City of Slidell in 2008 here includes the FEMA number and date and one sentence about Carmen on page 5 of section 3. That sentence says, "Category 4 hurricane made landfall ten miles west of Grand Isle with winds up to 80 mph winds and 6-foot storm surge in southeastern Louisiana." I think the disaster declaration should be mentioned, perhaps right after "Other crops damaged by Carmen included soybeans, rice, and cotton." Supported by the Slidell source, it would also be possible to add a more precise location for the landfall in the U.S. Do these two suggestions seem reasonable? Hurricanehink, do you think this would do it, or is something else missing? Finetooth (talk) 19:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I found that before, but unfortunately I have no idea where the disaster declaration was issued, so I find it essentially useless. I'm thinking, if an aftermath section is absolutely necessary, I can steal some of the sugar crop info from the impact section and embellish it a bit with economic statistics. Thoughts? Juliancolton (talk) 20:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A quick partial search of hurricane FAs finds four with no Aftermath section: Hurricane Erika (1997), Hurricane Daniel (2006), Hurricane Vince (2005), and 1910 Cuba hurricane. I don't see why it would help to add an Aftermath section just for the sake of having one. I'm switching to support, but (as often happens when I take another look), I have another quibble. Shouldn't the author names in the Reference section all be last name first? Finetooth (talk) 21:32, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Atmoz—These comments only apply to the Meteorological history section as that's the only section I feel comfortable reviewing.

Accept with minor revisions:

  • "Under outflow conditions produced by an upper-level high pressure area and favorable to the storm's intensification, the system gradually strengthened as it moved through the Lesser Antilles." - Odd wording. The system strengthened because of the conditions. The current sentence focuses on the conditions and not the intensification, which I think is backwards.
  • At the end of the first paragraph, an eyewall briefly appeared. Then suddenly in the second it has a double eyewall. Surely somewhere in between it had a single eye. When did the eye reform?
  • "...nudged slightly northward... nudged is odd here. What nudged it? Also, I think the source says that the storm was moving west by north ("slightly north of due west"), but from the article I would assume it would be moving directly north at this stage.
  • "...slowed to a drift..." How slow is that? I understand that's what the source says, but the source is also a forecast. Does drift refer to beta drift?[4] If so, it was still moving as several meters per second forward to the NW.
  • A "drift" is a slow, leisurely movement in standard English, which is what I intended. Most readers are not aware of any specific alternative meaning of the word in meteorology, so I don't believe its use presents a problem here. Juliancolton (talk) 01:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...its northern jog..." Did it get sweaty?
  • "The storm's center passed a few miles north of Chetumal, which was likely under its eyewall." Are we really using a table of latitudes and longitudes to describe where the eyewall likely was?
  • "The cyclone drifted inland..." Drift again. Now (not sure in 1974) drift has a very specific meaning to those studying TCs. I don't think it applies here.
  • "...where it nearly stalled" Since TCs can be thought of as heat engines, this makes me smile. I think better wording can be found. Perhaps something like "slowed to a standstill"?
  • I'll change it if you think it's necessary, but it seems like six of one, half a dozen of the other to me. Juliancolton (talk)
  • "After moving ashore, it quickly lost force..." Force has a specific meaning which doesn't make sense here.

Overall, it's good. The few comments are generally about wording and not factual errors. I understand that colorful language makes the article more interesting to read. But I think that we can use wording that is still interesting but also more accurately describes the science. -Atmoz (talk) 21:42, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. Juliancolton (talk) 01:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the changes. Just a further comment on "The storm's center passed a few miles north of Chetumal, which was likely under its eyewall." This is referenced to HURDAT which provides lat/long pairs for (I'm assuming) the lowest central pressure and/or eye of the storm. It has nothing about the eyewall, which can vary dramatically in size. So I don't think, from that source, you can say anything about the eyewall. You can determine where the eye was, but that's about it. And we, as logical human beings, can say that the eyewall was likely over xxx_location, but in this case I don't think the source doesn't backs that up. -Atmoz (talk) 23:50, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see. I completely agree, and I'm not sure why I put that there... hmm, done in any case. Juliancolton (talk) 12:27, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Overall it looks really good. I have a few questions, but they are quite minor and do not affect my support:

  • I made a couple of copyedit tweaks. Feel free to revert.
  • Lead, "Carmen originated in a tropical disturbance". Should this be "as a"?
  • Lead, "from the recycling list of tropical cyclone names." I know what it means, but it still sounds odd - a "recycling list"...
  • Preparations, "were eager to evacuate". To me this sounds like they were just looking for an opportunity to leave, which I doubt was the case. Perhaps just "..., quickly evacuated their..."?
  • United States, "the storm inundated". It flooded this much land? Or just covered/rained on?

I do not see the lack of an aftermath section as harmful to the article's comprehensiveness. Everything that I can think of that would be in an aftermath section is quite adequately covered in the Impact section. Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 15:36, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done with everything you suggested. Thanks for the support and regards, Juliancolton (talk) 02:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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