Talk:Tropical cyclone

Article Outline

 Done Intensity

Intensity coverage now complete as of October 7, 2022! NoahTalk 00:35, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

TCs intensity determined by winds and pressure Observed extremes Factors (their roles in intensification and weakening)  Done according to Noah. NoahTalk 00:21, 7 October 2022 (UTC) SSTs Wind Shear Role size plays Outflow[1][2][3] Dry Air[4][5][6] OHC + Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential + interaction with upper-ocean Interaction with other systems[7] Landmasses, brown ocean effect[8], orographic lift[9], jet enhancement Formation  Done according to Noah NoahTalk 21:41, 5 October 2022 (UTC) Major required components Coriolis effect Instability Short remention of shear and SSTs Low-level disturbance Upper-level Divergence[10] Influence of Climate Cycles MJO[11][12] ENSO[13][14] Rossby waves[15][16] Convectively coupled Kelvin wave[17][18] RI  Done; Didn't want to mention the same information again for what causes an increase in intensity since it's a lot of same ones that lead to formation. NoahTalk 00:35, 7 October 2022 (UTC) Rapid intensification/rapid deepening + explosive deepening Weakening and Dissipation  Done According to Noah. NoahTalk 01:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC) Current section, but more condensed Methods  Done According to Noah. NoahTalk 01:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC) Brief explanation on Dvorak's role for intensity + brief on recon, direct observ, and height reduction conversion Wind-pressure relationship Other commonly-used tools for measuring intensity (ADT, SATCON, ASCAT, SMAP) Metrics  Done According to Noah. NoahTalk 01:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC) metrics for intensity (HU SURGE INDEX[19]/ACE[20]/IKE[21]/HU SEV Index/POWER DISSIPATION)

Structure

I am kinda basing this off on a large paper on TC structure in terms of points to discuss here. This is still incomplete. Noah^Talk 22:41, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Eye and center

• Clouds in the eye
• Eyewall
  • Eyewall explanation
  • Conditional instability within the eyewall cloud
  • Strong updrafts and vorticity maxima
  • Downdrafts
  • Asymmetry due to shear and storm motion
  • Cloud microphysical processes and electrification
  • Eyewall replacement

Rainbands

• Distant rainbands
• Main rainband
• Secondary rainbands

Clouds

• Clouds involved with tropical cyclogenesis
  • Cloud feedback
• Vortical Hot tower
• Clouds in a developing storm
• Clouds in a mature storm

Size

 Done According to Noah. Noah^Talk 19:58, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Movement

Environmental steering

 Done according to Noah. Noah^Talk 22:16, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Beta Drift

 Done according to Noah. Noah^Talk 22:16, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Interaction with the mid-latitude westerlies

 Done according to Noah. Noah^Talk 22:16, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Structural changes

• Wobbles imparted by mesovortices
• Motion changes caused by ERCs
• Center relocations

Classification

Intensity classifications

• Needs a better summary

Naming

 Done According to Noah. Noah^Talk 19:24, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Formation regions and warning centers

Major basins

Unusual formation areas

• Mid-lats
• Near Equator
• SATL
• Met Sea & Black Sea
• SE Pacific, Great Lakes

Preparations

Watches and Warnings

• History of TC watches/warnings
• Summary of Western Hem watches/warnings
• Summary of Western Pacific watches/warnings
• Summary of South Pacific watches/warnings
• Summary of Indian Ocean watches/warnings
• Mention of military advisories

Evacuations

• Islands
• Shelters
• Hospitals and nursing homes
• Military assets

Home preparations

• Hurricane-proof building
• Grocery store/panic buying
• Supply kits[22][23][24][25]
• Generators
• Boarding up windows and sandbags
• Insurance

Government preparations

• Seawalls
• Levees

 Done Impacts

All goals for impact coverage I added have been met. NoahTalk 15:17, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Weather/Events that TCs cause or worsen  Done According to Noah NoahTalk 01:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC) Winds Lightning activity[26][27] Wildfires[28][29] Rainfall Floods Snow[30] Storm Surge Tornadoes/Waterspouts High waves/Rip Currents [31][32] Effects to People  Done According to Noah. NoahTalk 01:28, 26 May 2022 (UTC) Global overview Damage Agriculture Public infrastructure General statement on other items destroyed Deaths Environmental Effects  Done According to Noah. NoahTalk 15:17, 27 May 2022 (UTC) Oil Spills[33](+Marsh loss)[34][35](+Algae blooms)[36](+ chemical release) Chemical/Toxic material spills[37][38][39] (Metal polluted river) Geographical - Land created[40][41][42][43]/destroyed[44][45], landslides/mudslides[46][47][48][49], erosion[50](+mercury contamination)[51][52] Ecological - Wildlife and forests [53][54][55][56][57] Hydrologic - Desert/Drought regions (already covered) Oceanic (already covered) Atmospheric (already covered)

Response

Civilian Response

Impacted Government response

Other Government responses

Organizational responses

Climatology and records

As a novice on this topic, I find this section heading unclear. With all the other section headings, I kind of know what to expect (I like the standard section headings so far used in the article like Types, Impacts, Responses...). A section heading called "climatology and records", with a sub-heading called "climate change" is unclear. EMsmile (talk) 12:35, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

@EMsmile: Is that better? Noah^Talk 21:34, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi User:Hurricane Noah, you've changed the section heading from "climatology and records" to "climatology"? I still don't find that clear. I looked up what climatology is: "Climatology (from Greek κλίμα, klima, "place, zone"; and -λογία, -logia) or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years." As this is a main heading, it is unclear for me as a reader what I should be expecting there. The other main section headings are fairly clear but could this one be changed into a "plain language" word? Also, should it not come earlier in the structure?:

1	Background
2	Classification and naming
3	Intensity
4	Structure
5	Movement
6	Formation regions and warning centers
7	Preparations
8	Impacts
9	Response
10	Climatology
11	Observation and forecasting
12	Related cyclone types

How about "Effects of climate" or something like that? "Interactions between climate and tropical cyclones"? EMsmile (talk) 09:00, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

@EMsmile: The section is quite literally meant to be taken as tropical cyclone climatology. It isn't related to the effects of climate or interactions between climate and TCs. It's the averages of activity that occur each year. Noah^Talk 15:05, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I feel super dumb here, but perhaps other readers who are non-experts like me feel similarly. Is it possible to use a headline that is clearer to non-experts than "climatology"? Maybe "Averages of activity"? Also if it's not related to climate change then why does it have a sub-heading called "10.1 Influence of climate change"? Sorry if this is a really dumb question, please don't give up on me. Others might not understand it either. :-) EMsmile (talk) 22:09, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

I personally feel that climatology is the best word to be used here, since as you have already mentioned @EMsmile: it is weather conditions (In this case TC's) averaged over a period of at least 30 years. Jason Rees (talk) 23:34, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Observation and forecasting

Observation

 Done Looks sufficient to me. Noah^Talk 22:11, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Forecasting

• Track forecasting
• Intensity forecasting
• Rainfall forecasting
• Storm surge forecasting

Geopotential height

 Done According to Noah. Noah^Talk 21:57, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

• Low-level/850 hPa
• 700 hpa
• Mid-level/500 hPa
• 300 hpa
• Upper-level/200 hPa

Related cyclone types

Extratropical cyclone

Subtropical cyclone

 Not done Popular culture (Removed)

US

Other countries (as material exists)

Discussion

@Hurricanehink: We need to make a proper outline of this article in order to bring in every point that needs discussed. I started it off here by reorganizing topics under appropriate sections and adding in some items, but there is likely more items. For example, movement as it is has nothing to do with structure so I split it out into its own section and also added Interaction with the mid-latitude westerlies underneath it as that has to do with movement rather than structure. If you have anything specific that you think needs discussed, please add it to this outline. Intensity is the only one I have thought out thoroughly so it is already well-developed. Noah^Talk 11:59, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

@Femkemilene: I would appreciate your input on what should be discussed here as well. There's quite a bit that needs to be added to this article. I already did some restructuring and added in some new content. Everything that has a source attached to it currently will be added into the article sometime this week. Noah^Talk 13:49, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Don't have much time to engage (trying to save Antarctica's star, and still not at full health), but some thoughts:

• The article is at around 9000 words, so we should think about deleting stuff if we want to add stuff to make sure readers don't have to wade through details.
• I'm not sure we need the last two sections (pop culture / notable storms). Both of these sections would be a magnet for trivia and systemic bias towards the US. Notable storms can be mentioned in other sections, if they are sufficiently notable. If they don't naturally roll into the prose, should we have them. The notable storm section as is, is too wordy in my opinion, and mostly based on specialist sources about specific storms (is there an overview about notable storms we could use instead)
• I think in general, we could do with a large-scale switch to overview sources. There must be good post-graduate textbooks to use. What structure do they use? Which aspects do they omit, because it's too much detail
• The words "climate cycle" have fallen out of fashion, as most modes of variability aren't that periodic. Rossby and Kelvin waves aren't really taking place on climate time-scales (at least, when they're in the atmosphere), so that doesn't fit. Does "background conditions" work as a heading instead? Femke (talk) 18:20, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

@Femkemilene: I wholeheartedly agree with eliminating pop culture and notable TCs. Given this article is 55k prose, we still have a ways to go in terms of expansion without making the article too large. Many articles are much larger than this without having issues with size. We need not have haste in eliminating things to keep the size low as tropical cyclone is a broad topic with many aspects that need to be discussed. We need to provide an overview of many different subtopics of tropical cyclone, which means we need to keep almost everything we have (outside of what you mention removing) while adding additional material so we cover all important aspects. The scope of tropical cyclone should justify having an article in excess of 60k bytes for prose size. If it's too large after we are done rewriting it, we can always choose bits to trim at that point. I feel like we need to mention TCs with significant records (rainfall, damage, deaths, etc..) within the article itself, but we don't need to cover all of the records or all of the storms we currently cover. Those two changes in and of themselves would free up some room. I'm not using climate cycles as a heading, but more of a thought to guide my research. It's just going to be a paragraph explaining the four items that fall underneath it. The problem with textbooks is that they aren't going to go into detail about more complex subtopics and current research like we need, such as the intensity metrics and tools for assessing intensity. @Jason Rees: Would you be okay with me removing pop culture as soon as I get a chance? I want to leave notable TCs section alone for now and worry about it later. Noah^Talk 18:54, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, I think the intensity section needs to be finished as I outlined above. Structure, preps, impacts, and response are in definite need of expansion. Elsewhere, there may need to be minor adjustments (like forecasting could use a few sentences about other types of forecasts). Noah^Talk 19:04, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

In terms of TCs to mention by topics:

1. Typhoon Forrest - Explosive deepening (Intensity)
2. Hurricane Patricia - Explosive intensification/Extreme observed wind intensity (Intensity) -Needs additional work
3. Typhoon Tip - Largest TC (Structure)/Extreme observed pressure intensity (Intensity) -Needs additional work at intensity
4. TS Marco '08 - Smallest TC (Structure)
5. Typhoons Carmen ('60) and Winney ('97) - largest eye (Structure)
6. Hurricane Wilma - smallest eye (Structure)
7. Hurricane/Typhoon John - Longest distance travelled/longest lasting (Movement)
8. Hurricane Ivan - most tornadoes (Impact)
9. Bhola cyclone - Deadliest TC (Impact)
10. Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey - tied as the costliest TCs (Impact)
11. Cyclone Hyacinthe - highest rainfall (Impact)
12. Cyclone Mahina - highest storm surge (Impact)

These mentions should equate to around 200 words or so throughout the article instead of the 900+ that we have now. These are referencing global records only rather than including individual basin records, which is why we have such a wordy section currently. I believe focusing on individual basins has led to UNDUE coverage in that section. If we eliminate the notable TCs section, we can mention these storms throughout the article in their appropriate topic sections. Also note that I don't think we need to cover every TC record here either as that would also be UNDUE. Noah^Talk 15:21, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like a plan!

About article lenght. WP:Articlesize sometimes allows for slightly longer articles: the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material. I think the scope here is easily captured in subarticles, so I would loosely aim for the 50k/8,000 words. I think 8,000 words works well for articles like this because

• The longer it is, the more it needs to be updated, and we don't really have the volunteers for that.
• Those extra words make the article less accessible for people with "normal" amounts of time / people that can't read fast. Femke (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that we need to cover things here that aren't captured within subarticles. Many of them are running on 2008 era standards and aren't comprehensive in their coverage, which means the broader coverage in TC is also not comprehensive. We have subarticles that simply don't exist for some topics as well. The lack of comprehensive coverage is why 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was sent to FAR. It required a near doubling of the page size in order to become comprehensive. We obviously won't need that drastic of an increase here, but I wouldn't be surprised if we need to exceed 8000 words to be comprehensive in our coverage. The issue we have here is this article never was comprehensive and shouldn't have been an FA to begin with. I realize more words makes it harder for people to read the whole thing, but that's not a factor in the FA criteria. The article is required to be well-researched and comprehensive, neglecting no major facts or details. I think as long as we get this article up to par, keeping up with updates won't be as much of a challenge since some portions of the article don't change (simply needs new sourcing to keep it up to date). We shouldn't ever have to work to this extent on the TC article again once it is at FA. We are essentially rebuilding it from its foundations right now. Considering how much we discovered that was wrong with it, it's not surprising that nobody wanted to attempt fixing it over the past 14 years. Noah^Talk 19:37, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

THIS ARTICLE WILL CONTAIN DUPLICATE MATERIAL UNTIL ALL STORMS ON THE ABOVE LIST THAT ARE ALREADY PRESENT IN THE ARTICLE ARE MENTIONED OUTSIDE THE NOTABLE STORMS SECTION! THE ONES NOT YET MENTIONED INCLUDE TIP, PATRICIA, JOHN, AND MARCO. THE STRUCK NAMES ARE CURRENT DUPLICATES. PLEASE DO NOT DELETE DUPLICATE MENTIONS IN THE MEANTIME. THANK YOU. THIS CONCLUDES YOUR PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. Sorry for the caps and bolding, but I wanted it to be highly visible. Noah^Talk 22:25, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Removed the notable TCs section since all four of those storms were mentioned. The rest of the storms on the list were not in this article and will be added in the future. Keep in mind that text may need some additional reworking, but the mentions are there. Noah^Talk 23:23, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Some of the wording for the mentions will be adjusted later on when I complete the additional text, but is the article starting to look better? I removed notable tropical cyclones and pop culture today. I made a sizeable addition to impact that summarizes the impact of tropical cyclones by region (thanks to Hurricanehink for his efforts in writing up the article from which I brought the lead over) without being too lengthy (basically an addition of two paragraphs there; not bad considering the article being summarized is over 200k bytes long). That made this article just under 8300 words/54k bytes prose. That being said, all the big removals are done and almost only additions remain. Expect this article to expand a decent amount with additions to preps, structure, and response. Noah^Talk 00:47, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I intend to get back on this sometime in the second half of June. Noah^Talk 22:15, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Tropical depression vs tropical storm

According to 2023 Atlantic hurricane season, there have been 21 tropical depressions so far this year in the Atlantic, but only 20 tropical storms. I came here to find out what the difference is, but nothing in this article explains the difference. Nosferattus (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: In the Atlantic, a tropical cyclone with winds below than 34 kn (40 mph; 65 km/h) are called "tropical depressions", and those with winds above that threshold but below hurricane-force are called "tropical storms". In counts of storm activity, tropical storms also count as tropical depressions (as do hurricanes and major hurricanes). Since the terminology used to differentiate storms by wind speed varies globally, details are elaborated upon in the article tropical cyclone scales. However, I did add a short blurb at the end of the §Classification section of this article to provide some clarification. —TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 23:02, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Removed "further reading" list

I've removed the "further reading" list as I don't think it adds any value. It would have to be curated regularly and also it's currently US centric:

• Barnes, Jay. Fifteen Hurricanes That Changed the Carolinas: Powerful Storms, Climate Change, and What We Do Next (University of North Carolina Press, 2022) online review
• Vecchi, Gabriel A., et al. "Changes in Atlantic major hurricane frequency since the late-19th century." Nature communications 12.1 (2021): 1–9. online
• Weinkle, Jessica, et al. "Normalized hurricane damage in the continental United States 1900–2017." Nature Sustainability 1.12 (2018): 808–813. online EMsmile (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Made some changes to the structure

I've made some changes to the structure. My biggest change was that I dissolved the "background" section as I felt that it was not needed and in any case ill-defined. Where would you draw the lines for a "background" section? It could talk about cyclones in general, storms, weather, climate, history and so forth. I didn't delete the content that was there but moved it to better places.

Instead, I have created a section on "definition and terminology". I find in many Wikipedia articles (like this one as well), the first paragraph of the lead talks a lot about terminology but the main article doesn't have a section for it. I think it's better to have a dedicated section for it and then not waste so much valuable space in the first paragraph of the lead on this topic. Also for this lead, I would suggest condensing the info that is currently in the first paragraph of the lead about terminology. And rather put there information that is highly important and relevant for the readers. EMsmile (talk) 11:03, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Interlink better with cyclone article?

I am surprised we don't interlink better with the parent article for this, i.e. cyclone. Should it be mentioned and linked at least once in the lead? And also for some sections where it might have additional information for the readers, e.g. regarding formation? So far, I find only one wikilink to cyclone and that's in this sentence: On the other hand, Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential is one of such non-conventional subsurface oceanographic parameters influencing the cyclone intensity. EMsmile (talk) 11:06, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Improving the lead

I've added a sentence about climate change to the end of the lead as I felt this was justified (it's a key question for many people: are tropical cyclones getting worse due to climate change or not). This has made the lead a bit too long now. I've therefore moved some content that was dealing with terminology from the lead to the "terminology" section. The lead is now 604 words. I think we should shrink it down to perhaps 500 words. Who has ideas and inspiration for further condensing the lead? EMsmile (talk) 11:35, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about the lead much until the article is back in good shape. It would be pointless to work on it now when other areas need attention. I havent really had much time to contribute to WP for quite a while but the list of things under article outline still stands. I wouldn't focus on the lead until every topic is sufficiently covered since the lead should summarize the article. Noah, AA^Talk 15:01, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

In an ideal world, yes. But in reality, it might be a while until someone finds time to improve the main text. In the meantime, people who are reading on Wikipedia are already reading the lead (and perhaps only the lead!). Therefore, I think improving the lead is important, at any time and even before the main text is improved (or in parallel). I don't have time for either of this myself at the moment though, sadly. EMsmile (talk) 11:21, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I've done a bit of work to make the lead easier to understand (using the readability tool as guidance). I've also shortened it a bit. It's still a bit too long (602 words), I think it should be shrunk down to 500 words. EMsmile (talk) 11:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 August 2024

Intensity metrics

Multiple intensity metrics are used, including accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), the Hurricane Surge Index, the Hurricane Severity Index, the Power Dissipation Index (PDI), and integrated kinetic energy (IKE). ACE is a metric of the total energy a system has exerted over its lifespan. ACE is calculated by summing the squares of a cyclone's sustained wind speed, every six hours as long as the system is at or above tropical storm intensity and either tropical or subtropical. The calculation of the PDI is similar in nature to ACE, with the major difference being that wind speeds are cubed rather than squared. The Hurricane Surge Index is a metric of the potential damage a storm may inflict via storm surge. It is calculated by squaring the dividend of the storm's wind speed and a climatological value (33 m/s or 74 mph), and then multiplying that quantity by the dividend of the radius of hurricane-force winds and its climatological value (96.6 km or 60.0 mi). This can be represented in equation form as:

$\left({\frac {v}{33\ m/s}}\right)^{2}\times \left({\frac {r}{96.6\ km}}\right)\,$

where $v$ is the storm's wind speed and $r$ is the radius of hurricane-force winds. The Hurricane Severity Index is a scale that can assign up to 50 points to a system; up to 25 points come from intensity, while the other 25 come from the size of the storm's wind field. The IKE model measures the destructive capability of a tropical cyclone via winds, waves, and surge. It is calculated as:

$\int _{Vol}{\frac {1}{2}}pu^{2}d_{v}\,$

where $p$ is the density of air, $u$ is a sustained surface wind speed value, and $d_{v}$ is the volume element. OggeQ (talk) 07:07, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding mathmode to some symbols in explanation. (Correct, but a bit rude) OggeQ (talk) 07:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

References

 Done PianoDan (talk) 18:29, 16 August 2024 (UTC) why is hurricane — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.211.194.61 (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 October 2024

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