Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones

I just created this wikiproject, after several months of contemplating doing so. I hope everyone working on hurricane articles will get involved. I went ahead and wrote a bunch of guidelines, basically based on current practices...naturally since this is something I just wrote it doesn't necessarily represent community consensus and needs to be discussed. That discussion should probably go here for now...although eventually we may make these pages a little more structured. For a general TODO list, see the "tasks" item on the project page. Jdorje 23:17, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

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1. Hurricane Camille
2. Hurricane Jeanne
3. Hurricane Rafael
4. Cyclone Hudhud
5. Hurricane Frances

I feel that both of the above articles are nearly finished. They are both awaiting GA reviews, but assuming there are no issues, I will nominate both of them to featured article status in the near future. We've had A-class in the past, as a project review status, but I think it could be easier if users added the articles they intend to take to FA status in the future. This can help notify other users if they want to help out. Users should be proactive and make the small changes (especially typos), as well as point out what needs to be done on the talk page (if anything). There are a lot of pretty good articles in the project, and I think it would be better to have more of them featured, provided they are either of moderate importance, or help to complete an important topic. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

I will try to get all 5 major ATL2024 hurricanes to FA. (Beryl, Debby, Helene, Milton, Rafael) GiftedIceCream 15:35, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

It’s pretty far off now but Cyclone Hudhud would be a good first FA. I think I can still expand it like 1.5-2x in some parts. HurricaneZeta^C 15:48, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

@GiftedIceCream and HurricaneZeta: when either of you are considering going for FA and would like a review beforehand, let me know. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:32, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

@Hurricanehink I could take a review for Hurricane Rafael. GiftedIceCream 15:29, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

@GiftedIceCream: let me know after it passes GAN. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:43, 20 January 2026 (UTC)

Eagle-eyed readers might notice that dozens of articles have been merged in the past few months. Back on December 21, 2025, User:Hurricane Noah said:

"We need to tighten our reins on what storms get articles. If a storm isnt being discussed after the fact for meteorological notability and impacts were minor or nil, there shouldnt be an article as it doesnt pass notability policies. The project does need to be brought in line with site policy as a whole which has been happening slowly over time."

This was about a discussion on storms getting split out from their season articles. The inclusionist/merger debate has been ongoing since the WPTC was first founded. It's been difficult to have standards across every season, since there are two schools of thought. When a storm is active, that's when interest in a storm is likely to be at its highest, so it might make sense to publish an article, thinking that it could potentially overwhelm the season article. On the other hand, Wikipedia isn't a news outlet. And so we have dozens to hundreds of articles on storms that have barely been edited since they were published, many of which are largely duplicates from their respective season articles.

There's been a few general, unspoken agreements in recent successful mergers, that I think could be codified as such:

1. All tropical cyclones are notable enough to be included on Wikipedia, to be mentioned (at bare minimum) in the season article for whatever tropical cyclone basin(s) they are in.
2. Per Wikipedia article size rules, if a season article is under 6,000 words, then its length alone does not justify division or trimming. Several season articles have the section size template to show the word count (which is different than the article size by kilobytes).
3. If a short season article has multiple sub-articles, start with the shortest sub-article to determine for the potential for merging. A merged article will have a smaller word count than the original article for a few reasons:
   • It is common for sub-articles to be in more detail than a season article due to the need for each article to avoid jargon.
   • Sometimes, editors will add phrases that don't add anything to the article, such as "The storm caused no fatalities."
   • Some articles go into excessive detail that could be rewritten in fewer words. Look out for passive voice, or using multiple sentences to describe the same information.
   • Not every instance of storm damage needs to be documented. If a storm destroyed 5 homes in one location and 5 homes in another, it's generally better to say the storm destroyed 10 homes.
   • Context matters for whether info is important/relevant. Sometimes sources will describe pretty rudimentary activities, such as residents filling up gas tanks and boarding up windows. That sort of info is rarely useful to describing a storm.

There are probably a few other things to add, that's why I wanted to open the discussion.

Also, I noticed on the recent merge discussion for Hurricane Hilary (1993), future merge discussions should go to AFD, per the recent request for comment about merge discussions. Given that, I figured it was important to have a new discussion about article standards. With rare exception, it seems that most users are onboard with most of the merge discussions, and having some general guidelines could help finish the ongoing merge-a-thon. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:57, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

I think that seasons should have the size rule applied slightly different and there are other reasons for articles to be split. I use a few key statistics and some guesstimation to decide if a storm needs an article. In general, if the storm's article is significantly larger than the section on the season's article, over 1,000 words in length, and over 20,000 bytes in size, I would say that it should be independent from the season's page. All of those statistics are larger than a significant majority of articles on Wikipedia and seem decently reasonable. Also, if information is routine or too basic for Wikipedia, then exceptions can be made. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 19:17, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

You're right, especially around the 1,000 word cutoff, especially if majority of that is impacts. It's easy to have articles like Hurricane Kenneth (2005), or the drafts for Humberto last year, which are heavy on met details but short on impacts. If a major hurricane barely had any impacts, then everything about it can probably be stated in the impact section. As for your last part, a factor whether info is routine or not is if there are any real studies or journal articles on the subject, or any lasting impact. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 21:09, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

• I haven't edited much in years but I've noticed the recent changes, including the touching of several articles I wrote. From a philosophical standpoint I don't really have an issue with anything Hink wrote and is how we operated back in the day but the threshold for sufficient content seems different nowadays. I use to believe around 10-15kbs was generally enough back in my day. Is there a reason for the change of standard here and is their a point to it, especially given these articles in questions (and their respective season articles) are established? It's worth noting I've always had an aversion to merging ever since I started making some poorly written articles back in 2008, which were immediately proposed to be merged so I've kinda always leaned against the the merging side. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 23:38, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

  Depending on how long it has been since you edited, the higher standards might just be quality creep, which is a good thing. Another explanation might be the fact that the baseline is the Atlantic basin as our writers are usually American, meaning that shorter articles are rarer compared to the Pacific and Indian oceans. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 23:46, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) @Yellow Evan: the reason for the change is more of a focus on the season articles, which have always existed, but were neglected for a long time. Also, a common argument against mergers is that it would be too much for the season article. However, the size limit to an article is over 8,000 words. So if a section in a season article and a storm article are going to cover the same thing, then there is an overlap. The point to doing the mergers it to make sure the information is only in one place. One problem with having so many articles is that the storm sub-articles tend to have more linkrot than the season articles. What's also different nowadays is how much more information is available online. Back in 2008, there were a lot fewer resources online, and a lot of news agencies wouldn't cover international areas to the extent they're covered nowadays. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2026 (UTC)

  Has there been a shift in philosophy towards longer season sections and more article restraint among recent seasons? If so, this makes some degree of sense I suppose. I just didn't exactly expect some of my (or for that matter your) articles to be gone when I randomly browsing wiki stuff one day out of boredom. Hope all is well in the project. YE ^{Pacific Hurricane} 00:06, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

  Mostly following the size rule, while also cutting down on the fluff that was once common in storm subarticles (like mentioning lack of retirement, lack of impacts, ACE, and ship reports). There isn’t much article restraint in newer seasons because there are so many articles that show what’s expected. Also, drafts are more common now, as opposed to user sandboxes, so collaborations on active storms are more common (and thus in better shape). Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 00:58, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

  At least in the Atlantic, I have also pushed for some more information regarding the actual setting of the season such as explaining forecasts and discussing periods of activity or inactivity and what caused them. Not sure if that is fully relevant, though. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 01:28, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

  This is a good point, and you accidentally brought up a good point. The information in an article needs to be relevant, whether it's a season, a storm article, a met article, a list article, whatnot. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:58, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Why do non-NHC/CPHC basin track maps use JTWC data, not official agencies? GiftedIceCream 14:28, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

@GiftedIceCream Because usually, other agencies don't use 1-min winds and they have different scales than the Saffir-Simpson scale. To keep it standardized JTWC (which uses 1-min and Saffir-Simpson) is used. Also, JTWC data is much easier to access. HurricaneZeta^C 14:50, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The thing is, JTWC track maps are misleading and aren't very compatible with the MH. The infoboxes used for season articles don't mention SS scales. GiftedIceCream 17:07, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed. We usually go out of our way to emphasize the RSMC info (formation, peak, whatnot), so it would be good if we could somehow change the track maps. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:41, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with the change, but finding the data is a pain. Some RSMCs like IMD don't have their best track data in the formats accepted by the track generator so you have to convert it manually. I think IBTRACS is a different format? I haven't tried using it yet. This will probably need an RfC and would take years to implement (seeing as how the color change isn't fully done yet).

By the way we're overdue for a new track generator program, the current one is hard to run and very inaccessible. There's but it has its limitations, like not being able to render storms near the IDL, being laggy, and not being able to handle a lot of tracks at once. HurricaneZeta^C 17:51, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Also this is completely untrue lol, it does work with storms near the IDL, it's not very laggy, and I loaded the entire 1000 year STORMS dataset into it and it only took like 10 seconds to load Sria-72 (talk) 00:01, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

I would advise against attempting to do so, particularly because other RSMCs may not have a full grasp on the intensities of non-NHC/CPHC storms, given the big discrepancies some RSMCs have with JTWC intensities (in both directions). Additionally, most RS I believe have referred to the intensity through the SSHWS, so that’s another complication. As Zeta said, it’s better to keep it standardized then create a huge mess. MarioProtIV (^talk/_contribs) 18:06, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Unlike the color debate, I don't imagine it'll take several years to discuss any potential changes. I pointed out on Cyclone Maila the need to have the maps be zoomable, so you can click on the points - example seen here. I believe the map uses incorrect colors, but the idea is there. I don't know anything about coding, but if we could somehow use IBTRACS for both the positions and the intensities (regardless if RSMCs have discrepancies with JTWC), then that would be a substantial improvement from what we have now. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:54, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Unlike the color debate, I don't imagine it'll take several years to discuss any potential changes.

Yeah, I mean the implementation, which still isn't done for the colors.

@Hurricanehink How do you make the tracks in that example? Is it in browser? If so that's a win win. One issue with the current system is that you can't easily tell which storm is which on summary and composite maps - see and the comments of basically every post when someone posts File:Global tropical cyclone tracks-edit2.jpg.

If we are going to stick with the current generator WP:WPTC/Tracks should be rewritten. The commands aren't intuitive and it took me a few days of asking around to know all the basic commands (and even now I think there's a few I'm missing).

Pinging users who recently generated a track map: @Meow, 2003 LN6, Sria-72, Ampil, OreoStar-fait, Leonardo Cirrus, and Nino Marakot: (sorry if I missed anyone) for their thoughts

HurricaneZeta^C 20:25, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

has an option for IBTRACS data, but I don't know where to access it. Doesn't look like the normal generator accepts it. Template:Storm path defaults to SSHWS, so more parameters would need to be added if we do this. I'm leaning towards this change in theory since most of the text in the MH section is sourced to the RSMC, but in practice it's going to take a large amount of work to regenerate everything. HurricaneZeta^C 20:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

In that zoomable example, yes it does use the wrong colors but if the need to be zoomable is to be done we have to stick with the Blue Marble because of contrast and colorblindness issues obviously.

Additionally I think a better idea would be to have both JTWC and RSMC tracks be shown, but my only issue then becomes this proposal stretching the summary infoboxes out horizontally as it would look very clunky. Perhaps having it vertically looks better, as shown with the Halong example MarioProtIV (^talk/_contribs) 20:47, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Also the general design shouldn't be changed like in that example as the points looks to be way too close together. The general idea would be to basically still have the current maps look the way they are, just with an added interaction to zoom in. As I said above it can't really deviate from our current design much if at all given that would cause the same issues again. It's gonna take a lot of coding if we go in this direction to make it work. Then the next issue would be incorperating it into the track maker, which is probably even harder because interactive maps are not images and thus can't be uploaded. So I'm not sure how that would work and its likely to take a lot of trial and error as well as time in order to make it work properly and comply with the site guidelines and policy on contrasts and colorblindness we've made before. We can't really change that (as well as because that would be another headache for the project!) so this entire proposal is quite a tall mountain to overcome, basically. MarioProtIV (^talk/_contribs) 21:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Then the next issue would be incorperating it into the track maker

That's why I'm proposing a new track maker entirely. It would also help make it more accessible, because if more people can generate tracks it means we can update stuff quicker and also clear the backlog of the old color scheme and the one created by switching to interactive maps. HurricaneZeta^C 21:06, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I do my tracks mostly using @Sanoxel 2.0's python script that grabs data from IBTRACS and makes an ATCF2 file of it. I also don't think we need a new track maker since StrawberryMaster's TrackGen fork can do storms at the dateline now, so I don't really see any issue with using it as a more accessible option. As for the RSMC data switch idea, I don't support that because it would be such a tedious task and I don't think it would be worth it. The tracks there already give the reader enough information. Sria-72 (talk) 23:57, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I would have to agree that it would be very difficult to get everything added for RSMC data. Track maps arent set up for that currently and not all colors used for specific intensities for infoboxes/tables would be accessible enough on the track maps against the background and each other for the small dots. Adding RSMC maps would open a can of worms for colors as well since two specific colors were not intended to be ever be used on the maps for the aforementioned reason. Noah, BSBA^Talk 23:00, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Interactivity is highly non-trivial to do. It would need a whole MediaWiki extension (at minimum a gadget). I agree it's desirable but it's simply not technically feasible with what we have. Jasper Deng (talk) 21:24, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

Is there any way of switching to the RSMC data, such as by using IBTRACS? I’ve been looking forward to the day our track maps reflect official data. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 15:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

The tracks I've been updating for the SHEM pre-2000 prioritize JTWC data for winds, and use coordinates from IBTRACS, or a specific agency if needed. They are all in ATCF2 format, which I made using the script i mentioned, though some manual editing is needed Sria-72 (talk) 00:04, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

@Hurricanehink mobile: That can be easily edited to the track file you are inputting to the WPTC track maker. I usually follow JTWC data (since the track maps are based on SSHWS) and then add RSMC classifications to the start and end of it (here is an example) as I was taught by Supportstorm. Regards, 👦 01:22, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

Also, I don't believe the WPTC maker is a pain to use. There's instructions already on how to use it in the literal page (also, please remove the colors stuff there, it's already updated to use the new ones). Want to experiment? Use ./track --help on the command line. Regards, 👦 01:25, 16 April 2026 (UTC)

It is not straightforward since IBTRACS data is not in any of the current supported formats, but just like I added JMA format support, it should be possible to add IBTRACS format support. Jasper Deng (talk) 21:20, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

@Hurricanehink and Hurricanehink mobile: A couple of years ago I added support for reading the JMA text best tracks at which is basically their HURDAT counterpart. Unfortunately, there will be copyright issues with other RSMC's websites. Would there be any appetite for direct IBTRACS format support in the track map? I may have some time to develop that support.--Jasper Deng (talk) 21:19, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

I believe there was a dedicated discussion for this somewhere, but I couldn't find it so here are my plans on updating old tracks (WPac)

• Update colors from old to new from 1960-1972.
• Update both colors and tracks to use IBTRACS data from 1973-1979 (partially done).

I recently finished updating tracks from 1998-99 AUS and SWIO, although those need input code in HURDAT2 which I haven't done yet (hopefully waiting for nino marakot to send me the converter, if he can). Sria-72 (talk) 01:13, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

@Sria-72: Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather/2023 Color Scale Noah, BSBA^Talk 02:20, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

@Sria-72 I sent you the converter in email. HurricaneZeta alt (talk) 03:54, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

How does it work exactly? I installed everything already since the IBTRACS script is also python, but i'm unsure of how to actually use this. Do i need to make a file and put the ATCF2 code there? Sria-72 (talk) 21:21, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Hello all, I am looking at some of our oldest hurricane FAs and wondering if some of you more familiar with the subject, might look through them. They are all from 2006:

• Hurricane Iniki
• Hurricane John (1994)
• 1933 Atlantic hurricane season
• Hurricane Fabian
• 1995 Pacific hurricane season
• Hurricane Erika (2003)

I realize this is quite a few, but much of these articles have sat around for nearly two decades untouched, and probably accumulated cruft along the way. Perhaps there are better sources available now as well.

Is there any project-wide interest in gradually going through these, perhaps starting with Iniki? I am happy to leave comments on each article if needed. Aza24 (talk) 01:24, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

Hmmm... I started playing with John last year but got side-tracked with other projects.Jason Rees (talk) 11:57, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I took a look at Erika, copyedited, and decided that it should probably be merged. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hurricane Erika (2003). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:49, 5 May 2026 (UTC)