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Weather - CTOP?

An Andrew5 sockpuppet brought this up at an ANI thread yesterday, and I actually think it'd be an idea worth visiting. It's pretty well known at this point that a large part of the Wx community is, well... younger (and that isn't neccesarily a bad thing!). With that, though, comes heaps of vandalism and disruptive editing on levels which I have only seen at ARBPIA articles. We've seen loads of vandalism, protections, an arbitration case, numerous ANI threads, several edit warring noticeboard reports, at least two LTAs, I could literally go on and on about the controversial nature of WPW. I'll also note that weather is inherently controversial. I believe this has been brought up before but was shot down, although I can't remember when. This obviously isn't formal (how do you even file a CTOP request?) but it's an issue that should probably be brought up sooner rather than later. — EF5 14:03, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

If you do plan to do it, I would suggest a merger with WP:ARB/CC as both are strongly interrelated. (also looking at what the orange man is doing :/) The only way I know of to designate something as a CTOP is to go to WP:RFARB and see if they take up the case. Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 15:33, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
As for climate change, I've seen vandalism specifically regarding that aspect at Hurricane Helene and Palisades fire when they were ongoing; the latter of which had politically charged anti-California defacement at one point. There's a lot of IP edits changing figures with no source or edit summary but these often don't get reverted until way down the line, and also the EF5 / Category 5 vandalism has been going on for a while. Given the prevalence of the sockpuppets Dcasey98 and Andrew5, as well as potentially Lokicat assuming they don't have any intention of being unblocked in good faith, I honestly wouldn't be opposed to a project-wide semi-protection - both new articles and forgotten backlogs are targets for vandalism, with newer articles being frequent sockpuppetry targets. As much as I dislike the suggestion, given the fervor that a lot of newer editors have towards contributing to the project, having a proper incentive to foster collaboration, competency with citing sources etc, and reminders that WPWX goes off of reported facts instead of the pseudofacts like "this was the worst tornado because a storm chaser said so" that I see often would be great. Semi-protection wouldn't be the end of collaboration, edit requests will always be used and serial contributors will have doors to joining the project in earnest, assuming they contribute in good faith and with a constructive spirit. Departure– (talk) 15:44, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
Subtle vandalism (changing figures with no source or edit summary) is easily detected by 1248 (hist · log). For those two pages, Hurricane Helene filter log and Palisades Fire filter log list the vandalism. More people just need to watch the edit filter log. 216.58.25.209 (talk) 17:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Honestly, I would not be opposed to having meteorology & climate change being grouped together under a “Contentious topics” (CTOP) category. Most CTOP areas do not have “special” editing requirements. For example, Falun Gong is a CTOP, but there is no special editing restrictions, as Teachings of Falun Gong is able to be edited by anyone. For anyone worries about CTOP, all it means is Wikipedia’s policies are more strictly enforced. For example, on a non-CTOPIC article, editors may partially edit war without blocks being put in place. On a CTOP article, an edit war would result in a temporary block. That’s all it means. The generic guidelines are just actually enforced more strictly. Given the edit wars, vandalism, and insanity that weather articles have dealt with, that would not be a bad idea. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:24, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
@WeatherWriter:, @Wildfireupdateman:, @Departure–: Shall it be taken to ArbCom? I'd prefer to not file it alone; ArbCom scares me. /hj — EF5 18:29, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
I could help out with it if you want, although I'm not quite sure how to (I'm friends with Elli on Discord though, maybe I'll ask them). Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
Thanks. Just a note that my home computer is currently at a repair shop and the institution-issued Chromebook I use blocks Discord (my mobile device can't open it due to an old restriction) so I won't be able to discuss it off-wiki for at least the next three weeks. — EF5 19:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
Speaking as a former arbitrator, I would say the case is likely to be declined unless the community is demonstrated to have tried (and failed) to manage user conduct related issues within the topic area. I would instead go the community route if you think this is necessary. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 19:09, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
I think that'd be a good way to go. This has been discussed before, so we have indeed tried to resolve it, although I can't find the exact discussion trying to make it a CTOP. — EF5 19:11, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
Community sanctions might work as well (since I'm also kinda scared of ArbCom). Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 19:22, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
Either way, something still needs to be drafted up, but yeah, community sanctions are probably best here. EF5 19:45, 25 March 2025 (UTC)
So... uh... are we still working on this? — EF5 17:20, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Flooding in _____

Since we have articles like Tornadoes in Oklahoma, Hurricanes in Texas, Snow in Florida, should we start making "[Flood]ing in ____" articles? — EF5 13:53, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

We already have several - List of California floods, List of floods in Pakistan, List of floods in the Netherlands. So yes, absolutely! Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Greensburg tornado

There is currently a discussion at Talk:Greensburg tornado that editors active in this project may want to participate in. The discussion is located at Talk:Greensburg tornado#Death count issue. — EF5 18:45, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Tornadoes by strength

Would a Tornadoes by strength article be beneficial? We have List of tornadoes observed by mobile radar but that doesn't factor in the F/EF scale and other research-related things. — EF5 14:31, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps a split from Tornado records would be nice. WeatherWriter already made that Disagreements on the intensity of tornadoes article but sure, I don't see why not. Departure– (talk) 14:35, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
Started at Draft:Tornadoes by strength. — EF5 14:41, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

The usage of Colorado State University to determine the amount of ACE a season has

I want to know if CSU should be used to determine how much Accumulated Cyclone Energy a season produced in any basin in the Southern Hemisphere. @Jason Rees is arguing against the usage of the data from CSU, citing how it's technically original research from an unofficial source and saying how JTWC, the best track data CSU is using to calculate the ACE, was totally unofficial and might confuse the readers by using unofficial terms like Tropical Storms/Depression. I just need a consensus since I don't want to continue the ongoing edit conflict in 2024–25 Australian region cyclone season. Hoguert (talk) 23:00, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

My thoughts is that there is currently no need for the ACE of a season to be presented in any of the Southern Hemisphere articles as it is just a trivial metric, especially if you are taking/basing it on the JTWC and not the official agencies such as the BoM, Meteo France or the FMS. It is also original research since you are calculating it yourself and not relying on a source that says that the total ACE for the season was XYZ, CSU doesn't count IMO since it doesnt split it into the three regions. As a result, I am opposed to it going into any of the Southern Hemisphere seasons, until such a time as the official agencies (These are the MFR, BoM, BMKG, PNG NWS, FMS or MetService) tell us how much ACE a specific season has obtained.Jason Rees (talk) 23:13, 2 April 2025 (UTC)
@Departure–, @EF5, @MarioProtIV, @WeatherWriter, @Quxyz, @Drdpw bringing in more people so we hopefully have a clearer consenus Hoguert (talk) 19:38, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
ACE is a bit subjective as far as ratings go but Colorado State doing "original research" is moot when they are a respected institution. Where no better source is available there is no reason it should be discounted for that reason. Departure– (talk) 19:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
Adding on, Im pretty sure OR only applies to editors without credentials. CSU is neither. ✶Quxyz✶ 20:09, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
I'm not super "savvy" or whatever you call it with hurricane-related things, but I guess it'd be fine? — EF5 23:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

@Departure– and Quxyz: It is original research for us to say that the 2024-25 SWIO has an ACE of Y, without us having a source to say that the season had an ACE of X. CSU does not count in this case as it does not state how much ACE the 2024-25 SWIO - just the SIO and SPAC - which means that we have to work out which systems to include and not to include in the various seasons and how much ACE basin crossers such as Vince, Taliah and Courtney have contributed to it. As a result, I am opposed to having it in the SHEM until the RSMC/TCWC responsible for the basin directly states how much a system has contributed to the season. Jason Rees (talk) 22:40, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

If you have concerns with the methodology used to get the data simply attribute it to Colorado State and note their methodology - i.e. CSU states that YYYY season had ACE of X - this includes storms X, Y, and Z. Departure– (talk) 15:19, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
If this is the source in question, then the problem is exactly as Jason said - it doesn't say how much ACE is for each basin. There are a lot of basin crossers that affect each basin's total. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:31, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
@Departure–: Yes I could write a statement like that, but it would still be original research to include it imo, since we would be the ones that decided what counted and what didn't towards the ACE & how much ACE that each basin crosser accumulated in the basin. For example what if the point for a system was on exactly 90.0 or 160.0E would the ACE point count for the origin basin or the basin that the system is going into. That is why i want to see a source for the ACE from the RSMC/TCWC in charge of the basin, before it gets added in to the season articles.Jason Rees (talk) 16:47, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
Since that is the issue, I understand Jason Rees's view. The only solution I have is just counting the full system and adding a note. If that is unsatisfactory, it should be removed. ✶Quxyz✶ 18:00, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Help illustrate climate change information on Wikipedia and win a signed copy of The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg

Dear all

I’m very happy to let you know we are running a competition at Wikiproject Climate Change to encourage people to help improve visual information about climate change. The competition is open until the 17th of May for all language versions of Wikipedia. The top three point scorers will each win a signed copy of The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg.

Please let me know if you have any questions

Thanks :)

John Cummings (talk) 16:49, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

John Cummings, interesting! Can't remember the last time we ever had something competition-related (if arguing was a sport, we'd all be world-class champions), would you like me to send it to some WPW people I know who may be interested? — EF5 16:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
Hi EF5 thanks so much :) Yes please, I put some points in the competition for telling other people about it so please do share wherever you think would be most suitable. Thanks again, John Cummings (talk) 16:56, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

1974 Super Outbreak article - need some help please

I cleaned up the 14 Harv errors etc at this article and have come across an issue that I am unable to fix right now. Someone or someone's among you WikiProjectWeather participants can maybe help fix this article up.
Here's the problem: There are 21 citations to Thomas Grazulis' Significant Tornadoes 1680–1991 (the 1990 St. Johnsbury, VT: The Tornado Project of Environmental Films edition) that do not have any page numbers. I think this article has a good chance of possibly getting upgraded to a GA but not with all these cites missing this crucial information. Thanks in advance for any help on this. - Shearonink (talk) 21:49, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

@Shearonink: I will see what I can find later when the Internet Archive book comes available, but I wonder how a book can be published before the events in the title have occurred.Jason Rees (talk) 23:00, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
Jason Rees Ok yes, the subject happened in 1974, the book was published in 1990, but I see the issue, the edition I found is Significant Tornadoes, 1880-1989. I seem to remember that there are various editions with updates/different years, even different volumes... Here's the 1880-1989 version: Significant Tornadoes, 1880-1989. Thanks for catching that. - Shearonink (talk) 23:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Featured article candidacy for Greensburg tornado

Greensburg tornado has been nominated as a featured article candidate; the nomination can be found here. Since the article falls under this WikiProject's scope, I am posting this notice here. It currently needs more comments, so if you've got time, please comment on the nomination page. Thanks in advance!
Note that due to template limitations the nomination page is at /archive2 instead of /archive1 in the nomination. — EF5 15:51, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

NOAA

Remember a few weeks ago arguing NOAA would continue to be a reliable source?

https://www.facebook.com/oregonsbayarea/posts/pfbid0359UMBKhUxHECDG4pkRyodFtjsNFVEPdbZiQh84ibGTgKcV3BkS8jJUwDwAWwmbyVl

It's being gutted, hollowed out like an eggshell, exactly as predicted.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't have access to nor do I want to take what a Facebook post says as truth, especially for as important and impactful a claim as this, but unless the manner of this is NOAA starting to pump out misinformation about climate change or knowingly outputting non-factual information for damage totals the way we use it for now should remain unimpacted. A lack of funding may mean a lack of publication, which isn't good, but doesn't automatically disqualify NOAA as a reliable source. If, however, they start saying that climate change isn't real or has somehow reversed without republication in nearly all other reliable sources, then we can talk about discounting them as a source. Departure– (talk) 14:59, 4 April 2025 (UTC)
I have to agree with @Departure– and @WeatherWriter on this. I rarely ever look at social media because there's so much misinformation/disinformation on there. Facebook (per WP:RS) is generally not a reliable source. So I have to say wait until reliable sources start reporting on that. Hurricane Clyde 🌀my talk page! 17:01, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Scientific model of a tornado

Is a page about the technical aspects of a tornado's form etc needed? Right now the articles on Multiple vortex tornado, Waterspout, Landspout, and even Tornado lack a lot of the detail that would be very helpful to know and I don't know whether its best to merge it all into Tornado or merge a few of these into some variant of Tornado structure or Non-supercellular tornadoes or dare I say clean up the absolute mess at Whirlwind. Departure– (talk) 15:17, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

Ted Fajita would be ashamed of us. Really though, I'd support merging them into a "tornado structure"-esque article. — EF5 15:22, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
+1 for Tornado structure with sections for the different tornado types. I think we try this before creating a page for non-supercell tornadoes. DJ Cane (he/him) (Talk) 16:33, 23 April 2025 (UTC)
@EF5 and @DJ Cane, I've started a draft at Draft:Tornado structure. Now, what we do with this article is up in the air. It does not have to be moved to mainspace if it is redundant, but it could serve as a point of collaboration in which information is aggregated and potentially merged either to the article itself should we choose to move it to mainspace or to other articles should we designate it as redundant. Departure– (talk) 14:49, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, yay. — EF5 14:50, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Why are Tornadoes of YYYY articles part of Wikiproject Antartica?

Have any tornadoes been recorded there at all? If so, are they common enough to where any particular Tornadoes of YYYY article needs to be part of the geographical project? Departure– (talk) 19:59, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

@Departure–: Common literature tells us that no tornadoes have ever occurred in Antarctica. Your question does make me wonder how deep we should be going with classifying weather articles, as a part of a geographical wikiproject? For example, should we add the South Pacific tropical cyclone seasons to the French Wikiproject, since France has 3 overseas territories that are impacted by TC's in the SPAC? Jason Rees (talk) 20:29, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Draft:Tornado outbreak of April 27–29, 2025

Monday has a day-3 moderate risk over Iowa, reminiscent of the 2008 Parkersburg tornado, and the GFS shows storms over the DMX, LSK, and northern DVN NWS county warning areas. Departure– (talk) 13:00, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Would wildfires be a potential non tornadic effect? The system is likely a dry line due to wildfire risk in parts of New Mexico and far western Texas, and the severe weather risk is just east of the fire risk, with the Texas panhandle at risk of the severe weather and far north. StormHunterBryante5467⛈️ 16:30, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
I'll also note for the precedent police: drafts are not checked for notability. I am tired of this WikiProject not moving forward with anything, and I'm going to start doing something about it, whether that be calling out wrongful "precedent" or other. — EF5 (questions?) 16:36, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
What do you mean? Are you going to delete the draft? Or are you fixing a problem? If so, add that as a goal for this WikiProject. StormHunterBryante5467⛈️ 16:53, 27 April 2025 (UTC)
StormHunterBryante5467, no. Several times have people said that "drafts aren't notable" in relation to tornado outbreaks, so I'm making it clear that drafts aren't checked for notability. — EF5 (questions?) 17:12, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

RFC - Weather Infobox Damages

How should weather disaster articles (such as tornadoes, tropical cyclones, floods, winter storms, ect...) deal with damage estimates for the infobox? (Five-Related Questions; See Background Below) The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:13, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Background

Article text can easily be written to specify various sources and the various damage estimates from natural disasters. However, the infobox can only contain a single parameter. This single parameter topic has been the subject of numerous discussions, old and recent, all of which have led to confusion and mixed consensuses over the years. Below is a list of those previous discussions so editors can be familiar with them.

This generic question for the discussion is ultimately several smaller questions that need answered in order to create a policy/pattern that can be used across a wide variety of articles, from Stubs to Featured Articles, to tornadoes and hurricanes. Below are the various questions that have been discussed/questioned multiple times on multiple articles:

  1. If a countries government (such as NOAA for the United States or CMA for China or ECCC for Canada) provides an "official" damage estimate for a natural disaster, should that damage estimate be used in the infobox, even if other reliable sources may or may not have different damage estimates.
  2. Should the infobox contain a damage estimation range, reflected based on the article's text and subsequent sources, regardless of governmental "official" damage estimations?
  3. What if the affected countries government has not given a damage estimation? How should that be reflected in the infobox?
  4. What if the source is classified on WP:RSP as "no consensus" or "unreliable"?
  5. What if new research is conducted, which makes previous sources "outdated", with either overestimations or underestimations?

All five of those questions are the root of this infobox damage dilemma, which has occurred on Wikipedia for years. Below is some additional background/examples for each of those five questions:

  1. Example is Hurricane Helene. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a branch of the United States government, published a 107-page report on Helene, in which they state "Helene caused an estimated $78.7 billion in damage in the United States". Other sources published a lot of damage estimates, either before or after this report by NOAA, which is why Hurricane Helene#United_States_2 has an opening paragraph explaining the different damage estimates, such as those from Moody's Analytics (half of what NOAA estimated) and AccuWeather (triple what NOAA estimated).
  2. Example of the range is seen on the 2023 Rolling Fork–Silver City tornado. NOAA ("Official") stated the damage was $96,644,200 (fairly specific), while the Mississippi Insurance Department via the news outlet PBS (not their own website/reports) stated "near" $100 million. Two different numbers from two different reliable sources; official vs unofficial.
  3. An example of this is the 2021 Western Kentucky tornado, where NOAA never released an official damage estimate for the tornado. As of this moment, the infobox has no damage estimate, despite various news outlets publishing town/building-specific damage estimates (such as this one for downtown Mayfield, Kentucky). Should the infobox be blank or contain information released unofficially?
  4. Only two weather sources have questionable reliability following discussion at the Reliable Source Noticeboard: AccuWeather (here; no formal RFC, so still classified as being generally reliable...several editors have expressed the opposite of this in various discussions not on RSN) & Tornado Talk (here; RFC classified as "generally unreliable" - see WP:TornadoTalk) As seen in this discussion, how should damage estimates from these sources be handled? Should they be ignored for the infobox?
  5. Example is Hurricane Milton. Initial & detailed analysis from Fitch Ratings put damage estimates at $50 billion for the hurricane. A few months later, NOAA published a damage estimate of $34.3 billion. Currently, the infobox in the article only reflects NOAA's estimate, as it was the later-published damage estimate. Both damage estimates are stated & sourced in the article text, but only NOAA, the later-published/"official" one, is used in the infobox. Should the infobox reflect the latest-published damage estimate, even if it is unofficial (picturing a reversal of that, where an organization like Fitch Rating published after NOAA).

In the discussion below, please provide some insight towards these five unique-but-interconnected questions, so Wikipedia can solve this highly-debated and discussed issue. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:13, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Let me provide my insights/!VOTE.
If a respective country's government, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the United States, releases a damage estimate for a U.S.-based natural disaster, then that damage estimate should be used in the infobox, as it is the official/primary source for information on U.S.-based natural disasters. This damage estimate will most likely be the result of post-disaster analysis (given organizations like NOAA openly state it takes approximately 75-days for damage estimates to be posted).
If no government damage is available, then the infobox should either reflect the sole secondary reliable source (RS) or a range of the RS listed in the article's text.
If the event is recent, specifically before respective government organizations have published detailed post-disaster analysis reports, then the infobx should reflect any RS damage estimates. However, once government estimates are released, then the infobox should be changed accordingly.
The article's text should reflect only those sources which are considered "generally reliable". As explained above, Tornado Talk, a source cited on various tornado articles, has been formally classified as "generally unreliable", so the infobox nor the article should never reflect any damage estimates by that source. Policy-wise, (excluding a future RSN discussion), there is no way to combat sources, like AccuWeather who are known (through my own knowledge/OR) to overestimate damage estimates. Editors can choose to IAR and ignore anything from AccuWeather, but personally, I would like to see a new RSN discussion on AccuWeather, which would hopefully lead to a "generally unreliable" categorization.
That is my take on the four questions and how the infobox's damage parameter should be used for weather disaster articles. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:13, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Sigh, not sure why we had another RfC on this.
1. Absolutely not. WP:PRIMARY.
2. Yes, it's logical and helps readers understand the damage an event May have caused.
3. I'm confused by the wording of this. Is this not just a rewording of the first question?
4. Obviously don't use an unreliable source, that's common sense.
5. Use the number generally accepted by secondary sources.
This whole RfC was unnecessary in my opinion (all of these questions can be answered by just taking five seconds to actually think about them), but there are my thoughts regardless. EF5 17:36, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
For reference, number 3 is related to items like 2021 Western Kentucky tornado, where there is no government damage estimate, but only RS. Or, items like the recent Tornado outbreak of March 13–16, 2025, where finalized damage estimates from the government have not been released yet. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:40, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
So... Q1 but if the government wasn't an option. I'd use a secondary RS, aside from the fact that I dislike the whole idea of primary government sources for monetary damage anyways.. — EF5 17:42, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Also, just a small comment on why this RFC for clarification is needed. If I understand your comments correctly on what you said, Hurricane Helene would have an infobox damage range of about 20–78.8 billion, with RS (Moody's Analytics) being the lower amount and NOAA's report being the upper amount. When a range was implemented previously on the article, it was always reverted within 12-24 hours. What you say is common sense and would take 5 seconds to answer, is actually highly debated questions. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
Yes, thats exactly what I'm saying. Q4 should always be "use a reliable source", there (should be) no debate on that. I can't name you a single tornado article besides Mayfield that has remotely questionable damage totals, although this RfC applies to all Wx articles. — EF5 18:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Q1 - if an official government source provides damage totals, it should be the "main" estimate, although other estimates can be provided in a drop-down menu. If multiple affected countries have given different totals, it should be converted to a range with a collapsible list with ALL damage estimates (no "main" estimate) as in the following example (not real data), as shown in the example below. If other unaffected countries provide an estimate different from the affected country, the affected country's estimate should be the "main" estimate (although I'm on the fence about this part).

damages = $96.6–250 million

damage estimates:
  • $96,600,000 (2023 USD) [1]
    $250,000,000 (2023 USD)[2]
    $100,000,000 (2023 USD)[3]
    Per MID via PBS
Q2: Yes, see first example
Q3: No "main" damage estimate; list range with collapsible list afterwards, as follows

damages = $96.6–250 million

damage estimates:
  • $96,600,000 (2023 USD) [4]
    $250,000,000 (2023 USD)[5]
    $100,000,000 (2023 USD)[6]
    Per MID via PBS
Q4: Don't use unreliable sources' damage estimates.
Q5: Same opinion as EF5.

Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 18:09, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  1. ^ NOAA
  2. ^ Servicio Meteorológico Nacional
  3. ^ "Insurance losses from Mississippi tornado nearing $100 million".
  4. ^ Aon
  5. ^ Fitch Ratings
  6. ^ "Insurance losses from Mississippi tornado nearing $100 million".
  • While I like the ideas brought from the last RFC, I did not like how it was used for Helene. The other estimates cited were either from Accuweather, an established non-RS, or from recently after Helene. This caused the infobox to have a rediculously large range that was not useful. The example used in WEW's solution was $96-100. That is a nice range that shows that there is disagreement. I could also see some with larger ranges working like $5-10 or $3-18. However, Helene's infobox had $3-225. That is a difference of almost two magnitudes. Part of it would be fixed by removing Accuweather, bringing it down to $3-78.7. However, I still think that is rather large.
I would implement certain rules to fix some of these issues. Firstly, Accuweather is still banned because even they admit their numbers are extreme compared to other estimates. Secondly, time should be checked. Id est, a report published weeks after an event is trumped by something published months or further out of the event, like the TCR, and should not be in the infobox. If source becomes discredited by an RS, like the initial TCR by an updated TCR, then it should be replaced by the new source. ✶Quxyz✶ 18:14, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
A range of estimates (using the dropdown menu) should be used for hurricanes until the respective TCR is published by the NHC/NOAA, as they are an official governmental source, and should take precedence over previous estimates and is months after the storm, as stated above. Tornadoes will be a different story so a range is probably best if one exists. --MarioProtIV (talk/contribs) 18:24, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
I forgot to mention this in mine, but yes, different fields should be counted differently. I have no clue what you tornado folk are doing and, unless it is in response to a clear violation of some standard, rules that tornado folk are following should not affect TC folk. ✶Quxyz✶ 18:37, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
  • Like what Mario said, I do believe a infobox dropbox could be used in Hurricanes that have impacted the United States until NOAA releases an official damage estimate through National Centers for Environmental Information or through Tropical Cyclone Reports. And if you still insist on using dropboxes after NOAA releases an official estimate, I would strongly against the usage of Accuweather since they're notorious for overestimating how much damage a tropical cyclone caused. And as for tornadoes, I wouldn't mind usages of dropboxes if there's no official damage estimate from NOAA. For example, in the 2024 Minden–Harlan tornado article, the estimated $112 million in damages came from estimates coming from local government of Minden, Shelby and Pottawattamie county emergency management agencies. Hoguert (talk) 18:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
    I'd also recommend against using estimates that comes out a week after a hurricane and tornado Hoguert (talk) 18:49, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

A few points. Yes, we need to defer to official government sources/estimates. We also need to be aware of significant figures. If a government says damage was around $1 billion, and another country estimated $10 million, that does not mean it's $1.01 billion, since the billion is a rough estimate. When you're talking about damage totals in the billions, it's easy to extrapolate and get it really wrong in both directions, such as initial damage totals being way too high (examples include Hurricane Ophelia (2005) or Helene), or ones that were too low and were upped later on. The NCEI updates the damage totals for US hurricanes, but for other areas it's a different story. I had a problem with Hurricane Wilma and Otis in Mexico, and having the right damage in unadjusted dollars. It's sometimes tricky when you're dealing with a few countries, or you're converting it to USD. It seems the point of this RFC is to solidify what we're already doing, including trying to avoid mistakes like we did during Helene in having damage totals that are too high. I think we should go with a range for preliminary estimates, until/unless we have a more official total. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:21, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

You pretty much hit the nail on the head as to why this RFC was started. This is one of those RFCs without like “Option 1”, “Option 2”, ect… This is more to just solidify what the community consensus is. Typically, these type of discussions wouldn’t be RFCs, but rather WikiProject (insert topic) discussions. But, damage estimates have been at the forefront of numerous discussions and edit wars for years, so this RFC is more to get as much participation as possible so we can truly see what “format”/process has the consensus. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:35, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

To address these points in numbered order:

  1. If a countr[y's] government (such as NOAA for the United States or CMA for China or ECCC for Canada) provides an "official" damage estimate for a natural disaster, should that damage estimate be used in the infobox, even if other reliable sources may or may not have different damage estimates. Yes, but with due weight, which may vary widely by jurisdiction and over time (including with regard to NOAA post-Trump). Various national bodies have a vested interest in lying about these things.
  2. Should the infobox contain a damage estimation range, reflected based on the article's text and subsequent sources, regardless of governmental "official" damage estimations? Yes, this is just how we do things. It is not WP job to pick a side when real-world sources that are ostensibly reliable are in conflict; we spell out what the conflict is.
  3. What if the affected countries government has not given a damage estimation? How should that be reflected in the infobox? It shouldn't be, since there's nothing to reflect. If I do not have a goose, and I put a mirror in front of the space that my non-existent goose might occupy, guess what? No goose will be reflected in that mirror.
  4. What if the source is classified on WP:RSP as "no consensus" or "unreliable"? These are separate questions. If it's a "no consensus" source, then it can possibly be used, with due weight given to better sources, but probably should not be at all if other and better sources are available. If it's "unreliable", then it cannot be used at all, even if no other sources are available. Our job is to provide reliably-sourced information, or to indicate that reliably-source information is not available; it is not to pass on misinformation from unreliable sources. That is emphatically not "better than nothing".
  5. What if new research is conducted, which makes previous sources "outdated", with either overestimations or underestimations? Same as in all such cases in every subject: update our claims and the sources used for them to reflect the current real-world consensus among researchers, or at least reflect the adjusted range if no such real-world consensus has been reached yet, but the newer sourcing is reliable.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:03, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Since you made the original point and you are bringing it up here, can you give more information into Trumpian NOAA's reliability and its current state? ✶Quxyz✶ 03:07, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
I goofed up the wording really badly looking back on it. You can disregard the previous reply. What is your perspective into the reliability of Trump's NOAA in its current state? Also, since it was discussed later, when would you consider the NOAA to be unreliable? ✶Quxyz✶ 03:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Alternative infobox

There may be a cleaner solution:

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather/Archive 7
Caption
EF5 tornado
on the Enhanced Fujita scale
Highest winds123 mph (198 km/h)
Overall effects
Fatalities123
Injuries123
Damage$200[1]–300[2] million
  • Round to 1 significant figure, maybe 2. The previous RfC had $96.6M NOAA vs $100M MID. Why are we splitting hairs and creating a dropdown? The less information that an infobox contains, the more effectively it serves its purpose. Are we sure MID didn't itself round? That infobox dispute example and most others become moot after rounding.
  • Move to footnote There is no need to clutter the infobox with dropdowns and <hr>s. Sources like NOAA should already appear in the {{cite xxx}}, over which the user can hover to see. Currencies and years are implied by context, no parenthetical is necessary except maybe {{Inflation}}.

References

  1. ^ Citation for NOAA
  2. ^ Citation for some insurance reliable source

To answer your questions:

  1. Not necessarily (treat it no different from other RS), SMcCandlish doubts Trump's NOAA's reliability. However, discussion belongs at WP:RSN, not here.
  2. Yes, a summary is better with a range.
  3. Always use RS not just gov
  4. Keep GUNREL out of infoboxes. MREL can be used absent other RS, or based on "additional considerations" listed at RSP.
  5. Prefer new research over breaking news, but wait for corroboration otherwise. "Forecasts" before the event ends are speculation and not preferred.

216.58.25.209 (talk) 20:24, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the NOAA's reliability, right now I would run on the fact that little has changed unless a secondary source starts noting something is off. It's not like the media hasn't been analyzing everything the administration has done and they likely have a better judgement than us. ✶Quxyz✶ 20:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
Given the current state of NOAA and past events, I'm inclined to say the current administration has dampened the reliability of NOAA. — EF5 20:42, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
Honestly, I would say NOAA’s reliability hasn’t changed at all. NOAA’s accuracy in terms of their daily duties has dropped, but not their reliability as a source. For the most part, besides employees being fired, not that much has happened to NOAA under this current administration. Articles/sections on the meteorological background for weather events will be affected, but not that much else (so far…fingers crossed it stops with what has already been announced). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 20:57, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
Once again, I think that a secondary source stating that it is unreliable is a far better and clearer method of proving that it is no longer trustworthy. ✶Quxyz✶ 21:06, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
What secondary source did you see that said NOAA is unreliable??? Articles like this one discuss how NOAA's weather forecasts will be less reliable, aka less accurate. Not that NOAA itself is unreliable. Could you link what secondary source you are referencing?
Sorry if I caused confusion, I meant that as a general principal. If a source stated that the NOAA was unreliable in its reporting, I would be more inclined to listen to it than your and IP's reasoning as it seems mostly OR or based on feelings about the administration. ✶Quxyz✶ 21:38, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
Ah gotcha! Yeah obviously if sources started saying NOAA was unreliable, then obviously that would play a role in how we would use NOAA-based information going forward. Anyway, my reply still stands, since sources aren't saying NOAA is unreliable, just that their weather forecasts will become less accurate; aka the meteorological synopsis sections in weather articles will get progressively worse/less accurate. Post-disaster analysis though, shouldn't be affected at all, and I cannot find any such sources. So in terms of what you and EF5 said about NOAA's reliability being less than it was, I disagree with that specific part. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:06, 23 March 2025 (UTC)
This seems fine to me, and gets around the accessibility issues that pertain to collapse boxes. To the extent there might in some cases be a need for a more explanatory exploration of differing figures, this can be done in a narrative footnote, e.g. with {{efn}} and {{notelist}}, or by linking to an article section covering the details.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
I still feel like for TCs once NOAA releases an official report months after the storm that should take precedence over previous estimates, per the previous reasons above. Ranges shouldn’t be a factor here especially once we begin talking about season damage and when RS start mentioning it under NOAA’s numbers instead of a range. --MarioProtIV (talk/contribs) 22:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Removal of TornadoTalk

Per a relatively recent reliable source discussion, TornadoTalk was found to be generally unreliable as a source. However, on some pages such as 1974 Guin tornado, it's still cited as the only source for some claims (in this example a quite hefty claim). I'm going to begin the process of removing content cited to this source and replacing it with actual RS media where possible. Departure– (talk) 15:45, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

The articles I found from Special:Search using this source were:
If anyone still has access to paywalled content from this source, assistance in finding the sources TornadoTalk gets its data from would be greatly appreciated. Departure– (talk) 15:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
IMO Greensburg doesn't count since it's a single and uncontroversial copy of a study not made by the TT team. Call Ringgold  Fixed. At least one article you mentioned (Neosho) only has it in the "further reading" section, where it should be fine. — EF5 (questions?) 15:55, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
List of F5, EF5, and IF5 tornadoes: There's three sources here, two of which are used to source a 18 July 2004 tornado. One of these is an interview, but I'm going to err on the safe side and remove the entry per the RSN discussion.
However, the first ref is part of a bundled citation and won't be so easy to get rid of. Departure– (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
2011 Smithville has a good portion of the article directly cited to a paid TornadoTalk article. Departure– (talk) 16:08, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
1974 Guin had the TornadoTalk ref as a cited source under a Sources subheader instead of using inline citations per-claim. @EF5: please do not do this in the future. I know this was in good faith and before the RSN but it just contributes to unnecessary headaches later down when anyone needs to verify a specific claim. I removed the ref for now and am going to do a source spotcheck later on. Departure– (talk) 16:11, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, ? I'm confused. Cited sources go under a "sources" subheader, that's the whole point of the subheader. — EF5 (questions?) 16:13, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Template:More footnotes needed - I suppose it isn't required and I apologize if my comment was received negatively. It isn't a GA or FA so it wasn't required but as stated it'll make cleanup a lot harder per the RSN. Departure– (talk) 16:18, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, it has inline citations. These can be found in the "References" section. Maybe you just missed them? — EF5 (questions?) 16:21, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Not doubting that, but what I'm saying is TornadoTalk was the only source under the subheader. See Special:Diff/1287550316. Departure– (talk) 16:25, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Yes, that's perfectly allowed. I don't see why we're arguing over something already remove, though. — EF5 (questions?) 16:28, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Alright then. I'm going to spotcheck Guin anyway; it's been hit-and-run vandalized by a lot of IPs per my watchlist and a lot of its claims seem undue. Departure– (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
1957 Ruskin Heights is  Done - cited only to information about the tornado's parent supercell. Such information may be a nightmare to find elsewhere, but isn't the most important overall. Another tornadotalk ref is found in a comment - not going to touch this one. Departure– (talk) 16:13, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Greensburg is  Done. Both sources were migrated away from TornadoTalk. Departure– (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Xenia 2000 has the same issue as Guin. A spotcheck is going to be good for improving the article's quality either way, regardless of the reason. Departure– (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Schools article is  Done - removed content for now, impacts of the 1991 Andover tornado at Wineteer Elementary School. Departure– (talk) 16:35, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Picher-Neosho is  Done - it was only a further reading link so I wasn't going to touch it, but the URL was actually to a NWS Wichita page. Departure– (talk) 16:37, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
October 2013 North American storm complex has a single bundled ref, specifically for a single tornado in Wayne, Nebraska. Departure– (talk) 16:39, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Tornadoes of 1975 is  Done - source was the only one cited, for both reliability and notability, just removed the entry. Departure– (talk) 17:04, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
The F4 tornado list is a direct mirror of the above October 2013 Wayne summary. Departure– (talk) 16:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)
Tornadoes of 1981 for NLM CityHopper Flight 431. I don't read Dutch so I'll take it in good faith that the article itself is a good enough source and the ESWD archive page has the details. Departure– (talk) 17:03, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Second batch of removals

As of 13:21, 30 April 2025 (UTC), there are six articles left with TornadoTalk sources. Departure– (talk) 13:21, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

Watch/warning/MD product history template

Most intense Atlantic hurricanes (
)
Rank Hurricane Season Pressure
hPa inHg
1 Wilma 2005 882 26.05
2 Gilbert 1988 888 26.23
3 "Labor Day" 1935 892 26.34
4 Rita 2005 895 26.43
Milton 2024
6 Allen 1980 899 26.55
7 Camille 1969 900 26.58
8 Katrina 2005 902 26.64
9 Mitch 1998 905 26.73
Dean 2007
Source: HURDAT[1]

Should there be a template for mesoscale discussions, watches, and warnings as a sidebar? This would be similar to some of those we already have for hurricanes, but specifically for severe weather events. It'd be a table of variable length displaying the products, when they were issued, etc. It'd definitely be great for tornado articles with long stretches of text-only prose, and the same for outbreaks. Departure– (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2025 (UTC) Departure– (talk) 17:56, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes. I love this idea. Shall I draft one up? — EF5 (questions?) 17:58, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
If you find the time, go ahead! I'm thinking something like 2020 Midwest derecho#Official NWS Storm Prediction Center publications, with watches given probabilities and/or a PDS header, warnings giving statuses for hail, wind, and tornadoes, and mesoscale discussions given that CONCERNING... text. Departure– (talk) 18:01, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
I'll add that the geographic scope of these, while nice to have, would best not be added to the template, and if it were to be, it should be under a collapsed header. Neither too should the full text of any product show up. Departure– (talk) 18:02, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, I'll cook something up in a bit. ;) — EF5 (questions?) 18:04, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, is User:EF5/Warning temp sort of what you're talking about? — EF5 (questions?) 18:42, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
Almost. The version I was thinking of drops locations, is strongly color coded, and would have tornado observed / radar indicated / etc when relevant - in this case since it has that the leftmost column should be tornado warning / mesoscale discussion / watch. Departure– (talk) 18:56, 1 May 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, will update shortly. I'll toy around with it more this afternoon. — EF5 (questions?) 19:02, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Atlantic hurricane best track (HURDAT version 2)" (Database). United States National Hurricane Center. May 11, 2024. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

Good article reassessment for Squall line

Squall line 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) 05:51, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

Ongoing discussion at Talk:1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado

There is a discussion ongoing at Talk:1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado#"Strongest" and "worldwide" claims of interest to this Wikiproject. This discusses two claims about the Bridge Creek tornado's record-breaking nature. Feel free to participate there. Thank you. Departure– (talk) 14:49, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

F6 tornadoes are impossible claim

There's a pretty big misconception about F6 tornadoes that states they're simply not a thing, but does this claim have any actual reasoning behind it besides simply no tornado officially being rated as such? Of course there's the Lubbock, Xenia, Birmingham, and Guin edge cases but I see all too often that since Fujita labeled F6 as "inconceivable" it was outright impossible to achieve. Departure– (talk) 14:29, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

The whole "inconceivable" part was that it caused "inconceivable damage". Both sides are true - no F6 tornadoes exist since no tornadoes are rated as such, but the rating itself did exist. Now that the EF scale exists, that could differ. — EF5 14:34, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
Yes. To my knowledge EF6 is physically impossible, but F6 always was and technically still is for any country still using the F scale to rate tornadoes. I'm less sure about the IF scale (I think they'd just lump any "inconceivable" damage into the IF5 category) but my point is that this fact should be elaborated somewhere on one of Wikipedia's pages - Tornado myths, Fujita scale, something like that? Departure– (talk) 14:40, 7 May 2025 (UTC)
I'll add it to the tornado myths page. — EF5 14:42, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

"Violent" but EF3

This mainly pertains to one tornado (see Draft:2020 Jonesboro tornado). In November 2022, Timothy P. Marshall (by all means reliable) stated in a survey that the tornado was "violent" (see page 11 of this source). The tornado received an EF3 rating, however, and the "violent" descriptor is only used for EF4+ tornadoes. So... should it be included? — EF5 17:47, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

"Violent" meaning EF4+ is a technical term, but by all means use "Intense" or "Strong" or "Significant". I'd say don't use "violent" in Wikivoice personally, but you can add something that says "X described the tornado as "violent"" in a quote-type style. Departure– (talk) 18:28, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Draft:List of notable tornadoes

Per Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2025 March 31#Template:Individual tornadoes, I've started this draft. Feel free to add to it. Departure– (talk) 16:08, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

This reminds me of the original List of notable tropical cyclones, which for a while was a large catch-all list for a bunch of miscellany. Eventually, certain lists were split off, like records and basin-specific information, so much that now the list is redirected to Outline of tropical cyclones. I feel like the same thing would happen here. There already is Tornado records, and several lists for certain areas, so I’m not sure what a notable tornado list would look like, if it’s not a duplicate for other articles. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 17:05, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

Draft:Tornado outbreak of May 15–16, 2025

There's an article on this now. Don't call this a formal RM, but I had this at Draft:Tornado outbreak sequence of May 15–16, 2025 - notice the sequence. I did this because most non-Wikipedia places call these sort of day-after-day events as multiple separate outbreaks in the same event - in lieu of a formal RM in changing everything else, I wanted to just experiment on this page with the two-day "Sequence" given it's almost certainly going to end up at a "sequence" title over the coming days and the May 15 event was a separate outbreak from the May 16 one in most respects - same system, different outbreaks. That's just my perspective.

So, should this be at "outbreak" or "outbreak sequence"? Note this is informal and will only change anything once the page is published as an article. It's subject to be overturned with an RFC or RM. Pinging @MarioProtIV and @EF5 as involved. Departure– (talk) 17:37, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

Sequence. WP:CCC, as usual, and WP:COMMONNAME applies. — EF5 17:38, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
Outbreak per previous standards. Per the definition, A tornado outbreak sequence, or tornado outbreak day sequence, sometimes referred to as an extended tornado outbreak, is a period of continuous or nearly continuous high tornado activity consisting of a series of tornado outbreaks over multiple days with no or very few days lacking tornado outbreaks, which this current system is not. If it’s the same system it’s considered the same outbreak. We don’t dictate what other news stations and sources refer to this as. We should really only be going by the billion-dollar NCEI list (deprecated as of 2025) to determine outbreak sequences as brought up before by Cody IIRC. MarioProtIV (talk/contribs) 17:50, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
At the same time, we shouldn't discount that experts like Grazulis and even the NWS itself use a much more conservative definition of "outbreak". Also, precedent isn't consensus and, per a relatively recent WPWX RFC, the NCEI BDE list can't be given full sway over price and I don't see why it needs to be for severe weather events either. They're events - Tornado event of May 15–16, 2025? Departure– (talk) 17:54, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
No, “event” would not work and that’s basically a level below outbreaks, IMO. Also Cody’s comment was moreso a suggestion given he wanted to reduce the amount of May sequences we have which are honestly kind of superfluously strung together (such as last year’s May 19–27, where NCEI has it as two separate outbreaks respectively). MarioProtIV (talk/contribs) 18:05, 16 May 2025 (UTC)
@EF5 and MarioProtIV: In mainspace at Tornado outbreak sequence of May 15–16, 2025. The title dispute can wait until after we stop updating the article every day. Departure– (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

File:Photograph of the 2025 Somerset–London tornado.jpg has been nominated for deletion

There is an ongoing discussion to determine if File:Photograph of the 2025 Somerset–London tornado.jpg meets the non-free content criteria or if it does not. This WikiProject relates to the discussion, which is why I am sending this notification.

You can participate in the discussion here: Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2025 May 21#File:Photograph of the 2025 Somerset–London tornado.jpg. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 14:12, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Community sanctions (21 May 2025)

Due to frequent sockpuppetry, the intertwining with contemporary American politics, a large amount of uncited edits, and occasional contentious material, I propose that weather- and tropical cyclone-related articles be placed under some form of community sanctions (see WP:GS). I don't know the exact procedure for getting these sanctions implemented, etc, and this thread for now will just act as discussion of whether or not it's needed, but I'll outline a few points.

  • As of 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency and the Second Trump Administration more broadly have been targeting NOAA and related groups. This includes the indefinite cessation of the NCEI's "billion-dollar disaster" figures, changing official wording of the Gulf of Mexico broadly to Gulf of America, and politicians and private individuals typically on the right wing spreading conspiracy theories about controlling weather etc.
  • On Wikipedia, there are at least 3 major sockpuppeteers targeting weather-related articles over the past few months to my knowledge - Lokicat3345, Andrew5, and Dcasey98. Andrew5 in particular is known to edit primarily from proxies / dynamic IPs.
  • Since the 2024 tornado season and until now, articles on contemporary topics including ongoing tornado outbreaks have been subject to the rampant inclusion of uncited changes, especially to tornado ratings. In addition, disruption, often from IP addresses, has occurred regarding the strength of individual tornadoes especially after the Greenfield tornado one year ago.
    • On Tornado records specifically, individuals from Reddit were found to have incited off-wiki disruption by attempting to change information to see one tornado "win" over another in terms of wind speeds.
    • The EF scale has come under scrutiny lately, especially following the Greenfield tornado, and it's not too uncommon to see people changing EF ratings because "Did you see the damage?". This is especially the case on storms where complete surveys are not available.
    • Stealth vandalism on older articles is also a problem. Older articles are often the target of the LTAs I mentioned earlier.
  • Tropical cyclones, due to their intensity and news-worthy nature, are frequent targets for vandalism regarding their strength, death tolls, etc.
  • In addition, climate change is a contentious topic in of itself, with meteorology being greatly affected by global warming and other effects of climate change.
  • Ongoing tornado outbreaks and tropical cyclones, especially those with widespread impact, are often the most subject to disruption. This mostly includes the introduction of uncited or poorly cited material, in addition to synthesis.
    • "Now-casting" is a problem on Wikipedia, in which people watching radar, Twitter feeds, or broadcast media, including YouTube live-streams, will add uncited but often factual information regarding tornadoes and severe weather, before reliable sources can be created. This does not apply to direct NWS sources, such as those taken from IEM.

My current proposal on the table is as follows:

  • All articles with topics on severe weather, tropical cyclones, summer and winter seasons, and potentially wildfires will be subject to these sanctions.
  • Articles should be semi-protected as a precaution against now-casting, sockpuppetry, and off-wiki canvassing, where applicable.
    • Edits can still be proposed through edit requests on talk pages.
  • Unsourced or poorly-sourced claims, or changes to existing claims, should be reverted on-sight, unless information is adequately sourced and explained in an edit summary. Where claims are doubtful, discuss on the talk page instead of edit-warring. Where sources are available, they must be cited in the article instead of only existing in the edit summary, or else they should also be removed on sight.
  • No revert rule will be instituted. The standard 3RR will continue to apply.

This is just a proposal, and is based on my observations that weather and related topics are subject to differing forms of disruption and contain contentious material as much as many other actual contentious topic area. We weren't getting violent in the real world about it until this year, though. I primarily ask for blanket semi-protection due to the fact that most sockpuppetry, in addition to unsourced and poorly sourced material, comes from IP addresses or new accounts.

Pinging @EF5 and @Wildfireupdateman as those that had previously proposed sanctions. Further discussion about whether or not sanctions are necessary should continue below. Departure– (talk) 17:33, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Strong support per all of my reasoning previously. Due to the general age range that weather enthusiasts are in (again, this is backed up in a reliable source), this is 100% needed. Just go to a recent tornado outbreak page from post-May 2024 and you'll see at least five reverts in the last 100 edits. It's absurd and needs to stop. — EF5 17:36, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
One thing I do somehat disagree with is the Where sources are available, they must be cited in the article instead of only existing in the edit summary, or else they should also be removed on sight part, it's not my fault that mobile editing sucks. — EF5 17:42, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
This is a problem, as you, in good faith, are adding uncited (as in unverifiable from merely reading the article) information. Either wait for the sources to be made, or cite them yourself (even if it takes a good while), but that's still OR, from my perspective. It falls into the category of now-casting as a whole. It might suck but so does seeing unverifiable and potentially untrue information, where I need to go to the edit history to see the source, which itself could be to the NWS, to Twitter, or to literally anywhere. It's just not a good system, no offense to you, of course. Departure– (talk) 17:46, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
Departure–, my point is that the source is there, another editor just needs to add it. I can assume I'm far from the only person who has to to deal with adding references on mobile, which takes so long that you can get in edit conflicts. — EF5 17:48, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
Edit requests exist for this reason. I'm sure in a now-casting situation, or one where later sources can be added, another editor would gladly accept and implement your edit request in a less clunky manner that doesn't get you in OR situations. Departure– (talk) 17:50, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
And how do you submit an edit request on mobile? Everything on mobile takes ten times longer than on a non-cellular device. EF5 17:51, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
I'd assume it's just going into the talk page and leaving a neutrally-worded "Hey, so XYZ just happened see [example.com this], I'm on mobile so can someone add this?" sort of deal. Nothing too complicated Departure– (talk) 17:55, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
If you want a recent example of this, just look at my last 25-or-so edits. It's all reverting rating-related changes. — EF5 18:57, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
Strong Oppose - this proposal is poorly thought out and seems to be overreacting to stuff like the addition of unsourced information on wiki, conversations off wiki, windspeed changes, sockpuppets and the political situation in the United States. Over the years that I have been contributing to the Wiki, we have seen products come and go due to budget constraints, technology/governments changing including in the US. As for the supposedly reliable source about the age of tropical cyclone/weather editors, I would note that its a generic assumption, as no one has asked me how old I am and I doubt they have asked anyone else about their age.Jason Rees (talk) 00:08, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Could you clarify on the “ seems to be overreacting to stuff” part? This isn’t an overreaction, this is a serious issue that we’ve had to deal with since last year. EF5 00:40, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
To put the whole of the weather project on community sanctions is a massive overreaction, since all Donald Trump and DOGE are doing is making changes to the way the government operates, which any government would do and in the US includes NOAA. The other stuff is just general wiki stuff which has happened for years, does not happen on the majority of articles related to the project and doesn't need much more than a general enforcement of Wiki's rules.Jason Rees (talk) 01:08, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
The point is to curb the consistent and disruptive vandalism of pages. That’s “normal”? It’s very annoying and has to be dealt with daily. It happens on hurricane articles too, no? EF5 01:11, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Unfortunately it is normal that Wikipedia gets vandalized on a daily basis - its the nature of the internet - but there are ways and means to deal with them, that does not involve placing the whole of the project under sanctions, when the majority of articles in the project do not suffer much vandalism. For example, educating people about how to put references in, not launching SPI's into each and every sockpuppet, not making articles about current weather events that are marginally notable etc.Jason Rees (talk) 01:24, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Let me lay it out this way, Jason Rees. Wikipedia does perhaps "jump the gun" a bit when it comes to these severe weather events, but I'd like to point out that these events, to my knowledge, always end up notable if they end up in mainspace. One way or another they're getting the significant coverage that proves notability. Wikipedia is very unique in this. Most places on the web that catalogue severe weather, minus tropical cyclones, typically do so in one of three ways:
  • Social media feeds, in which information from unofficial and unreliable sources can very easily appear as fact
  • News site feeds, in which information can come much slower, and stories are hyperfocused on where X news organization can get reporters to
  • Databases and story-blogs, such as weather.gov's WFO summaries and the NCDC Events database, in which verified information is put into a relatively specific area of writing, where some information is lost as apparently unnotable etc.
The way Wikipedia handles these ongoing events is that neutrally worded summaries from official or otherwise reputable sources, those with NOAA, are used to clearly define the setup that day and surveys afterwards (preliminary or not, but we should specify). Wikipedia's mode is also as a sort of compilation; much unlike a news article / timeline system, information can be added whenever adequate sourcing exists and topics can be given their due weight according to apparent importance. This system often leads to more comprehensive summaries of these events as they're ongoing, and often contain more information as a sort of very light "synthesis" that Wikipedia itself is built off of, that is, stitching all notable aspects of an event together. This is something that a lot of broadcast media and these blogs miss. The tornado in St. Louis, Missouri, for instance, was, when it was written, given a section in the article with RS-backed prose, and the little section it was given gave out more information than any other sources that had shown up in the hour after the tornado hit. In addition, during the aftermath of an event, the Wikipedia article on it often acts as the best sole guide to finding information that has been reported both before, during, and after severe weather occurred; not just that meteorologists expected there to be severe weather in a place, but also that a tornado warning was issued at XYZ a.m., first responders were there at ZYX a.m., and they're doing X for recovery efforts the next weeks.
The system, the little niche, I outline Wikipedia's ongoing severe weather coverage to fall into, is unique among the web and, in the context of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, can work, and while doing so can easily benefit the encyclopedia as a whole, as even after an event, the amount of love an article got when it was happening often doesn't go to waste (I go into more detail about newer events in the essay WP:NOTTOOSOON).
Articles all over Wikipedia will get vandalized and that's a shame but it's just the nature of the project we work with. However, I did identify that weather, unlike most standard areas of contributions but like other contentious topics, does have a specific type of disruption to the project that I, in my full honest opinion, think that a set of sanctions like the ones I've outlined above will do more good than harm. Having a reliable and accessible source for new and verified information no doubt is going to help knowledge worldwide, and, even if Wikipedia is not a newspaper, once the dust settled, you realize that having articles like this made when they are and constructed how they are (see NOTTOOSOON) ends up helping the construction an encyclopedia.
Brief version: Wikipedia has a unique place on the web in its coverage of these events, and, per WP:NOTTOOSOON, weather articles being made in the way they are reinforce that and also help the encyclopedia down the line. These sanctions ensure that we can maintain this system, not preventing people from editing at all (we have edit requests for that very reason). I myself think they will be to the significant benefit of the project. Departure– (talk) 03:46, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
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Crickster8, then we start with post-2010 pending and bump to semi where needed. — EF5 14:26, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Another, more contentious debate is whether IPs should be allowed to edit at all or if it should be banned. The Portugese Wikipedia has already done this. Crickster8 (talk) 14:34, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
  • SPIs: Andrew5, LokiCat3345
  • Past ANI/ARB discssions involving Wx: 1, 2, WPTROP ARB case
  • Protected pages: Literally go to any post-2023 tornado outbreak page and it's almost 100% been protected at some point in its life.

There's a lot more, but I don't feel inclined to bring together a list when the issue is right in front of our faces. EF5 12:58, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Well we literally have to, or it won’t be binding. It was set up wrong yet again. Crickster8 (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2025 (UTC) Sock
Let me state now that I don't think the ANI thread is too relevant to the matter at hand. A cursory look shows that it was about off-wiki canvassing and poor handling of discussions, and those don't appear to be the issues at hand here. The issues I see are persistent synthesis, unsourced content changes, and seemingly daily sockpuppetry. Now, per @Chicdat's notes, I would not be too opposed to having such sanctions only cover post-2007 or post-2010 weather (of those leaning on 2010 being the cutoff point) as while not as frequent as a small subset of articles a lot still do get vandalized or targeted by sockpuppets.
As for the specific scale of disruption, I've made a page where I can view the recent changes of any article, and I've specifically narrowed it down to tornadoes and tornado outbreak articles from 2000 to 2025. The following recent changes may be affected by these sanctions:
That's within just the past few days. See also Special:AbuseFilter/1324 which was made specifically for this (but never actually implemented). The manner in which vandalism most often occurs within weather pages is very unlike that seen across much of the rest of Wikipedia. These changes can be very hard to notice unless you're specifically looking out for them. As for simply reverting or leaving pages unprotected, the 3RR still applies in the reversion of vandalism (to my knowledge) and I don't want to have any long-time editors receive any form of sanctions for keeping unsourced material out of these articles. Per EF5, most recent weather articles have received some form of protection at some point, which goes to show (in my opinion) that these sanctions wouldn't be necessarily impossible to implement on the grounds of being unnecessary. Departure– (talk) 14:03, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Can someone bring this to VPR in all seriousness? It’s semi protected indefinitely, and it’s the only valid way to bring it over. Seems like my comment was ignored. Crickster8 (talk) 14:23, 22 May 2025 (UTC) Sock
Bringing this to VPR is premature. More local discussion should happen first. Departure– (talk) 14:40, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Look at that, there was literally socking in this discussion. If that isn't proof, I don't know what it. EF5 15:24, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
Don’t worry, Chicdat is a known coward. They were blocked for edit warring on Names of European cities in different languages (U–Z), see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1086#DSMN-IHSAGT. They were also topic banned for 3 years with it only being recently overturned. 68.216.63.46 (talk) 15:53, 22 May 2025 (UTC) Striking Andrew5 sock. --MarioProtIV (talk/contribs) 15:59, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
@Departure–: Lol, that happened. EF5 15:56, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
You can’t strike a sock before it’s confirmed, did you not hear of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, MarioProtIV. Sounds like someone needs to take AP Gov. 68.216.63.46 (talk) 16:01, 22 May 2025 (UTC) Striking sock. WP:DFT. --MarioProtIV (talk/contribs) 16:03, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Glad to know I'm a known coward. Thanks, Andrew5, for a quick trip down memory lane. BTW, they forgot to mention I was blocked for edit warring with a known LTA. Maybe there's some special LTA Discord chat where Andrew5 and the BKFIP reminisce about their interactions with me – who woulda thunk? 🐔 Chicdat  Chicken Jockey! 18:01, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The type of disruption that is encountered on WPW is something that I wouldn't call deserving of general sanctions. Wikipedia has always been a place where recent or current events are a subject of rapid editing. The problem of socking is only the most problematic with Andrew5, as Lokicat seems to have slowed down in terms of socking. I don't see these issues presented as only applying to WPW, therefore, I don't see the need for sanctions. CutlassCiera 17:57, 22 May 2025 (UTC)
  • Oppose, there should be more targeted protections in the more active articles with a lot of disruption. I don't think there needs to be a blanket protection, which would stop most anon users from editing, just because of a few trolls. Any instances of the now-casting, or vandalism, should be removed right away. I think a solution for some of the predictions making it into the article is taking more time to create articles for individual outbreaks. Don't publish them until it is well-sourced and the scope is evident. I understand that some outbreaks can be anticipated in advance, just like some hurricane articles are created when a storm is just an invest. But a lot of the problem is the "FIRST" mentality of wanting to get the information on there, even if it's not the most accurate information (which can sometimes take some time to figure out). ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:17, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Requested move 23 May 2025

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.

– All focus on tornadoes in one specific area but have inconsistent names due to a lack of standardization. I don't know if this should extend to state-wide or country-wide lists but these should at least be standardized. I personally am in favor of "Tornadoes in X" but that would also involve changing the subject of these pages to include why some place has so many tornadoes or whatever - but who would be opposed to that? Either way, standardization will help for consistency. Departure– (talk) 21:14, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Support move to "tornadoes in XXXX" - Why does a Cleveland County article even exist if we already have Tornadoes in Oklahoma? — EF5 21:32, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
Because we didn't always have that page (weren't you the one who made the state page?). I guess someone saw Moore, Moore, Moore again, and saw that Moore was being hit by so many tornadoes but didn't want to do just a "Tornadoes in Moore" article. (That someone was WeatherWriter in 2022, apparently, and this was before we had consistent naming in the first place.) Departure– (talk) 21:34, 23 May 2025 (UTC)
The Cleveland County one seems unusually specific for Wikipedia standards. The Huntsville one was mostly a dab from 2007 until 2022, when it was expanded into the list it is today. Then List of Alabama tornadoes was made in 2013, but is still more of a dab than the other state tornado articles. The St. Louis one could be useful for making List of Missouri tornadoes. I think the Chicago one should be integrated into the List of Illinois tornadoes article, since there's useful content there, but there's probably not a need to have both. Just my thought how to deal with these. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:31, 23 May 2025 (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.

Featured article review for Meteorological history of Hurricane Jeanne

I have nominated Meteorological history of Hurricane Jeanne for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:09, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather/Sources

For all weather editors, a large list of reliable and unreliable sources if being created. Several discussions for a lot of different sources (including ones like The Weather Channel, AccuWeather, and Ryan Hall, Y'all, are already being discussed on the talk page. Please assist if you have any thoughts to give on the various sources and their reliability. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:39, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

The World Destubathon

Hello. You're invited to participate in The World Destubathon. We're aiming to destub a lot of articles and also improve longer stale articles. It will be held from Monday June 16 - Sunday July 13. There is $3338 going into it, with $500 the top prize. There is $500 of prizes going into improving Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Medicine and Business-related articles and we hope to see a lot of science-related articles destubbed and older stale articles improved in particular. If you are interested in winning some vouchers to help you buy books for future content, or just see it as a good editathon opportunity to see a lot of articles improved for weather-related topics, sign up if interested.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:57, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

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