Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Eloise/archive2

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

The article was promoted by Karanacs 03:55, 19 July 2011 [1].

Hurricane Eloise[edit]

Nominator(s): Juliancolton (talk) 02:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of the more significant cyclones I've written about on WP, and it's been a work-in-progress for a couple years now. I've recently added some final touches from a few journals and newspaper articles I hadn't yet looked at, and I think this piece covers all aspects of this important hurricane well. Juliancolton (talk) 02:56, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source reviews - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Be consistent in whether authors are listed first or last name first
No citations to Schwartz 2007
Ref 3: page?
Need page numbers for multi-page PDFs. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:45, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Done" for the first two, I'll get on the last two issues sometime soon. Thanks for the review, as always. Juliancolton (talk) 20:23, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments *"However, the storm made landfall on Hispaniola, causing it to weaken into a tropical storm." – Maybe you could say something like "causing it to weaken back to tropical storm status" instead, since you already once mentioned how it intensified "into a tropical storm".

"Eloise, a weak and disorganized cyclone, emerged into open waters of the northern Caribbean Sea" – Though it is technically correct, it's sort of an awkward mid-sentence interruption. What's wrong with "A weak and disorganized cyclone, Eloise emerged..."?

"The origins of Hurricane Eloise trace back to a tropical wave which emerged" → "The origins of Hurricane Eloise trace back to a tropical wave that emerged"

"Satellite imagery indicated that the system was initially "unimpressive" – I don't understand. How was it unimpressive; on what grounds did the imagery indicate this? Please clarify if possible, or change to something like "The system initially exhibited a disorganized structure on satellite imagery."

"On September 16, the storm attained tropical storm status and was designated Eloise" – Maybe you can use "the system attained" instead for less repetitiveness.

"While the anticyclone over Eloise became better organized" – In its current state, the sentence implies that the anticyclone was previously mentioned in the article, which isn't the case. It should read something as "With an organizing anticyclone aloft, Eloise..." or "While in the vicinity of an organizing anticyclone aloft, Eloise..."

"However, the cyclone made landfall on the Dominican Republic, inhibiting further development." – Maybe add "subsequently" or "went on to make landfall" in there to make it flow better?

"Initial forecasts predicted the storm to remain north of land, although the storm" – Repetitive

"However, the cyclone made landfall on the Dominican Republic, inhibiting further development. Early on September 17, Eloise weakened into a tropical storm. Initial forecasts predicted the storm to remain north of land, although the storm moved across northern Hispaniola and then tracked across southeastern Cuba. The mountainous terrain caused Eloise to deteriorate into a minimal tropical storm, as much of its circulation was over land for about 36 hours." – This entire part confuses me. It mentions weakening twice, and the sequence is all jumbled up. You mention it makes landfall and weakens; then you mention initial predictions of a track north of land; and then you again mention it interacting with land to weaken, while you already did so. I really think you could be more concise and fit this in 2, at the most 3 sentences.

That's all for now.★ Auree _talk 20:09, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tried to take care of all of this. Good points, thanks! Juliancolton (talk) 20:21, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't mention it. This still needs revising though: "Eloise became better organized, the storm rapidly intensified and reached Category 1 hurricane status 18 hours after being named." ★ Auree _talk 20:30, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops... Juliancolton (talk) 21:14, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*"Upon entering the Gulf of Mexico, Eloise quickly organized. The trough enhanced the wind divergence over the storm's center,[1] allowing for the storm to strengthen once again to reach hurricane force about 345 mi (555 km) south of New Orleans, Louisiana." – Pretty sure you could fit this into one sentence.

"Several ships passed through the storm's center during its passage through the gulf" – Pass... passage. Tweak for less repetitiveness?

"Several ships passed through the storm's center during its passage through the gulf. The hurricane also moved over two experimental buoys which recorded data on the storm, aiding meteorologists in their forecasts." – Actually, you could probably just merge this into one sentence as well.

"Shortly after making landfall, the hurricane rapidly degenerated. Just six hours later, it had weakened into a tropical storm, while situated over eastern Alabama." → Shortly after making landfall, the hurricane rapidly degenerated; it weakened into a tropical storm just six hours later, while situation over eastern Alabama.

"It further weakened into a tropical depression at 0000 UTC on September 24. The depression transitioned into an extratropical storm over Virginia, and became indistinguishable by later that same day." – Again, this could be one sentence...

Overall, I think the prose is a bit stubby, with many short and repetitive fragments throughout the article. I think you should look it through extensively once more. It's a nice article, though. ★ Auree _talk 02:52, 23 June 2011 (UTC) [reply]

I agreed with all of your recommendations in your first bout of comments, but I'm not so sure we're on the same page at this point. I think for most of the cases you suggested merging sentences, the only way to condense them would be to force the use of semicolons, else I'm left with a bunch of run-ons. I'm already splicing around 10 sentences using semicolons. For the first sentences you highlighted, merging would result in Upon entering the Gulf of Mexico, Eloise quickly organized, and the trough enhanced the wind divergence over the storm's center,[1] allowing for the storm to strengthen once again to reach hurricane force about 345 mi (555 km) south of New Orleans, Louisiana. Quite clunky, and I believe using varied sentence length is a good way to keep the writing from becoming monotonous on the researcher. Again, I really appreciate the look-through, I'd just like to discuss this a bit more. Juliancolton (talk) 17:35, 23 June 2011 (UTC) [reply]

As for the first sentence, I'd suggest something like this "Upon entering the Gulf of Mexico, enhanced wind divergence aloft allowed for further organization, and the storm restrengthened into a hurricane about 345 (555 km) south of New Orleans, Louisiana," or even "Tracking over the Gulf of Mexico in the vicinity of enhanced divergence aloft, the storm restrengthened into a hurricane about 345 (555 km) south of New Orleans." These are just two of many examples of how concisely this could be said instead. You can even mention the trough in there, though personally I don't think it's necessary. ★ Auree _talk 18:08, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support now. There are no major issues left in the article, and I feel its overall quality does meet FA standards. ★ Auree _talk 20:50, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It says packing winds of. I think I know what that means but it's a bit obscure to me. Can it be written more plainly?

Units check

It says 1.5 million pounds of shrimp and 801,000 cubic yards of sand. These need conversions

Lightmouse (talk) 08:55, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How's that? Juliancolton (talk) 14:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. We don't link common units but I've fixed that. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 16:32, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review - Source link for File:Hurricane_Eloise.jpg appears to be broken, as does the link for File:Hurricane_Eloise_beach_house2_damage.jpg. Images and captions are otherwise unproblematic. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:15, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Found updated URLs for these. Juliancolton (talk) 20:19, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

~~Meteorological history: "The trough enhanced the wind divergence over the storm's center, allowing for the storm to strengthen...". Prose redundancy here with the two "the storm"s.~~
~~Preparations: There's an excess word in "warnings for heavy for rainfall" in the beginning of the section.~~
~~Impact: Puerto Rico was just linked in the last section; another one isn't needed here. There's also a repeat Cuba link here.~~
~~Reference 20 should be moved outside the parentheses.~~
~~"inundating the city of Frederick and compromised the city's supply of fresh drinking water." If this structure is to be used, doesn't "compromised" need to be "compromising"?~~
"an additional 4 in of rain in central Maryland triggered severe flash flooding." Feels like something is missing after the state...
~~The Hurricane Agnes link should be moved up a paragraph to be where it's first mentioned.~~
~~"and in the words of Schwartz (2007)". First, the writer's first name could be given here; I don't think it was mentioned before. Second, is it normal to mention the year like in a citation?~~
~~Aftermath: What state was Ruben Askew governor of? Florida?~~
"In at least one instance, the hurricane and its associated storm surge had a lasting effect on local geographical". Something feels off toward the end. Either a word is missing, or "geographical" should be something else, like maybe "geography".
~~"The corresponding name that was used in 1981 in replace of Eloise was Emily." "replace" → "place"?~~
~~Here's a link for reference 3 (the one missing a page number). Hope this helps.~~ Giants2008 (27 and counting) 02:42, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments and help in finding that link. I believe I've addressed nearly everything, directly or indirectly. Thanks again for the review, it's much appreciated. Juliancolton (talk) 14:27, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I had forgotten this was up on FAC. I checked through the article, and I'm confident it uses a great variety of sources. The writing is great all around. One thing that stands out is that the lede is only two paragraphs, despite it being a rather significant hurricane and the article being fairly lengthy. Also, the first lede paragraph says it dissipated by September 25, but the Infobox says 24th, so you might wanna change that. Otherwise, it's a great article for a notable hurricane. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:01, 4 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed the date issue, and I'll look into expanding the lead. Thanks for the review! Juliancolton (talk) 20:38, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support I had one issue to the author which I told him off-wiki. He addressed that, and as such I support. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 15:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~~Comment~~ The article looks solid, but the images in the Florida impact section are too close to each other and produce a very narrow column of text at the start of the section. I would recommend moving the images around to remove that problem. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed, thanks! Juliancolton (talk) 03:30, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Much better, thanks. Also, is there a reason in particular why all the images are different sizes? In particular, the HPC rainfall image seems to be rather massive. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like to make graphics bigger than the visuals, since you can tell that the house is a house, for example, at an extremely small thumbnail, but the rainfall map has information that is harder to see at small sizes. Juliancolton (talk) 03:35, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Still, there is no reason why it couldn't be the same size as the Puerto Rico HPC image. In either case it's a minor detail that shouldn't hold back the promotion of the article, so I'm supporting. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 03:51, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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