Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hurricane Kate (1985)/archive1

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

The article was promoted by Ian Rose (talk) 11:15, 11 June 2014 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Hurricane Kate (1985)[edit]

Hurricane Kate (1985) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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Nominator(s): ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC) and --12george1 (talk) 02:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the latest hurricane in history to strike the United States. It was an anomaly, one of the strongest hurricanes in the month of November and one that proves that hurricane season really does last through November. There was some decent damage in Cuba and Florida, culminating the end to a very rough hurricane season that included Hurricane Elena, Hurricane Gloria, and Hurricane Juan (1985). Enjoy reading! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I also wanted to invite User:12george1 to co-nominate the article, as I might be too busy to handle it. Also, due to the article being largely done last year, this will not be for the Wikicup. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here are my comments: YE Pacific Hurricane 03:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the latest hurricane to impact the country on record. " Really don't like this. First, it wasn't the way you worded it as Hurricane Iwa impacted the island on November 24, not November 21. Also, instead "hurricane", you should clarify and say "hurricane intensity" cause you could mean tropical cyclone.
  • "the intensification of a region of high pressure to the cyclone's north caused Kate to turn westward" what's a "high pressure"? You sohuld link it.
  • And you "sohuld" know what a high pressure is :P--12george1 (talk) 11:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • " and Kate transitioned to an extratropical cyclone a day after exiting the coastline of North Carolina, on November 23." did it exist the coastline on the 23rd or become ET then?
  • " Damage totaled roughly $400 million [nb 2]," put the note after the comma.
  • ", including sea surface temperatures of 81 °F (27 °C)" is that really abnormal for late November?
  • "120 mph (190 km/h) at around 1200 UTC on November 20.[4]" cut either "at" or "around.
  • "with most citizens on the island rode out the storm in their homes." change "rode" to "riding".
  • "Kate was the first hurricane along the Florida Panhandle since Hurricane Eloise in 1975.[7] " first hurricane to do what? nominate an article for FAC? :P
  • Nope, but it seems like Erick 07 was the first to nominate itself for merge :P --12george1 (talk) 11:54, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and about 500 homes and businesses were severely damaged.[33]" given you say "people and businesses", could you say "buildings" instead here. YE Pacific Hurricane 03:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The cotton, soybean, and pecan crops suffered heavy losses, estimated at around $50 million. Property and utility damage was also estimated at $50 million, and damage from flash flooding was estimated at $1 million.[26]" you use estimated three times in a short period of words, consider mixing it up and saying something like "assessed" or "placed".

Otherwise, it's good. YE Pacific Hurricane 03:40, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments—I stumbled here from my nomination, so I thought I'd give this a gander.
    • "near Mexico Beach, Florida as a minimal " should have a comma after "Florida".
    • "Damage totaled roughly $400 million, [nb 2] making.." has an extra space between the comma and footnote.
    • "When Kate struck the Florida Panhandle, it became the first hurricane to make landfall in that location since Hurricane Eloise." A year here might be nice for context for those of us who don't know when Eloise hit.
    • "and on November 15 a Hurricane Hunters flight" might need a comma after the date.
    • "from Grand Isle, Louisiana to Cedar Key, Florida on ... " needs commas after the state names.
    • "Waves of 9 ft (2.7 m) waves affected the city's waterfront." the feet shouldn't be abbreviated and you have an extra "waves" in the sentence.
      • Fixed the extra "waves", but not the feet. The other units of measure in the article are abbreviated, so feet should be too.--12george1 (talk) 15:27, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Per MOS:NUM, they should not be abbreviated. Under Units and conversions: "In prose, unit names should be given in full if used only a few times, but symbols may be used when a unit (especially one with a long name) is used repeatedly after spelling out the first use (e.g. Up to 15 kilograms of emulsifier is used for a batch of 250 kg)." It's one thing to shorten the lengthy "miles per hour" down to "mph", but even its first usage needs to be spelled out in full per MOS:NUM. The way the example reads, if you're repeating the unit in close proximity, you can abbreviate, but you're not. The two usages of feet are paragraphs apart, so both should be spelled out. Imzadi 1979 → 04:53, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • "destroyed 3,653 mi2 (9461 km2)" again, no need to abbreviate the unit, and it shouldn't be linked.
      • See my previous comment--12george1 (talk) 15:27, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • See above, and since it's only used once, it needs to be spelled out. Imzadi 1979 → 04:53, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • "34,000 tonnes of sugar"" that should be converted and the unit doesn't need to be linked. Given that all of the other measurements are in American/imperial first, metric second, that should probably be flipped to the same order. (There is an option in {{convert}} to flip the order around.) The following sentence should receive the same treatment. In general, measurements in running prose should not be abbreviated, although mph can be an exception to that. I would look through the rest of the article and allow {{convert}} to spell words out in full.
    • "About 90% of ..." I would spell that out as "About 90 percent of ..."
    • "runoff mayor election in Key West" would read better as "runoff mayoral election in Key West"
    • "10 foot (3 m) storm surge" should be "10-foot (3 m) storm surge"
    • Concerning the footnotes, I personally would list cities of publication for newspapers that do not include the city in their names. So The Deseret News would say it was published in Salt Lake City, Utah, while the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel doesn't need a redundant reference to Milwaukee.
      • Added. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:13, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • FN14, Lodi News-Sentinel (Lodi, California), and FN 15, Gainesville Sun (Gainesville, Florida), are just two examples where listing the city is redundant. Most citation style guides say only to list the city of publication if it's not included in the name of the newspaper, which is why I said the MJS didn't need Milwaukee listed twice. Imzadi 1979 → 01:29, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • I feel like Lodi should be mentioned, since it's not clear it's a city. - who has heard of Lodi here, aside from people from California? :) I'll remove the Gainesville one. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:51, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • FN 21 is very odd. That's a report, so the title shouldn't be in italics so that it matches the other reports. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is either an author or publisher, so it shouldn't be in italics either.
    • The various Storm Data citations could be using the title of the section/article within the publication in the citation.
      • Not quite sure I understand this one. The title of the article is Storm Data. All of the data is presented in a list, going state by state. Does that make sense? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:13, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I looked at the source, and Storm Data appears to be the name of a journal that's subdivided into five articles: "Outstanding Storms of the Month", "Storm Data and Unusual Weather Phenomena", "Storm Summary", "Reference Notes", and "'F' Scale Definitions". Honestly, the footnote should be specifying which of these articles, and the appropriate page range, is being cited. I'll also note that it has an ISSN, which is something a journal, magazine or newspaper would have; articles don't have ISSNs. Imzadi 1979 → 01:29, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Alright, I added the chapter for "Storm Data and Unusual Weather Phenomena", pages, and the ISSN. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:51, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • David Longshore. "Hurricane Kate." Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons and Cyclones. David Longshore. New York: Facts on File, 1998, Pg; 208-209. This should be reformatted to match the other citations, and it should have a link added. If a link can't be added, I'd change "External links" to "Further reading" because the heading implies a link should be present.
      • Changed to further reading, in that case, since I never used it. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:13, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per MOS:LAYOUT, the "See also" section belongs before the References
  • This is all minor stuff, so I can foresee supporting promotion after a minimal amount of work. Imzadi 1979 → 02:47, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Hurricane_Kate_aftermath.jpg: source links appear dead. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support - A well-written article that is short, comprehensive, and meticulously sourced. I noticed a few mostly minor issues with the prose, and I performed copyedit (diff) to address them (a couple of tiny grammatical things or prose tightening, a couple areas where I tried to clarify minor ambiguity, and a couple of unintended word or sentence repeats); but if you disagree with some of my changes and revert them, I don't see anything major that would keep me from withholding my support for this nomination at this time. Well done! Keep up the great work! –Prototime (talk · contribs) 04:28, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - I've done a bit of copyediting to resolve some issues with clunky prose, but the research seems strong and I'm satisfied that the writing is generally professional. A few comments, still:
  • About 90 percent of residents in Florida's capital city Tallahassee, or about 80,000 people, lost power... - the source says "90% of Tallahassee, a city of 89,500, was without power". Given that there is a difference between people without power and customers without power, it might be a bit of a stretch to assume that if Tallahassee has 90,000 people, and 90% of the city is in the dark, then 80,000 people must be without power. Utility companies in the US almost always report outages in customers rather than individuals.
  • Overall, the hurricane destroyed 325 homes along the panhandle, and about 500 buildings were severely damaged. - this is a bit weaselly in its current state. Ideally you'd want to figure out if it's 325 out of 500, or 325 + 500, or just two sources that disagree with each other (the media isn't usually good with distinguishing between "destroyed" and "severely damaged"). Since I couldn't figure out a way to do that, you might want to try finding a more forgiving way to word this.
  • Just a suggestion, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Tallahassee damage pic a bit larger. It's probably the most visually engaging illustration in the whole article, and has plenty of resolution to work with. – Juliancolton | Talk 02:03, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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