Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1941 Florida hurricane/archive3

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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 Karanacs 17:33, 9 June 2009 [1].

1941 Florida hurricane[edit]

Nominator(s): –Juliancolton | Talk 20:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC), Cool3[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because it's been archived twice with no outstanding concerns; third time's the charm? –Juliancolton | Talk 20:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • References check out okay with the link checker tool, no fair use images or poorly tagged free ones, so that checks out as well. Wizardman 20:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:49, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Provisional Oppose. I feel like a lot of details I'd like to know are missing, and that's not a good feeling after reading a featured article. Also a few nitpicky style issues. (Involved) support. I think this is now an excellent article and fully satisfies the FA criteria (full disclosure: I have contributed a large amount of content to the current version of the article and have been named as a co-nominator. Thus, I may not be considered entirely neutral). Cool3 (talk) 03:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Cool3
    • "Evacuations were recommended from Homestead to Key West." How many people followed the recommendations? Did most people evacuate? Few?
    • "No casualties occurred in the cit." What is the cit? Typo for city I assume?
    • "Properties and gardens received significant damage." How much damage is "significant damage"?
    • "Several communities lost electricity" How many is several?
    • "barometric pressure fell to 982 mb". This should probably be written out (and preferably linked) to millibar.
    • "five men drowned in the storm tide at a fishing net drying yard." Where was the yard? (Panacea, Florida)
    • They may just not be available, but it would be very nice to see some pictures of the damage associated with the storm.
      • I've looked around for damage pictures for a while, but none are available as far as I can tell. –Juliancolton | Talk 15:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "When the United States entered World War II, new vehicles become unavailable, forcing residents to resort to horse-drawn carriages for transportation." The storm was in October 1941. The United States entered WWII in December 1941.
      • That's what the source says. –Juliancolton | Talk 15:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Side note, the US was "in" the war, if not formally, a bit before Dec 1941. Escort of convoys in the Atlantic started in summer 1941, I believe. I think rationing was introduced for war material before Pearl Harbor also. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You give a figure of $675,000 as the total damage in the infobox, but in the article you state "total losses in the state are estimated at $675,000 (1941 USD)", seeming to suggest that that figure only refers to the damage in Florida. What about the damage in the Bahamas and in Georgia?
      • According to the source, "total damages [...] were estimated at $675,000 [...] divided between the northern and southern portions of the state" (the state being Florida presumably). –Juliancolton | Talk 15:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I get no sense of the historical significance of the hurricane. Is it one remembered for anything? Does anyone still talk about it?
      • Compared to other storms Florida has seen, this one was relatively insignificant; moreover, considering how long ago it was, info is scarce. I've found no info on historical context, and I highly doubt any is available. –Juliancolton | Talk 15:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Initially, there were reports of 20 missing fishermen." I assume they were all found? It would be nice to state that.
      • The sources I've found don't follow-up with this, but I'll keep searching nonetheless. –Juliancolton | Talk 15:42, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • As I look around for more sources, I continually find references to how unusual the rainfall distribution of this hurricane was (the light rainfall in South Florida). As a matter of fact, this rainfall distribution pattern seems to have been the lasting legacy of the hurricane (insofar as it had one). The article does briefly refer to the rainfall pattern, but perhaps a more involved discussion would be appropriate? Of course, such a discussion might be entirely too technical, but our featured articles should satisfy the expert and a discussion on this point seems necessary in order to do so. Cool3 (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I thought about that as well. There are entire documents devoted to this aspect of the storm, but I was concerned that the article would become too technical. I do agree with you, though, in that it should be covered more extensively in the article, so I'll add a few more relevant sentences. –Juliancolton | Talk 20:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Done. It was a bit difficult summarizing those heaps of info in an accessible manner, but I added quite a bit more regarding this. –Juliancolton | Talk 00:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the whole, a great article. I look forward to supporting once my concerns are addressed. Cool3 (talk) 15:29, 28 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]



Almost there. I just did a copyedit. The article is very factual, very precise, but I'm wondering if we can inject more color (the people collecting pecans blown out of tress, for example) and more of how this hurricane affected the particular terrain and people it passed over. We might be able to find out that kind of information in sources other than storm reports. I'll work with JC on this. - Dank (push to talk) 00:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into this. –Juliancolton | Talk 19:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Added a bit more. –Juliancolton | Talk 20:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I've checked everything at http://www.newspaperarchive.com, and JC has checked everything at the hurricane news archive. My guess is anything else JC might say would be WP:OR, so unless someone has some ideas, I think we're done. - Dank (push to talk) 21:13, 7 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I like the additions. In a different article, I might object on the basis that they're too "slice of life", but I think understanding how real lives were affected and how the media covered the event at the time adds color and interest. - Dank (push to talk) 19:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Nicely done JC and everyone else who contributed. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • "powerlines" and "power lines"
    • "At the time, the storm was determined to be a compact, well-developed hurricane." Sounds like the storm had a personality, and it was determined to do something.
    • Even if the source uses the anachronistic "firemen", we don't have to.
      • Sorry, but I'm not sure what you mean here. Could you please elaborate a bit? –Juliancolton | Talk 21:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • I meant, we should say "firefighters" I think. --Laser brain (talk) 21:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fair enough. Firefighters is more modern I suppose, and also more precise; changed. Cool3 (talk) 21:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "three Coast Guard planes dropped warnings to boats near the Florida coast." What does this mean?
      They dropped warnings (leaflets I assume) to tell boats that the hurricane was approaching. Cool3 (talk) 20:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "A detachment of officers from the Florida Highway Patrol were sent to Miami and patrolled along highways to provide gas to motorists evacuating the storm." A detachment was. And, do you mean "fuel" or "gasoline"? "Gas" is too non-specific or colloquial.
      Grammar fixed, thanks for pointing that out. It was gasoline; I've clarified that. Cool3 (talk) 20:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "including a schooner, four sailboats" A schooner is a sailboat. Sailboat is a more general category of boats operating under sail power. Either say five sailboats or be more specific for the four.
      Clarified as well as possible to "four smaller sailboats". The sources don't say how they were rigged, but they were smaller than the schooner. As a matter of fact, the other source reveals that they were four sloops. Cool3 (talk) 20:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "On Cat Island, the storm produced a rainfall total of 1.62 inches (41 mm)." I don't know, "1.62 inches (41 mm) of rainfall" is so much more elegant.
--Laser brain (talk) 20:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of these should be fixed. Thanks for the review, –Juliancolton | Talk 21:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)

  • "and entered the Atlantic Ocean on October 8." Picky stuff, but can you put a non-breaking space between the "October" and "8"? The line breaks between the two on my monitor.
    Done.
  • "although there was unusually little rainfall in some areas." The verb "to be" is very weak here; how about "although some areas received unusually litttle rainfall"? Also, I don't see the use of "although"; do high winds automatically mean lots of rainfall? I've experienced plenty of times when that's happened where I live.
    This is indeed highly unusual for a tropical cyclone. Indeed, one of the sources for the article, "An Analysis of an Unusual Rainfall Distribution in a Hurricane" is devoted to the topic of the light rainfall in Florida. To quote from it: "The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the reason for the surprisingly light rainfall in a recent tropical hurricane. In most meteorology textbooks, hurricanes are said to be accompanied by heavy rainfall." I believe JC is working on a little extra content on this subject at the moment. Cool3 (talk) 23:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More comments later. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This article was promoted, and I have supported because whatever concerns I've had or might still have aren't enough to obscure the fact that this article is worthy of the FA star. I will continue the review on the talk page. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:42, 9 June 2009 (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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