Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Newsletter/Archive 3

Number 3, August 6, 2006

The Hurricane Herald

This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary, both of the activities of the WikiProject and global tropical cyclone activity. If you wish to change how you receive this newsletter, or no longer wish to receive it, please add your username to the appropriate section on the mailing list.

"Tropical Storm Lee was probably national news at the time, depending on where it went and what it did. Millions of people knew about it."

Storm of the month

Severe Tropical Storm Bilis was a damaging tropical storm that caused significant damage to areas of southeastern China, the Philippines and Taiwan. The fourth named storm of the 2006 Pacific typhoon season formed to the east of the Philippines on July 8 and moved towards Taiwan, strengthening as it did so. It reached its peak strength of 110 km/h (70 mph) on July 13, shortly before it made its first landfall on northern Taiwan. Bilis then made a second landfall in Fujian, China on July 14 after officials evaucated over 1 million residents from the areas in the storm's path. The remnant lasted for several days after landfall and brought heavy rain to inland China. The most significant damage occurred in Hunan, where heavy flooding and mudslides destroyed over 31,000 homes and killed 345. Despite never reaching typhoon strength, the storm was responsible for $2.5 billion in damage and at least 625 fatalities in total.

Other tropical cyclone activity

There were 10 other tropical cyclones worldwide in July, with activity in all 4 northern hemisphere basins.

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall on Nantucket on July 21 before bringing rain to Atlantic Canada.
In the East Pacific, Hurricane Bud was a Category 3 hurricane that formed on July 10 and dissipated on July 15.
Hurricane Carlotta twice became a minimal hurricane before degenerating into a remnant low on July 16.
Hurricane Daniel reached Category 4 strength and was predicted to make landfall in Hawaii before it dissipated on July 26.
Tropical Storm Emilia brought tropical storm-force winds to southern Baja California on July 26 and was forecast to become a hurricane but this did not occur.
Tropical Storm Fabio formed late on July 31 but did not last long in the face of strong shear.
In the West Pacific,Typhoon Ewiniar (Ester) formed on June 29 to the east of the Philippines, it reached Category 4 strength before making landfall in South Korea on July 10 as a tropical storm. It killed at least 36 people.
Typhoon Kaemi (Glenda) formed on July 2 and passed over Taiwan before dissipating over mainland China on July 26. It brought heavy rain to Taiwan and the Philippines and killed at least 32 people in China.
Typhoon Prapiroon (Henry) formed on July 28 but did not reach tropical storm strength until August.
In the North Indian Ocean, Tropical Storm 03B formed on June 30 near the east Indian coast before making landfall on the Orissa coast on July 2.

Main Page content

Entries from 3 articles: Tropical Storm Bilis (2006), National Weather Service bulletin for New Orleans region and List of South America tropical cyclones appeared on the Main Page in the Did you know column during July.

New articles and improvements wanted

New articles are wanted for Fiji Meteorological Service and Papua New Guinea National Weather Service.
While the individual storm articles are generally quite good, the project's core articles are quite poor. Please help improve tropical cyclone and its subpages.
Cyclone Tracy has recently had featured status removed, please help improve this article back up to FA standards again.

Member of the month

Cyclone barnstar

The July member of the month is Hurricanehink. The WikiProject awards this to him for the superb quality of his work on articles. Hurricanehink joined the project in November and has significantly contributed to many of the project's Featured Articles including Tropical Storm Allison and Hurricane Mitch. In addition to his contributions Hurricanehink also works on the assessment and improvement of most articles within the project.

New and improved articles

New storm articles include: Typhoon Aere (2004), Cyclone Vance, Hurricane Karl (2004) and 1916 Texas Hurricane.
New non-storm articles include: List of Canadian hurricanes and National Weather Service bulletin for New Orleans region.
New Featured articles: Tropical Storm Allison, Hurricane Esther (1961), Hurricane Irene (1999). Also, List of South America tropical cyclones became a Featured list.
Articles which became A/GA class include: Tropical Storm Henri (2003) (A), Typhoon Vamei (GA), Cyclone Rosita (GA), Tropical Storm Harvey (2005) (GA) and Storm of October 1804 (GA).

Storm article statistics

Grade	May	June	July	August
FA	7	10	13	16
A	5	7	6	6
GA	3	5	18	24
B	66	82	79	77
Start	177	168	180	191
Stub	12	10	8	8
Total	263	282	303	322
percentage ≥Less than B	71.6	63.1	62.0	61.8

Useful sources of tropical cyclone information

The following organizations provide helpful information for writing about tropical cyclones, both past and present.

National Hurricane Center - Official forecasts for the Atlantic and East Pacific and a massive archive starting in 1958.
Central Pacific Hurricane Center - Official forecasts for the Central Pacific and summaries of past storms.
Joint Typhoon Warning Center - Unoffical forecasts for storms in the West Pacific and other regions. Has an archive of storm reports back to 1959.
Japan Meteorological Agency - Official forecasts for the West Pacific.
Naval Research Laboratory - A great source for satellite imagery of tropical cyclones.
Hydrometeorological Prediction Center - Forecasts of weakening tropical cyclones in the United States and information and maps of rainfall in the US.
National Climatic Data Center - Lots of information is available here, including satellite imagery. The Storm events archive is very useful for information on storms in the US and its territories.

In his April Tropical Cyclone Summary, Gary Padgett stated that he will extensively reference Wikipedia in his future summaries. I have communicated with him and he has stated that he is "very much interested in cooperating" with us. He has also provided me with a copy of Jack Beven's weekly summaries (covering 1991-1996). If you want a copy of them, email me.--Nilfanion (talk)