Talk:December 2014 North American storm complex

Requested move

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Withdrawn. Will create disambiguation soon. (Never mind) George Ho (talk) 16:48, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

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December 2014 North American winter storm → 2014 North American winter storm – Regardless of whether there are other storms, the storm in December 2014 in North America is the only notable winter storm of this year. "December" seems unnecessary, even when such removal might invite November details. George Ho (talk) 08:50, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose per this article and this one here. The naming trend has been to add the month and dates of the major storms involved. There is more than one major storm that has an article here on Wikipedia for this North American winter. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:18, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Possible article rename

I might argue that this name is still inappropriate. It occurred during winter, but the West Coast impacts cannot be classified as those of a "winter storm". What is and is not a winter storm depends on more than just being in winter. Perhaps December 2014 North American cyclone? Something along those lines? Dustin (talk) 21:19, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

A "Winter Storm" is technically any well-defined system bringing measurable precipitation that occurs during the fall, spring, or winter time (and sometimes during the summer, in rare cases). A winter storm does not necessarily produce snow, although that is usually the case. And this system did produce a lot of snow, and many media outlets (especially the Weather Channel) are referring to this system as a winter storm. I know that the naming scheme kind of sounds weird, but it fits the criteria of a winter storm (and these storms do mostly occur during the winter, anyway), and the media and other meteorological outlets refer to such systems as "Winter Storms," so the title should remain. LightandDark2000 (talk) 03:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

PS, "cyclone" is too generic a term, as any storm with a defined circulation is technically a "cyclone." That's why we usually don't shorten the article title to simply "cyclone" unless we cannot really identify exactly what type of storm we are dealing with, and such cases are few and far in between. LightandDark2000 (talk) 03:09, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Please verify your claim. Dustin (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

For cyclone? Key it on Wikipedia, and read through the section(s) that define a cyclone. I may not be exactly right on the mark, but it should be obvious enough that "cyclone" is too generic a term for this article's title. LightandDark2000 (talk) 23:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no reason for cyclone to be considered too generic a term, and aside from that, the National Weather Service considers winter storms as requiring wintry precipitation to be classified as such. When considering this storm as a whole, little of the precipitation was in any frozen form, so it is misleading to classify it as such. Cyclone is the most expansive and unbiased term I know of at the moment that would be acceptable for use in an article's title. Dustin (talk) 00:44, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Still, this storm already meets the criteria for a "winter storm." And these days, "winter storm" is used by both meteorologists and reporters in the media to refer to such systems, so there's no need to change the article title. (In addition, the vast majority of articles on Wikipedia referring to such systems usually use the term "winter storm" if the system is not labeled as a blizzard, or nor'easter, or a bomb cyclone). LightandDark2000 (talk) 02:34, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of which, this system was a blizzard while it was in California, so that most definitely qualifies it as a winter storm by all definitions of that term. LightandDark2000 (talk) 02:36, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

One more thing: I think the point we all missed is that this system did make it to the East Coast. Beginning yesterday, this storm triggered lake-effect snow across large portions of the Great Lakes region, and before then, meterologists did state that the storm dropped around a foot of snow in parts of the Midwest. Although the alternative title "storm complex" is viable, this system had a notable wintry side throughout most of its existence in the US (in terms of duration). We can't rename this article just because this storm was mostly rain and wind in California; we also have to take into account its effects in the other states of the US. Given all of this, I believe that the article title should remain the way it is. LightandDark2000 (talk) 02:45, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, just give the article a look. Apart from a fifth of the meteorological history section (at the end of the section), the article gives no focus on any "wintry" aspects of the storm, and it makes no sense whatsoever to name a storm after the least important impacts. I might change my mind if the content of the article were to change (via additions), but until that happens, I consider this article's title to be inappropriate. Dustin (talk) 03:41, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

The only other name which doesn't seem biased to the not-very-important-or-special impacts is the "storm complex" suggestion with the article in its current state, I will add. Dustin (talk) 03:43, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

 Done. I renamed the article on the basis that most of its notable effects were non-wintry, and that this storm did spend a good portion of its duration in the Pacific as a storm complex. LightandDark2000 (talk) 02:29, 19 December 2014 (UTC)