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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 not promoted by Karanacs 00:32, 25 March 2009 [1].

1941 Florida hurricane

[edit]
Nominator(s): –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone

A bit short, perhaps, but I feel this is the most comprehensive account of the storm currently available. I've used a mixture of online sources, newspapers, and publications, so hopefully you'll agree. The storm was rather unique, and as such I quite enjoyed writing it. Thanks in advance for any comments. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 23:57, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tech. Comment -- Dabs and external links (found using the checker tools in the toolbox), and ref formatting (found using WP:REFTOOLS) are up to speed.--₮RUCӨ 00:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, thanks. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 01:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments, it's not far off, but some work is needed:
    • I'm used to hurricane articles starting with a more thorough description of the storm's formation, like a tropical wave moving off the coast of Africa (I knew nothing about tropical storms before joining WP; look what you guys have taught me.). It this information simply not known about this storm?
    • The first para of "Meteorological history" is all passive voice - do we know who observed the storm, or located the circulation center, etc? I'd be happy if we could change at least one to active voice and identify a subject (government, organization, etc.)
    • I changed your "towards" to "toward" because I believe it's more common in American English. I won't cry if you want me to change it back.
    • Passive voice is your bugbear. It doesn't need to be completely absent, especially when the subject of the sentence is unknown or unimportant, but when the subject is present, why twist the sentence to make it passive? For example, I changed "Salt water was blown several miles inland by intense winds" to "The intense winds blew salt water several miles inland".
--Laser brain (talk) 18:31, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review! –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 18:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could the infobox be fixed so that (1-minute sustained) does not break after 1-
  • "At the time, the storm was determined to be a small, yet well-developed, hurricane" Last comma not necessary.
  • "Along the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, winds gusted to 60 miles per hour (97 km/h), while a pressure of 995 mb, winds exceeding 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) and a storm tide of over 4 feet (1.2 m) was reported at Everglades City." Awkward construction, ended by passive voice.
  • "...it was lasted noted during the night of October 11–12," last noted?
  • "The warnings were attributed to prompting extensive preparations that resulted in a low loss of life and property associated with the hurricane." Sentence construction sounds awkward.
  • There is one instance where the atmospheric pressure is given in two different units (under Impact, United States), but this appears to be the only instance. Should this not be consistent throughout? Also for (29.00 inHg), shouldn't there be a space in there?
  • "Of the storm, the Tallahassee Democrat reported..." The initial clause seems to be isolated and awkwardly placed. (Meh, on second glance it's perhaps just a stylistic difference. Don't change if you don't want to.)
  • "...the Tallahassee Democrat published 6,000 copies of a special storm edition, written on typewriters and stapled together" Is written the correct verb to use here? And weren't all newspapers typed? Or do you mean people typed 6000 copies??
  • What the heck were Tallahasseeans doing picking pecans in the middle of a storm? They must have been nuts.
  • The lead mentions 8 deaths, the infobox says 9; perhaps the poor Georgian fellow should be accounted for as well.

Image review: no issues with the two images. Jappalang (talk) 13:50, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose in current form, pending some clarification.
    • Still oppose. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk)
    • What does The next day, a circulation center was determined mean?
      • I'm not sure what's wrong with this, but I've changed it, nonetheless. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 17:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • My problem is that the Infobox says it formed on October 3rd, and the wording "was determined" is very vague. Try re-writing so it doesn't use passive voice. Professional writing discourages the use of passive voice. --♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • See previous comment here regarding passive voice; I believe the issue has been sufficiently addressed. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 02:04, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • The awkward language (was determined) is still there. My question is simply a matter of what happened, and when? Who observed it on the 13th? What happened on the 14th to change its status? If simple questions like that can't be answered, I'm surprised you're putting it up for FAC. For what it's worth, the "was determined" can easily be re-written to avoid the passive voice. Something like "Surface observations confirmed the existence of a circulation" is much clearer than "a circulation center was determined". See if any other instances of passive voice can be re-written. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Where did it reach its peak? The lede implies it was after it made landfall
    • Unit linking? Also, shouldn't units be shortened (mph, mi) after their first usage?
    • that same day - in MH, I have no idea what day that is, since no date was mentioned for a while.
    • Why is this in MH? Because Fort Myers was on the northern edge of the storm, little damage was reported there
    • There is a descrepancy between the Infobox and the MH. The MH says "it was lasted noted during the night of October 11–12, when it passed south of Bermuda", but the lede says it dissipated on the 13th.
    • More later. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:17, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can't help but feel the article is on the short side. No aftermath? That is a staple (or should be) in all TC FA's. Was there any aid to affected people? Any reconstruction? Also, aside from the book sources and HURDAT, are there really no sources that have information more recent than 67 years old? Are there really no other MWR documents on the storm? More later. --♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:44, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Google has, quite literally, nothing on the storm. The hurricane archive has good impact information, but I've been unable to find any aftermath information, and I must disagree that such information is required of a tropical cyclone FA. "Florida's Hurricane History" is generally pretty comprehensive, and it has no aftermath info at all. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 02:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • You're expecting too much from a search engine, by expecting info to appear from both Nassau and Florida. I did a narrower search, and quickly found this NOAA site, which estimates a normalized damage total of $5 billion, or 6th highest according to one study. That's something fairly important that should be in the article, and I'm sure there is other info like that which is out there. If there isn't any info on aftermath, then I guess it's fine, but if it does exist then it needs to be in the article. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:41, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I still think the writing isn't quite up to FA standards, but not enough to oppose solely on that. Examples:
      • "damaging property and crops and killing" (two ands)
      • "damage to countless vehicles" (little dramatic?)
      • "One person was killed in Georgia." (no way to expand that stubby sentence?)
      • Somewhere in the article should have a link to landfall.
      • "passed through the Everglades and passed"
      • "pressure fell to 995 mb there, winds exceeded 45 miles per hour (72 km/h) and storm tide exceeded 4 feet (1.2 m) at Everglades City (unclear what met. stat is at which station)
      • "The storm... The storm" (consecutive sentences w/ the same word)
      • "re-emerged" (little quibble, but it only emerged once into the GoM)
      • "While over water, the storm re-intensified." (stubby sentence - how strong did it get?)
      • "and barometric pressure fell to 982 mb" (perhaps mention where that was recorded)
      • "to resort to" (saying just "to use" would be easier)
    • That's it for now. ♬♩ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:51, 17 March 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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