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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 Ucucha 03:11, 12 December 2011 [1].

Hurricane Gert (1993)

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Hurricane Gert (1993) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Auree ★ 21:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC) and 12george1 (talk · contribs)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is a complete and factual account on this large and devastating storm. Since its previous state, the article has undergone major changes and expanded greatly in both size and comprehensiveness. It has also received an extensive peer review, which helped improve in particular its prose. In addition, the article contains a well-balanced amount of both reliable English and Spanish sources, and I believe there are no significant omissions of coverage. Auree ★ 21:32, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Confirming that User:12george1 is co-nomming. Auree ★ 21:41, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Hurricanefan25 (talk · contribs)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • "it proceeded through Central America, and reorganized" — shouldn't that have a hyphen so it reads as "re-organized"?
  • "The high terrain quickly disrupted its organization, and Gert entered the Pacific" — link Pacific Ocean?
  • "The rain, combined with saturated soil due to previous Tropical Storm Bret" — change to "due to the recent Tropical Storm Bret" or something
  • "The deepening convection consolidated over open waters, and by 0600 UTC the next day Gert once again became a tropical storm under weak wind shear" — change to "under the influence of wind shear" or something; you might think differently
  • "No redevelopment occurred" — add a hyphen between "re" and "development"
  • "for coastal regions on September 14,[13] which was upgraded to a tropical storm warning along the Atlantic coast by the following day.[14]" — remove "by"
  • "A warning was also posted for the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua on September 15, extending south from Puerto Cabezas and including the adjacent islands.[14]" — any specific type of warning?
  • "A maximum of 17.8 in (452 mm) fell at Corinto; other high totals include 17.6 in (447 mm) at Chinandega and 17.5 in (444 mm) at León. The capital of Managua recorded 9.8 in (249 mm) of rain during the event." — combine into one sentence, preferably using a semicolon
  • "The rains triggered scattered landslides across bridges and roads, causing additional damage and disrupting transportation." — the bridges and roads caused landslides? Or the landslides went onto the roads? :P
  • "Tuxpan, very close to where the eye moved ashore" — I don't like "very" here, sounds unencyclopedic
  • "Immediate reports of impact were due to high winds" — seems to imply something I don't think you mean to imply. Change it to something like "The first immediate reports of impact resulted from high winds"
    • The current wording still sounds a bit strange. "The first reports of impact were of high winds" — shouldn't that "of" be "from"?
  • "The Pánuco River rose to its highest water level in 40 years" — IMO you don't need "water"
  • "Urban areas of Madero and Altamira were also hard hit by the flooding" — "hard hit" > "hit hard"
  • "Emergency crews were accordingly dispatched to assess the damage" — remove "the"
  • "In its wake, the disrupted road network across the affected regions impacted the local agriculture, tourism, and commerce." — add "industries" at the end of the sentence?
  • "The obstruction of a major highway connecting the central region" — it it possible to specify which highway?
  • "After the President of Mexico" — specify the president? like "After Mexican President ______..."
  • "Schools served as public shelters,[47] and $27,000 in milk powder was purchased for the sheltered children, elderly, and pregnant or lactating women.[45]" — what does milk powder have to schools being used as shelters?
  • "After two weeks, over 65,000 people were accommodated in shelters, and most of them remained" — change "and" to "of which"
Thanks for the comments and support. The ones I didn't reply to have been addressed per your suggestions. Auree ★ 22:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Multiple pages should be notated using "pp." not "p."
  • check publisher for FN 17
I believe the rest has been addressed. Thanks for the review as usual Auree ★ 22:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Comment on prose and comprehensiveness grounds. - right, reading through now (well, not while I type this) and jotting notes below (I'll make straightforward copyedits as I go - revert me if I inadvertently change the meaning): Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
where as much as 31.41 in (798 mm) of precipitation was measured - just a query as I'm not familiar with these articles, is it usual to go to this degree of accuracy in precipitation?
Yeah, if such a specific total is available. It's even preferred most of the time (for meteorological accuracy). Auree ★ 18:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't get what a circulation is in this context.
How does "wind circulation" sound?
sounds fine. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:54, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Its cloud pattern continued to organize - does "organize" have a specific meaning here, if we just mean "gather" then I suggest "coalesce" might be better...?
Hmmm... I'm not too sure about this one, since it is a pretty common term in meteorology. I really like "coalesce" though, and I'm all for using it since it conveys the same meaning. I'll ask around at the WPTC chat Auree ★ 18:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
ok. cool. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:54, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
radio stations broadcast warning messages to aware the public - hmm, can't use "aware" as a transitive verb like that (?) - I'd go with "radio stations broadcast warning messages to alert the public"
Very true! Good call Auree ★ 18:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Gert showed signs of intensification - why not just " Gert showed signs of getting stronger" or "intensifying"
I don't see much of a difference, but would "strengthening" work? Auree ★ 18:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yup. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:54, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Although Gert's center remained off the coast of Costa Rica, its large circulation produced brisk winds and heavy precipitation across the country. - why not just "rainfall"? Is there a meaning in precipitation that is not in rainfall. I always try to use a plainer word as long as meaning is not compromised.
Rainfall would work better here, yeah. Auree ★ 18:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overall nice work - surprisingly little to nitpick about. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank ya for the review! Your edits were fine as well. I'm not sure if you're done, but the comments have been addressed.Auree ★ 18:35, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


I would like to see an image review and a spotcheck of the sources for this article. Ucucha (talk) 16:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where could I request these? Auree ★ 22:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Woot, thanks! Auree ★ 02:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now. There are far too many errors in the "publishers" of Spanish-language sources for me to determine quickly if these sources are reliable (every single one I checked was wrong). Also, when listing some obscure national commission, you should give the country. Auree, do you speak Spanish or are you using an online translator? When you find a PDF in Spanish, you sometimes have to follow that PDF back to where you got it to figure out who published it, and if the case is some student at some University, that may not be a reliable source. You haven't identified the CRID as a publisher, and it even has an English section of its website. Unless Titoxd (who speaks Spanish) has time to get to all of this, I will have to do it ... Please ask Titoxd if he can have a look with the aim of fixing the publishers, adding locations when they are country-specific entities, and checking that Spanish-language sources are accurately represented in the article. If he does so, he can ping me-- if he can't, pls ping me next week and I'll get to it myself. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Auree knows Spanish, so he can probably double-check himself. YE Pacific Hurricane 15:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks, YE (excess bolding removed). OK, following on Nikkimaria's original comment (above), here's the first one I found-- the rest are similar and need attention:
        (in Spanish) "Las inundaciones causadas por el Huracan "Gert" sus efectos en Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas y Veracruz" (PDF). El Sistema Nacional de Protección Civil. p. 1. Retrieved 2011-10-26.
        This is publshed by www.crid.or.cr -- they have a website, and they have an English-language section of their website, hence they have an English-language publisher name. On the other hand, our readers will have no idea what "El Sistema Nacional de Protección Civil" is or to what country it pertains. Next, if this was in fact actually published by some Costa Rican entity and then merely re-published by CRID, is it reliable? Should we have a "work" parameter as well as a "publisher" parameter on these sources? Titoxd will know, but the citations need to be cleaned up for two purposes-- should links go dead, our readers need to have enough info to know where to find them, and we need to know if these sources are reliable (that is, who actually published them, including the first publisher, what country etc). I found another one that was accessed on some library (El Salvador I think, but can't remember now) that appeared to be some sort of student publication, but I didn't check closely. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        For the record, real-life commitments prevent me from doing anything substantial in Wikipedia for the next month. (A couple of conferences and finals will do that to you.) I can't check the citations in a time frame that is reasonable for the purposes of this FAC. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:07, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for replying and pointing this out, Sandy. First off, I would like to clarify that I can fluently read/understand Spanish (I grew up with the language). Admittedly, I'm not the best at citation formatting, and I will have to check out the publisher issue. I'll ask others like Titoxd to help Auree ★ 15:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to know you speak Spanish, that helps-- PS, I haven't looked closely enough, but I'm also wondering if the CRID is hosting copyvios? Do they have the rights to re-publish those PDFs? Similar on others-- I'm sure you all can sort this without me, then. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here is everything we need to know about CRID, which seems pretty authentic. The document on the effects in Mexico was originally published by CENAPRED, so I'm not sure how to format this. Auree ★ 20:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Titoxd helped me with some of the issues offsite, though I'm not sure if they have been fixed properly. It would be great if you could take another look. Auree ★ 21:24, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at your diff of changes, and it still needs more ... not all have locations, and there are multiple (different) websites that indicate the same publisher. Are some of these being republished? For example, the CRID one is, I think. You may solve some of this by listing the original publisher under the Work parameter, and the website where you found it hoseted under the Publisher parameter-- remember that if those links go dead, folks need to know what to search on, and in many cases, the website you found it hosted on is not listed as the publisher. Give it another go, and I'll have a look later ??? Are you sure none of those websites are hosting copyvios? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:41, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By the way (unrelated to whether this article meets FA standards), if you all are going to be using Centro Regional de Información sobre Desastres a lot for citation, it needs an article at either there or Regional Disaster Information Center, and CRID needs a hatnote at top. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:47, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I'll have a go at it once more. How would I best go about adding locations (if required) to those that apply to Central America/Latin America in general?
Edit: I've implemented your publisher/work suggestion to the sources, though I think I went a bit overboard with the locations... Auree ★ 00:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Auree, I'll continue this on talk here so we can get it sorted without filling this page-- it may seem minor, but since you are likely to use these same sources often, we should get it sorted once and for all-- that will aid your future articles. Our goal is to make sure that if any of these websites go dead (government entities have a way of doing that in Latin America :), future editors and readers can still figure out where to find the original reports. Continued on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've struck my oppose for now, but remain frustrated at the way citations are written in this article. I don't have time to sort this further, but my concerns extend beyond the Spanish-language sources, and I suggest pinging in Fifelfoo (talk · contribs) for a look with an aim towards achieving a more professional citation standard for future hurricane FACs (he's good at this sort of thing, and may have better feedback than mine). I'm on a slow connection and am having a hard time loading the sources, so I'm afraid I'm not helping much. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your efforts, Sandy. You did help a lot, and I appreciate your determination to improve the citation formatting for this article. I will continue working toward achieving a more professional standard of sourcing. Auree ★ 20:54, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - Excellent article. Undeniably the best account of this storm available anywhere, which is my #1 criterion for FA status. That said, I have some comments regarding the met. history.
  • A tropical wave—or a trough of low pressure oriented north to south - if you're going to describe it in the context of a "trough", you should mention that an EW is an inverted trough.
    I'll chime in here. Saying that easterly waves are inverted troughs raises the question, "What is an inverted trough?" Answering that is not the point of this article, and is too off-topic for my taste. I'd replace it with "area of low pressure". Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Due to its position at a relatively low latitude, interaction with the Intertropical Convergence Zone - dangling participle as far as I can tell, unless I'm interpreting this line incorrectly.
  • the system began showing signs of development, as the deep convection organized into well-defined curved rainbands. - "as", here, is irritatingly vague. I'm not sure whether to interpret it as "while" or "since/because". It doesn't make a huge difference, but it's disconcerting to read something and not know its intended meaning.
  • By that time, it had retraced toward the north-northwest under the influence of a mid- to upper-level trough over the eastern Gulf of Mexico. - I'm having a hard time visualizing this. "Under the influence of" could mean any number of things.
  • The storm's duration over water was short-lived; it moved - grammatically, "it" modifies "the storm's duration", which I'm sure isn't the intended meaning.
  • Once Gert was inland, it began to feel - example of a phrase that could be simplified. "Once inland, Gert began to feel..."
  • After crossing the Yucatán Peninsula and decreasing in organization,[7] it entered the Bay of Campeche as a tropical depression late on September 18 - I wouldn't use the pronoun "it" in a sentence that doesn't mention the subject by name or type ("Gert", "the system", "the cyclone", "the storm").
  • that the storm had evolved into a hurricane with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h) - "evolved" is incorrect here; it simply strengthened.
  • Its forward motion had slowed slightly due to a shortwave trough to its north,[11] allowing the hurricane more time to organize over water. - weird sentence structure in general. I still don't like using "it" in the absence of an immediately preceding subject. Also, you should try to explain why the shortwave caused the storm to slow. Did it suppress the storm? Lend extra vorticity to the hurricane causing it to deepen vertically and in turn become embedded in a different steering pattern? Spin up a superstorm akin to 1993 which phased with two other sources of upper-level energy and encircled the globe, ensuring Gert couldn't gain latitude?
  • Gert subsequently attained its peak intensity as a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson scale, reaching winds of near 100 mph (165 km/h). - "near" is confusing, since 100 mph is the exact unit used elsewhere in the article.
  • with its eye moving - poor structure; see if you can rephrase.
  • Although deep convection waxed and waned in intensity, satellite observations - another dangling participle-type thingy...
  • No redevelopment occurred due to cold waters - this is more obvious, but I still don't like "due to" without any indication of cause and effect.

Overall, I feel like this section in particular is a bit knotty and disjointed, and could afford to be polished up. Feel free to point out where I'm off-base. Juliancolton (talk) 17:47, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for commenting, Julian Auree ★ 18:24, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - enough of my concerns have been addressed to justify supporting. The information and quality of presentation in the article is very consistent with FA status. Juliancolton (talk) 22:00, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment the nominator solicited my involvement in relation to citations, and I will be commenting at this FAC's talk page. In brief summary: I'm a bit disturbed that some high quality reliable sources aren't sufficiently well referenced; given that this is a gnomish problem I might just muck in one day and fix it. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm going to sort out any citation problems here and then sign off; after this weekend when I have to go do something rather important to my personal life. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:38, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support on 47/47 citations for citation formatting and source quality (yes I also checked source quality and approve) problems noted and being fixed all fixed Fifelfoo (talk) 02:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC) Fifelfoo (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Update All the citations have been given a thorough look-through. I've made changes per User:Fifelfoo's suggestions and comments, and he will later double-check for any further mistakes. Auree ★ 21:38, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'd like to thank Hylian Auree for doing so much work on such complex citations. I really am just cleaning up fiddle! Fifelfoo (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • I hope Auree plans to become our next resident expert on citations :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:46, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
            • Thanks to both of you for all your effort and great help! And who knows, Sandy—I do appreciate high quality and meticulousness. :P Auree ★ 00:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
              • Thanks to Hylian Auree and thanks to Sandy Georgia. Sometimes you get dobbed in for jobs and they're tiring, hard, painful and worst of all: useless. This job was tiring, hard, painful and highly productive. It was good hard work and I was glad for it. Cite 31 handled brilliantly btw. Cite 36 was a doozy and the kind of bastard citation problem that calls for expert assistance (which was asked for correctly!). Cite 39 is also available as a PDF at the same location, and I suggest that the PDF be used over the .doc as PDF is a more "open" format, and I did that anyway by BOLDness. Cite 39 was a bastard too. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I totally forgot about this FAC. I reviewed it before it was sent to FA, and was quite pleased with it. I am confident that it is the best account on the storm anywhere, and I believe the sourcing problems (if there are any left) are minor enough for this to be promoted. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:19, 25 November 2011 (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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