Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather/Tornadoes of YYYY criteria

Request for Comment - Criteria for Tornadoes of XXXX articles

Should the set of criteria (four points) + the rare oddities exception, become the criteria for all Tornadoes of XXXX (ex. Tornadoes of 2023 & Tornadoes of 2024) articles?

• Option 1 – Yes
• Option 2 – No

The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• Option 1 – As RfC opener as well as proposer for these criteria, I support these becoming the criteria. Discussions to get the criteria seemed solid for a consensus as well with several editors supporting the proposed criteria (with some minor changes which occurred for this set of criteria) with no apparent opposition. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Note – The eight other editors who participated in the previous discussion which help lead to these proposed criteria were individually notified. The WikiProject Weather was also notified via a talk page message. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 – I support this proposal and appreciate the inclusion of my tweak. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 21:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Agreed but disagree with limiting tornadoes to tornado prone areas- strong tornadoes do and have happened elsewhere than traditional tornado/dixie alley. MidnightStudios16 (talk) 22:07, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I disagreed with that as well since it would become too confusing to try to say what states to include vs exclude. So, I left it out of the proposal. Honestly, any strong tornadoes outside of traditional tornado prone states probably would fall under the rare-oddities case anyhow, so trying to split it up state by state is not worth it. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  This proposal doesn't limit tornadoes to tornado prone areas. It just seeks to provide a standard instead of the current method which generated numerous, sometimes heated, discussions about individual tornadoes that were typically pretty similar. Any tornado generating significant coverage can be included. Tornadoes outside of tornado-prone regions are generally more likely to meet that standard because of their rarity. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 22:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I reread it, so you're saying rate them like international tornadoes, but now I'm having trouble distinguishing between how international tornadoes are grouped. Plus they use IF scale so it sounds like a losing battle. I can see how relatively unimportant storms might become too numerous if we decide that "geographically rare" tornadoes are worth listing.

  Is that what you mean by "individual tornadoes that were typically pretty similar"?

  Also, @DJ Cane, you think I could get your opinion on that Broome EF1 dilemma? I've posted about it in the page that we were pinged here. MidnightStudios16 (talk) 22:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Geographically rare tornadoes are, well, rare. Europe has hundreds of tornadoes a year, Asia has roughly a hundred a year, South America gets them and so does South Africa and Oceania. A true geographically rare tornado is like Alaska, Iceland, Panama, ect. Basically, places not highlighted on this map from NOAA. You can see the article on tornado climatology for more info about that. So the issue of "geographically rare" tornadoes being an issue for international tornadoes is not actually an issue. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  My problem with using this map for the conundrum we have here is that most of us would agree, NY Winter tornadoes are significantly rarer than this map tries to communicate. It seems like you are making a case for the opposite though, which I guess if you throw every other region in there NY might seem like tornado alley. Something doesn't feel quite honest about that conclusion though- probably because "rarity" is a harder thing to nail down when you get into it. MidnightStudios16 (talk) 23:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  This sentence specifically is the issue we're trying to avoid: I can see how relatively unimportant storms might become too numerous if we decide that "geographically rare" tornadoes are worth listing. What I mean by discussions about individual tornadoes that were typically pretty similar is that those discussions would end up being pretty similar, which is to say someone would oppose inclusion due to lack of impact or coverage, the editor who added it would try to "stand up" for that event's inclusion, but often it would be determined that coverage in an appropriate list (like List of United States tornadoes from January to March 2024) was sufficent. By having a set guideline built by community consensus, we can simplify and shorten these discussions by comparing the event in question to the guidelines rather than seeking a novel community consensus for each event that is challenged.

  I will provide opinion related to the Broome event back in the page where that discussion is occurring. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 23:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I see what you mean, essentially what I had guessed before; the rarity of an event may be noted, but it's rarity will not make the event; avoiding a barrage of unimportant storms that happen to have a rare anomaly. MidnightStudios16 (talk) 23:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 – The criteria seem well-thought-out and reasonable. I could see the low bar of inclusion for injuries (≥1) becoming an issue but we can see how it works out in practice first. Penitentes (talk) 13:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Neither - It's not clear to me which criteria are being discussed, there appear to be two at Criteria_for_inclusion_on_Tornadoes_of_XXXX_articles, although they are not a lot different. Having spent a few minutes reading thru the material it seems to me that further limiting the events might be a good idea. Why not limit inclusion to only those events causing death? Likewise why are "tornado outbreaks" outside the USA included if one's inside the USA are not unless they meet one of the other criteria? Tom94022 (talk) 17:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Tom94022: that discussion you linked was the beginning/figuring out what to put for the criteria, which is this page. There isn't two sets, just this one. Also, let me comment about International VS US. The US has 10x the amount of tornadoes than any other country. The US, in fact, has more tornadoes than the rest of the world combined. So a tornado outbreak, which requires 6+ tornadoes from the same storm system outside the US is on the uncommon side. Take Tornadoes of 2023 for instance, the U.S. has 1,350 tornadoes, which is several hundred more than Europe + China combined. The US had several tornado outbreaks, compared to the rest of the world, which had one. Basically, tornadoes outside the US are rarely in an outbreak form (more like solo mode or a small tornado family of 2-4), while in the US, outbreaks happen all the time. It is more based on regions and their respective intensities. An (E)F2 tornado in the US is common, with 129 happening just in 2023, while an F2 outside the US is rare, with only 20 tornadoes occurring at that intensity or higher in the rest of the world during 2023. That is why limiting what is included for the US is needed. Also, since there is list-based articles to document ones not included on this global-scale article, it works out. Hopefully that explains it.

Here is an article from CNN which explains it and says, "The US averages over 1,150 tornadoes every year. That’s more than any other country. In fact, it’s more than Canada, Australia and all European countries combined." Every point mentioned in the previous part is also easy to find through RS sources. Limiting to deaths would not work either, since not many tornadoes ever cause a death. Tornadoes of 2022, for instance, has 32 deaths worldwide. Limiting to just deaths would exclude even stand-alone notable tornado outbreak articles outside the US (October 2022 European tornado outbreak being an example). The current criteria is what was typically and almost always used for the lists anyway. WikiProject Weather has had several debates in the past, so this is just spelling out the criteria in plain words vs presumed through debates over the years. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:38, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I am a dummy but I don't find any criteria on this page and it took me a while to find the ones I linked - so why doesn't someone post the criteria, link it or somehow make it visible to dummies like me. FWIW I understand the 10x situation, but I don't think that justifies the distinction. And I still suggest limiting inclusion to ones that cause death might help shorten the articles. Tom94022 (talk) 06:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)