Talk:Tornado outbreak of May 2–4, 2021

Confirmed Tornado

https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/wx/afos/p.php?pil=PNSFFC&e=202105031958

NWS Survey of a 5/3 tornado in Douglass County, GA Mathguy Michael (talk) 20:35, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Updating totals

I just got through adding tornadoes from the storm surveys. Can we please not add tornadoes to the count without adding them to the list? It can create confusion about which tornadoes we have and haven't been added and makes it harder to tell which edits are legitimate. Some of this was done by trustworthy editors, but some was from IPs. If we get more changes to the count from new/IP editors without the corresponding changes to the list, I'm inclined to just revert it. TornadoLGS (talk) 02:30, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@TornadoLGS: I would've, but I didn't have time too. Please forgive me.ChessEric (talk · contribs) 14:41, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Event significance

So you all probably tired of me saying this, but I don’t like the recent trend of creating an outbreak article well in advance of any determination of its notability. This event currently has only ONE strong tornado confirmed. The Saint Patrick’s day outbreak article from this March with only four EF2s and nothing else was really a stretch, but this is just totally jumping the gun. I mean come on, I’ve been editing here for over a decade, and we used to be very cautious about determining notability before creating an article. What happened? We need to re-establish more stringent standards for notability, or we’re gonna be putting out ridiculous amounts of articles covering lower end tornado events. TornadoInformation12 (talk) 07:07, 4 May 2021 (UTC)TornadoInformation12

I agree. This was really created too quickly. A bunch of 0s and 1s with a 2 thrown in is not article-worthy. United States Man (talk) 08:03, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should wait until after an outbreak's notability has been established, then create the article. As for the Saint Patrick's Day outbreak, I still think that storm was notable; it did produce some damaging tornadoes as well as a total of over 40 tornadoes. This tornado outbreak however, I think may not meet notability standards for an article. ~ 🌀HurricaneCovid🌀 12:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@TornadoInformation12, United States Man, and HurricaneCovid: My bad for jumping the gun. I honestly thought that with the large number of PDS warnings and even a tornado emergency, that we'd get more than just one EF2+ tornado to this point. Please forgive me.ChessEric (talk · contribs) 14:40, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I think we should create three criteria to determine if an outbreak is notable or not, and an event should meet at least one of them. Maybe something like an EF threshold, a tornado count threshold, and a casualty threshold. I feel like EF3, 50 tornadoes, or 10 fatalities would be fair, but I'm open to suggestions. Mathguy Michael (talk) 21:29, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Mathguy Michael: There are already some criteria laid out here here. TornadoLGS (talk) 22:21, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

it’s cool, but from now on, we should absolutely not create an article until extensive damage surveys have taken place, EF ratings have been assigned, and some discussion has occurred. PDS and Tornado Emergencies are issued much more liberally these days, and they are issued for what end up being minor to moderate tornadoes quite frequently. You HAVE to wait for the damage surveys to come out,

TornadoInformation12 (talk) 16:26, 4 May 2021 (UTC)TornadoInformation12

@TornadoInformation12: I will. I'm not normally one to create articles on the fly, but no one else was on on May 2, so I just took it upon myself to make one.ChessEric (talk · contribs) 16:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this wasn't article-worthy. I agree on waiting to start an article until word of damage and casualties comes in, or at least start pages in draft space rather than immediately publishing. Though I still support creating an article quickly if we clearly have a major incident, e.g. damage on the level of the 2013 Moore tornado. At this point, it seems PDS warnings are not the best indicator since we had a few large but not very strong tornadoes that may have looked "wedgier" because of a low cloud base. TornadoLGS (talk) 17:49, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

UPDATE: It now looks like we have had 4 EF2 tornadoes and over 30 tornadoes; I think that's at least getting closer to "notable". It's actually not that far behind the Saint Patrick's Day outbreak. ~ 🌀HurricaneCovid🌀 22:36, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, with the way it's progressed, I do think we can keep the article on the outbreak at this point. There's been over 40 tornadoes, with 6 EF2s. This makes it as notable, if not more notable, as the Saint Patrick's Day outbreak. We kept that article, so we probably should keep this one too. ~ 🌀HurricaneCovid🌀 01:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it can stay now. The past couple days seemed to have overperformed in number of tornadoes. United States Man (talk) 01:47, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@United States Man: Well, I'm glad it worked out. Thanks for your support!ChessEric (talk · contribs) 02:01, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah at this point, we’ve had just enough strong tornadoes confirmed with this outbreak tornadoes to justify an article, so everything is good now. But my original point still stands. Let’s take our time and discuss things first next time.

TornadoInformation12 (talk) 06:32, 5 May 2021 (UTC)TornadoInformation12

@TornadoInformation12: I will take that into account next time.ChessEric (talk · contribs) 19:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)