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Tornado outbreak of February 12, 1945[edit]

Tornado outbreak of February 12, 1945 (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 19 May 2024, 20:57 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:44, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about...a deadly tornado outbreak in the United States during February 1945. This article reached GA status last year and for over a month, it was posted for a peer review, receiving a no-comment silent consensus. The tornado outbreak included a tornado described by the U.S. government as “the most officially observed one in history”, which eventually led to the Alabama national guard having to intervene. I am excited for this FAC, as this article was my first GA, which I also created last year, and this is my very first FAC. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:44, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

750h[edit]

I'll leave some comments.. 750h+ 03:18, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Earlier that day, another tornado – also estimated to be F3 intensity – struck Meridian, Mississippi, killing 5–7 people." ==> "Earlier that day, another tornado – also estimated to be F3 intensity – struck Meridian, Mississippi, killing five to seven people." per MOS:NUMBER
Done. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:48, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • $1.7 million (1945 USD) shouldn't be used. Use this template: $1.7 million (${{format price|{{Inflation|US|17000000|1945}}}} in {{Inflation-year|US}} dollars{{Inflation-fn|US}})

That's all I got. nice work. 750h+ 03:57, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:48, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy pinging @750h+: Just in case there is any other comments you wanted to add. Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:48, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
nope. Support--nice work. 750h+ 02:24, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sammi Brie[edit]

Comments: Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 05:49, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • "reached within 0.5 miles from the U.S. Weather Bureau's office" should be miles of
Done The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This brief intense tornado" add a comma after "brief"
Done. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tornado destroyed two barns and four other buildings, and injured one person." There is one subject here: "tornado". As a result, "injured one person" isn't a sentence. WP:CINS: remove the comma or change "and injured" to "injuring" to preserve it.
Done - Switched "and injured" to "injuring". Sentence is now: "The tornado destroyed two barns and four other buildings, injuring one person." The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tornado started 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Montgomery, Alabama and moved northeast, towards Montgomery where it would brush the western edge."
    • MOS:GEOCOMMA add after "Alabama"
    • Toward, not towards
    • Complete the appositive by adding a comma after the second use of "Montgomery"
All done. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy pinging @Sammi Brie: Just in case there is any other comments you wanted to add. Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @WeatherWriter: One last thing. Is it common for articles in this field to be MDY dates in prose but DMY dates in their references? Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 05:31, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Sammi Brie: If you are referring to [Ref 4 as example] something like "(2 December 2022)" for the publishing and/or access date, then that would be Wikipedia's internal doing with the citation assistant ("Cite Web", "Cite Journal", ect...). The Wikipedia citation assistant automatically puts it in DMY. However, typically U.S.-based tornado articles are MDY in prose. Should I quickly manually change to MDY in the citations? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 05:56, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a script to help do this, but I went with another method to do it quickly. Happy to Support the prose here. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 06:17, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hurricanehink[edit]

WeatherWriter sought out my feedback, so I wanted to transclude those comments.

  • Immediately, I notice that the lead is too short.
  • You say in the lead that Thomas P. Grazulis was a tornado expert, but you don't say his relationship to the information here. When did he assess these F ratings? In addition, the article reads as if it was told by Grazulis, since that's the first thing that I read after the lead. I would expect a section on meteorological synopsis.
There is 0 meteorological synopsis history on the event as far as I am aware (none from the U.S. Weather Bureau, NOAA, or Grazulis). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "That said, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Birmingham, Alabama, published a list of tornadoes, which occurred in Alabama, during 1945." - is that true? The website most certainly wasn't in 1945.
The NWS website cited there, which exists in at least 2023/2024, does state those ratings for tornadoes in 1945. I do not know how else to phrase that, so any guidance on phrasing how the NWS (sometime since the Internet has existed) rated those tornadoes back in 1945 on the Fujita scale would be helpful. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe title the first section "Background", so it can include the fact that there was a tornado outbreak that day and establish where it was. Some kind of intro. And then the second paragraph could lead with "Until 1971, there was no formal method for assessing tornado intensity, until the Fujita scale was developed in 1971. In 1993 (correct?), Thomas P. Grazulis..." and then discuss how Grazulis talked about the outbreak. The article seems notable enough to have an article, but it needs to do a stronger job with putting everything into context, and that's the difference between a featured article and a good article. Let me know if you need help here. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you maybe clarify what you mean? Do you mean add a new "Background" section right under the "Confirmed tornadoes" heading/section (i.e. putting that paragraph under a ===Background=== heading) or do you mean splitting the lead up? If you mean the former, than that could be done. If you mean the latter, than I would disagree with that, as the lead was built up specifically as part of the GA, and splitting it up seems pointless as it just shrinks it to basically nothing.
Also, I added right after the Wikilink to Fujita scale under the "Confirmed tornadoes" section that it was created in 1971. That probably should suffice that, since it is Wikilinked and the background of the Fujita scale doesn't need to be in a single article about a tornado outbreak. Either way, could you clarify what you mean by adding a "Background" section and where? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:51, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I went ahead and reverted the date changes I made. Honestly, adding dates to that section just make the prose weird.
Current prose supported by others:
All ratings on the Fujita scale were made by Thomas P. Grazulis and are classified as unofficial ratings since official ratings for tornadoes began in 1950.
The one I added then reverted with dates:
All ratings on the Fujita scale, created in 1971 by Dr. Ted Fujita, were made by Thomas P. Grazulis in 1993 and are classified as unofficial ratings since official ratings for tornadoes began in 1950.
Honestly, I do not think the dates Grazulis rated the tornadoes nor the dates of Fujita scale creation are necessary, since Grazulis’s book is sourced (with the 1993 date in the citation) and the Fujita scale is a Wikilink to the article and background on the Fujita scale. I don’t think any changes to that prose or a background for the Fujita scale/timeline of rating is needed, due to how the prose currently is:
All ratings on the Fujita scale were made by Thomas P. Grazulis and are classified as unofficial ratings since official ratings for tornadoes began in 1950. Grazulis only documented tornadoes he considered to be significant (F2+), so the true number of tornadoes for this outbreak is most likely higher. That said, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Birmingham, Alabama, published a list of tornadoes, which occurred in Alabama, during 1945. In this list, NWS Birmingham assigned ratings from the Fujita scale to the tornadoes, lending official support to the ratings for these tornadoes.
The Wikilink to the Fujita scale has that background as well as that only NWS can rate tornadoes. So, it seems all the issues are covered by either the citations or the Fujita scale article. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 19:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is there a sub-section for February 12 event, when all of the events were on the same day?
Standard process for tornado articles. We do that in modern-day events as well (Tornado outbreak of March 13–15, 2024 is an example). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That was a multi-day outbreak. What about any other single day outbreaks? And for that matter, were there other tornadoes on February 11 or 13th as part of the same system? Have you checked newspapers for that? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article is formatted like a list, but it's abstract in how it talks about some of the lesser significant events. Like, you say "The tornado started", "This brief intense tornado struck a cluster", and "The tornado destroyed". I'm being nitpicky here, but you came to me for my advice, and one of my main rules for writing is avoid using the passive voice. You used phrases like "A home was leveled", by what? If you want some variation to saying tornado, you could always say "twister". But you should least say something like "The tornado" did something
I will take a look at the article and see how to remove some of that passive voice. You are right though, I did use a lot of it. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • " The U.S. Weather Bureau documented that this long-track tornado killed 40 people and injured 200 others." - did the tornado kill 40 or 11?
They said 40 in a formal publication, then months later, said 11. That phrase is because the original official publication said that. Same idea as when NHC said Ian was Cat 4, then months later, Cat 5. The difference in this case though, is that the "40" was not preliminary, but the actual official release, which was later formally changed months later. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If you know that the "40" was incorrect, then you don't need to include it. If you want to, you could say "initial reports of upward of 40 deaths", but even that is wish-washy. With the benefit of hindsight, Wikipedia articles should do their best to identify what happened, when it happened. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I may ask, why would that be different than what is currently stated? "This is one of three tornadoes marked by Grazulis that the United States Weather Bureau originally marked as a single tornado. The U.S. Weather Bureau documented that this long-track tornado killed 40 people and injured 200 others. Modern research by Thomas P. Grazulis as well as later publications from the U.S. Weather Bureau indicate that there were actually three separate tornadoes." Basically, officially, the tornado killed 40 people. This was later, officially, reduced to the respective death tolls. The USWB officially published that a single tornado occurred, then later, officially reduced it and split it into three tornadoes, instead of a single one. Those sentences seem to cover (1) the what happened and (2) when it happened, since the what happened was officially a single tornado, followed by a split into three tornadoes and the when shows the differences in sources/dates of sources saying "Modern research...as well as later publications..." It can be removed if needed, but I think the sentences seem to work as is, since it does clearly indicate the 40 was a mistake, albeit, a formal and official "mistake". The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:44, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • There should be a source at the bottom of the table for all of the events. Otherwise, where is the source for all of the tornado widths, F ratings, all that.
Just a question, do the sources for the summaries not count as that as the sources citing the tornado summaries are the sources for widths/deaths, ect...? I can certainly do that if you think it would be beneficial, but I am not sure if that would be considered overlinking to others. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Those sources would count if you identified the width and length. Also, I notice you include time of formation, but not the duration of tornado. Any reason? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Standard process (WikiProject Weather process) for tornado articles. Only the start-time is mentioned. See any recent outbreak articles for comparison. Durations for individual tornadoes, if known, are only included in split-sections (in this case, only the duration for the Montgomery tornado would be included). However, no durations are mentioned by any sources (USWB or Grazulis or otherwise) that I am aware of. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:54, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are you sure about the number of railroad cars derailed? I came across this source after a quick Google search.
Wow, you just found a source discrepancy! Grazulis was the source for the number of train cars derailed, but that newspaper article says differently. I will add that information to the article tomorrow and note the difference in sources. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking of sources, are you sure you've gotten as many sources as possible, and used as much useful information? As I noted earlier, there wasn't a meteorological synopsis.
See note earlier about that.
  • "5 miles (8.0 km) " - why do you have 8.0? Your other usage of km doesn't have the .0
I actually have no idea and I have no idea how to fix that. It straight up is "{{convert|5|mi|km}}. Template being weird? Honestly, not sure. If you know how to fix that, please let me know. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tornado started 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Montgomery, Alabama and moved northeast, towards Montgomery where it would brush the western edge." - that's three references to the cardinal direction. Maybe split it up a bit and add the time of day here? Also, the material you have in the second paragraph seems more appropriate for the first paragraph, like the length of the tornado path, and width.
Paragraph split was done by a GA reviewer last year when the article was up for GA. I would probably want someone else to mention the paragraph splitting before changing it, only due to the fact it was split to get to GA status. The cardinal direction thing though seems odd now that I think about it. Also there isn't a time of day listed. One thing I can say is this is a tornado from 1945 and the information about it is no where close to what NWS or NHC would produce in 2024 for tornadoes/tropical depressions. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The tornado leveled two government or U.S. army warehouses." - that seems a bit odd to be the second thing you mention in the section. I would think the first paragraph would be a summary, before getting into the impacts.
GA-reviewer split for that. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "were ripped and tossed about like match boxes" - who said this? You have a random quote in there without attributing it.
There is a citation immediately following the quote. I can add who stated the quote though (Associated Press with no direct author name), however, I am unsure the best way to state it. Maybe this?
"A freight train was also struck, where, according to the Dothan Eagle and Associated Press, 50 cars "were ripped and tossed about like match boxes".[3]"
Any thoughts about the wording for it before I add it to the article? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At that point, is the 50 cars part worth being included in the quote, or not? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to go ahead and assume no, since it passed a source spot check for the GA process (which fixed a couple of quotes) and two others above supported the prose as is. I'm thinking it doesn't need to be, but I could be wrong on that. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:55, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • For all of the fatalities in Montgomery, you don't really go into much detail about any of them. Were they all in people's houses?
The info about the fatalities was in this part: After hitting Montgomery, the tornado struck Chisholm, Alabama, where it caused catastrophic damage. Thirty homes were completely swept away in Chisholm. All the fatalities from this tornado occurred in 15 homes within a 20-block radius. That is all the information about those exact deaths as well from Grazulis, U.S. Weather Bureau, and Rich Thomas.
  • You describe the tornado as "devastating" twice in the lead, but don't provide much context. Are tornadoes are in Alabama? Had Montgomery ever been hit by a tornado? Was this event the deadliest in its history?
  • I see a lot here that could be potentially useful. Rich Thomas, the author, is also cited below, and in this random source
  • This site says Montgomery County tornado deaths are rare, and that this event was indeed Montgomery County's deadliest, as well as other deadly events since then.
Added! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So that's a lot right off the bat. I wonder if the FAC was perhaps a bit premature, but I don't want to tell you what not to do. Let me know if you have questions. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 07:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Hurricanehink: some information has been added based on your comments! I really thank you so much for the comments and I know you were being nit-picky on purpose. FAC's involve the nit-picky details. Hopefully I was able to explain some of them and I also left a few questions. Since your comment was more in a bullet-list format, I hope you don't mind that I replied individually to them under the bullet point. I really do thank you for the comments. One other thing: Would you care if I leave a transclude-link to this talk page discussion over on the FAC page? Before your reply, someone else had already commented on the FAC page, so trancluding this discussion over there would probably be useful. But, I wanted to ask before just doing it. Again, thank you for the comments and maybe (just maybe) I can get it to FA-status. (fingers crossed). The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 07:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With this edit, the comments have been transcluded. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:03, 5 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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