This is the monthly newsletter of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. The Hurricane Herald aims to give a summary of the WikiProject's progress and global tropical cyclone activity. If you wish to change how you receive this newsletter, or no longer wish to receive it, please add your username to the appropriate section on the mailing list.
Please visit this page and bookmark any suggestions of interest to you. This will help improve monitoring of the WikiProject's articles.
From the editors
The project has gone since August without a newsletter, due to a lack of interest in its publication and development. This issue aims to catch up on major events and milestones since late summer 2009, and set a series of goals for the upcoming hurricane seasons. Your help in writing future issues is appreciated.
Typhoons Morakot, Ketsana, and Parma caused extensive damage to China, Taiwan, Philippines, and Vietnam in August and September. Their collective damages total in the billions of dollars and each storm caused hundreds of fatalities. All three of the storms' names were subsequently retired.
Member of the month
Cyclone barnstar
Thegreatdr (talk·contribs) is thanked for his tireless improvement of high-profile tropical cyclone and general meteorology articles; his production of rainfall maps for individual storms; and for his willingness to share his expertise where needed. Thegreatdr is largely responsible for the project's continued success, and has been instrumental in resolving many debates and discussions.
Members
Thirteen Wikipedia users have joined the project since September, and several have returned after an extended absence: Hurricanehink (talk·contribs), Yellow Evan (talk·contribs), and Darren23 (talk·contribs). The list of inactive or retired users has remained mostly unchanged.
Goals for the upcoming season
Hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific and Atlantic basins is quickly approaching. Activity from new users typically increases substantially during the summer months, especially during active periods of tropical cyclone strikes. Precautions should be taken to ensure that content covering ongoing or recent events is kept up-to-date. Moreover, creation of new articles should be discouraged unless the storm in question presents an immediate or long-term threat to land.
The project should also make an effort to evaluate existing recognized content. A Project audit of featured articles has been proposed; ideally, each article should be reviewed for continued compliance with the FA criteria. Articles that no longer meet the criteria may be nominated for demotion, or alternatively, improved and updated.
Project news
September 2009 – A debate on the numbering of JMA tropical depressions in season articles took place. Much of the discussion can be read here.
October 2009 – The project was featured in a Signpost article, detailing its progress over the past two years.
December 2009 – Multiple Wikipedia Books—organized and printable compilations of related articles—are created under the project's purview. Nilfanion (talk·contribs) proposed a revamp of the project's track map standards and naming conventions. This is likely a long-term project, and will be largely executed on Wikimedia Commons.
March 2010 – One of the project's core articles, Hurricane Katrina, was demoted from featured article status. Later in the month, it was suggested that more tropical cyclone-related articles are added to the rotating list of the Main Page's Selected anniversaries.
