Draft talk:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Weather events

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Weather: Tropical / Thunderstorms / Tornadoes

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Proper adjective detail

@FourNoddlers, in reference to this reversion, the detail of the categories of a hurricane being a proper adjective is somewhat important as it explains why there is an error below. The detail also prevents naked categories. Pinging @TornadoLGS as he was the one to point it out on the talk page. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 16:58, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll add that my idea was for this to apply to other scales as well, such as tornado ratings. TornadoLGS (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added, feel free to reword or reformat. I left out the proper part as I think it is redundant to tornadic ratings as they are all abbreviations to my knowledge. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The other text in the section should already clarify that. Feel free to clarify anything you believe is missing as long as it isn't redundant. FourNoddlers (talk) 01:42, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean. I reworded it to use the actual grammatical terms and to broaden the scope to include non-tropical cyclone nouns such as intensity, strength, winds, et cetera. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 02:14, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They're still nouns, whether they're used to describe a storm or not. I'll correct that. FourNoddlers (talk) 02:17, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They are not nouns, the categories are used to describe nouns in the same way as a colour. One wouldn't say "They flashed a red" in proper English, or at least not without heavy context. In the same way, the categories are adjectives or, more specifically, proper adjectives as they need to be capitalized. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 02:21, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, they're nouns, just used attributively. For example, the word "chicken" in "chicken soup" is not an adjective because it behaves like a noun in other contexts. FourNoddlers (talk) 02:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through several TCRs, they are never used as nouns (though they are are not proper) except maybe in Beryl's [1], which is used in relation to the SSHWS. I think that the usage on Beryl is a different enough case where they can be termed as adjectives. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 02:40, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[2] Milton's TCR also does it twice, but in the same circumstances as Beryl's. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 02:41, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The sources you cited disprove your argument per your own analysis. Regardless, the current wording in the draft is correct, so this discussion is moot unless you're changing the meaning of the text. FourNoddlers (talk) 02:47, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A question on descriptions damage ratings in individual

Some articles and sections summarizing the path and damage of a tornado will contain phrases such as "a house was destroyed at EF4 intensity." This phrasing is kind of a misplaced modifier that implies that the house, not the tornado, was at EF4 intensity. Should this be included in the MOS as something to avoid? TornadoLGS (talk) 19:25, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can if you think it is important. I feel like that might just be a general clarity thing compared to a stylistic policy. ✶Quxyz✶ (talk) 20:57, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, there is at least one editor whose input I'd want on that. @ChessEric:. TornadoLGS (talk) 02:21, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Give me some time to think on this (I have a job now). I’ll get back to you. ChessEric 15:44, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't really thought about that before. When I make summaries that use the "x structure was destroyed at EFX intensity" phrase, its usually because that's only damage point in that specific area with that max EFX intensity rating. If its a number of structures or other damage indicators that were impacted at that intensity, then I'll just say the tornado intensified to EFX intensity followed by saying the damage it caused. I'll probably talk about other structures/damage indicators that were damaged/destroyed at lower intensities too. I think the thing to remember is that even if the phrase has a misplaced modifier, 99% of tornadoes are rated based on the damage they caused, not by measured wind speeds. By that notion, such a phrase can also imply that the damage that the structure/damage indicator sustained correlated with an EFX rating, because that's the specs that it had. However, that's just my opinion, and I can see how that sort of grammar problem can be one of your pet peeves. At the end of the day, I think it comes down to the style of the writer. All the editors of this project that write tornado summaries write it in their own way and find value in the stuff they put in them. It's one of the reason I've backed off of being against the numerous new individual tornado articles that are being created since we've had problems with a lot of the summaries being labeled as too long and the articles allow us to go more in depth about these tornadoes.

However, one thing that has annoyed me recently is this propensity for editors to list specific wind speeds for numerous damage points in a tornado summary. Other than very rare circumstances (like a weather machine measurement), I only list a tornado's wind speeds when its at its absolute peak and never anywhere else. In fact most times, if its a short article or summary, I won't list the windspeed since it already in the infobox of the section. We don't need to put that a tornado "destroyed x structure with estimated winds of xx mph (xx kph)" if its not the peak winds of the tornado and we certainly don't need to do this multiple times in an article unless there is a large period of time between peak intensity and I'm only talking about similar intensities [i.e. a tornado reaches a specific intensity like EF4 more than once (see 2021 Western Kentucky tornado) or if it reaches a certain high intensity, spends a large amount of time at a lower intensity, and then reaches a high intensity again]. We need to address that because that is not needed and a lot of unnecessary "fluff" to articles/summaries. ChessEric 07:38, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Useful pages for developing this guide.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Style and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes has some useful information that can be imported into the draft. FourNoddlers (talk) 02:02, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

tropical cyclone records

currently, the guideline for the lead section for TC articles doesn't detail how records should be handled. TCs which are notable for holding basin-wide or global meteorological records (e.g. Typhoon Tip, Hurricane Wilma, Hurricane Patricia) seem to have their own distinct first sentence format that prioritize mentioning any significant records, so should this be specified in the MOS? ArkHyena_woop! (she/they/it) 19:48, 4 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]