Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 12 October 2019 [1].

1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane edit

Nominator(s): TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 15:26, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Between 1944 and 1950, Cuba and Florida would experience an onslaught of 12 hurricane landfalls atop several tropical storms, characterizing one of the region's most active periods on record. The 1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane marked the start of this destructive sequence and dealt a heavy blow on its twelve-day trek from the western Caribbean to Greenland. Unfortunately, records on the storm's impacts in Cuba remain incomplete due to a lack of rural accounts, and the death toll in current literature retains the rough initial estimates of 300. Its large wind field crippled Florida's citrus industry—blankets of orange beneath barren canopies were a common sight across the storm-torn state. My first FAC in six years, I believe this article represents the most comprehensive account of the hurricane available. Sincerest thanks for your reviews and suggested improvements. TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 15:26, 12 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Hurricanehink edit

18 people were killed in the state; half from the loss of a ship in Tampa Bay. - comma, not semicolon (unless you add "were" to the latter clause)
However, nearby conditions that day suggested tropical cyclogenesis was underway. - this is unclear what the nearby conditions that suggested anything were
You should explain somewhere what a "major hurricane" is
At 21:00 UTC on October 18, the eye passed over the Dry Tortugas[3] producing a two-hour period of calm over the islands in the evening hours. - add comma after Dry Tortugas
It had grown considerably in areal extent with a radius of maximum wind nearly twice as large as climatologically expected for a storm of the hurricane's intensity and location. - given the excellent writing elsewhere in the article (so far), I believe this sentence could be a bit tighter, or perhaps reformatted slightly
You mention the ET track over Nova Scotia, but not Newfoundland or Greenland
Pan-American cancelled flights to and from Cuba in advance of the hurricane. - I believe you have a missing word here (Airways)
The United States Weather Bureau enumerated 318 deaths due to the hurricane in their summary of the system published in the Monthly Weather Review, noting that reports possibly indicating additional deaths were yet to be received from Cuba and the Cayman Islands. - this is a bit long and unwieldly. I suggest moving the "In their summary..." to the first part of the sentence
A powerful storm surge killed 20 people in a small village. - there's no reports which village?
Havana Harbor was forced to close because of an excessive debris and sunken craft in its waters. - the "an" seems unnecessary
about half the crops in the outlying areas of Cuba were lost - what are the "outlying areas" referred here?

♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 12:34, 14 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments! I've made most of the changes you suggested. Unfortunately, reports do not specify the name or location of the village where 20 were killed. --TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 19:24, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, thanks so far for your great work. Here are more comments.

In 2018, an analysis of historical U.S. landfalls suggested that a similar storm striking the same areas would inflict $73.5 billion in damage when normalized for 2018 demographics and inflation. - I suggest adding a comma after "damage". Perhaps link inflation? Maybe not, your call.
One lieutenant piloting a crew of three on an instruction flight out of Naval Air Station Lake City crashed shortly after takeoff 5.5 mi (8.9 km) east of the base, with weather cited as a possible cause. - two things. First, could it just be "An instructional flight out of Naval Air..." - instead of lieutenant/crew. Second, you could mention the crew of three, something like "The crew of three was uninjured", or, if they were injured, mentioned that. This seems like a potentially important bit of info, as all weather-related crashes are.
So this is a bit nitpicky. You mention three tornadoes in Florida, and there is also an image of a waterspout near Key West. Was the waterspout one of those tornadoes? If not, could you also add somewhere that the storm spawned waterspouts and three tornadoes? Or some better way of wording that.
"They down in the cities of Arcadia and Wauchula as well as southern Polk County." - add missing word ("touched"?)
A 250 ft (76 m)-long segment of seawall typically rising 8 ft (2.4 m) above average high tide was destroyed, resulting in the flooding of an adjacent estate - where?
In total, 4,000 ft (1,200 m) of seawall and road along South Roosevelt Boulevard was destroyed - link the road to Florida_State_Road_A1A
As much as 150 ft (50 m) of beach eroded because of the elevated seas. - in Fernandina Beach?
Given the geography of Florida and the progression of the storm, IMO the Jacksonville paragraph should come a bit later, although I see why you put it there (I'm guessing because that's where the highest surge was).
Rainfall-related damage primarily to tomatoes, cabbage, beans, and peppers collectively resulted in a 75 percent loss of crops in the Hollywood area. - add commas please
Despite fruit trees largely surviving, salt spray carried inland by the winds threatened the ultimate loss of half of the remaining citrus-bearing trees in the St. Petersburg area, exacerbating the wind-torn crop losses. - so what ended up happening hear? The "threatened" part is what threw me, since that means it hadn't happened, and we're not sure if it did happen.
Did Environment Canada have anything for the storm?

All in all a good article! I'm glad to see it at FAC. I hope my delay in finishing my review hasn't annoyed you too much, and I hope these comments aren't too arduous. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 13:49, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for the comments—they're certainly not too arduous. I made the suggested fixes, including removing the part about threatening since I couldn't find any information to substantiate what actually happened. Unfortunately, Environment Canada seems to be no longer supporting their old hurricane impact database, but I did check it when it was still up back in July and surprisingly there was nothing there, nor was there anything from Canadian newspapers I could access. TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 12:35, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Then I'm happy to support! Thanks for your hard work on this important article. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 13:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from JC edit

This is an excellent piece of research, and it's a strong candidate for the best-illustrated pre-1950 storm article. Great work! I hope to offer a full review soon, but in the meantime I picked a relatively short section at random (in this case, "Elsewhere in the US") so I could get a feel for the article's substance. My initial impression is that the content is strong, but the prose is loose and at times confused. Some examples of how I'd tighten things up:

Total losses in the state of Georgia from the storm were estimated at between $250,000–$500,000. - I'd remove "from the storm" as self-evident.
Downed trees were reported in several communities, blocking streets and highways. → "Downed trees blocked streets and highways in several communities."
Communication services were scant in some areas as telecommunication and power lines were severed by the storm. - If utility wires were severed, it follows that comms would suffer as a result—or, from another angle, disrupted communications could really only have one cause in the aftermath of a severe windstorm.
Strong winds also damaged the shingles and roofs of some buildings to varying degrees; the shipyard in Brunswick, Georgia, was particularly hard hit, with several of its buildings and four cranes damaged. - Shingles and roofs? I'd ditch the semicolon and start a new sentence. Hard-hit is hyphenated.
The high wind-swept tides caused coastal inundation throughout the Southeastern U.S. coast... - "coastal ... coast"
"a multitude of" → "many"
where the seas rose 5.9 ft (1.8 m) above mean sea level. - "seas ... sea"
The highest rainfall total measured in the United States as a result of the hurricane was documented at the Brunswick airport, where 11.4 in (290 mm) of rain fell. - I'm not sure how I'd rework this, but it's a slog to get through at the moment.
Power and communication lines were downed across the Carolinas. Power outages affected much of Charleston, South Carolina, stemming from winds of 65 mph (105 km/h). → Winds reaching 65 mph brought down power and communication lines across the Carolinas, leaving much of Charleston without electricity." (pipe link without specifying SC is fine, I'd think)
Trees and signage... - Why not just "signs"?
ctrl+f yields 15 instances of "the city" throughout the article, and while some are acceptable, others—like "the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad just south of the city"—make me backtrack to recall the city in question. If you've only mentioned Florence once, you can refer to it by name again.
...unpicked cotton crops perished. - "perished" is a bit dramatic...
Winds of 30–40 mph (48–64 km/h)... - False precision.
The storm's effects were comparatively minimal as its extratropical remnants tracked farther north, producing a wide swath of precipitation and high seas that extended alomg the United States' East Coast. - Try "The storm's effects tapered as precipitation and high seas spread north along the U.S. East Coast."
In Virginia, widespread rains were reported throughout the state. Some flooding occurred around Staunton, blocking some minor roads. High winds downed as many as 30 percent of the apples remaining on trees. I'd consider removing the first sentence, which adds little value. I'd change the second sentence to "Some street flooding occurred around Staunton". And the apple thing doesn't make much sense: was that 30% of the whole crop? Or after the first round or harvests?
The strongest winds were limited to the Norfolk area where winds of 35 mph (56 km/h) were felt; tides 2 ft (0.61 m) above normal were also reported there. → "Greater Norfolk endured 35-mph winds and a 2 ft storm surge."
In Newport News, the elevated seas rose over the seawall, inundating low-lying areas. → "The seawall in Newport News was overtopped, inundating low-lying areas".
Tree limbs were torn by the winds, though no resultant damage to property was reported. - Talking about damage that didn't happen is for short articles.
Minor telecommunication disruptions were reported in Maryland by the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company; a local Weather Bureau meteorologist characterized the storm as "an old fashioned nor'easter". - How are these clauses related?

And as 1:30 am closes in, that's it for now. These are just suggestions which you can feel free to ignore at your discretion. Regardless of how (or whether) you address these specific points, the article could benefit from a once-over by an uninvolved editor with a few hours to kill. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 05:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments! I've implemented some of these suggestions and also reread the rest of the article again for flow and clarity. --TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 19:24, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Notable progress has been made since my last look, and I'm now satisfied with the article's prose, style, and presentation. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:07, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

image review

Suggest scaling up the Chesapeake Bay image

Captions that are complete sentences should end in periods

File:1944_hurricane_effects_in_Key_West_MM08838-26x_(15477075451).jpg and File:1944_hurricane_effects_in_Key_West_MM08838-22x_(15480223745).jpg: who is Quinby?

File:1944_hurricane_effects_in_Key_West_MM00017078x_(15293610590).jpg: if this is a Navy photo it should be PD. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:06, 17 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Nikkimaria: E. J. Quinby being a Navy Commander, all three Key West files have been changed to reflect their PD status. – Juliancolton | ^Talk 19:49, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Hurricane Noah edit

The storm began quickly over the western Caribbean Sea, strengthening into a tropical storm on October 12 within hours of becoming a tropical cyclone. I don't like using storm twice in the same sentence. I also think it could be less wordy. Noah^Talk 17:30, 18 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Supporting... Noah^Talk 23:24, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review edit

No spotchecks carried out
Links to sources all working, per the checker tool
Formats

ISBN formats should be consistent with regard to hyphens
be consistent in the inclusion or otherwise of publisher locations for book sources
Ref 29: Why is this not in short form, since Barnes is listed in the sources?
Refs 42 and 43 have "subscription required", but no link
Also 49
Ref 61: Im not sure that Flickr should be credited as the "publisher" of this image, rather Florida Keys Public Libraries – but I'll leave that to you
Ref 105 – see 42/43/49 above

Quality/reliability: the sources are broadly what one would expect to see – newspaper articles, meteorological institutions and some scientific journals. As far as I can judge, collectively they meet the requisite FA criteria.

Brianboulton (talk) 20:47, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate the source review--removed the non-url {{subscription required}} and transcluded the Cayman Islands rainfall table template so that references between the template and the article could be made consistent. TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 12:35, 26 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coord notes edit

Getting here later in the day than I expected to...

The above is all good but I think we're a bit light on for reviews, and I'd especially like one from someone less familiar with storms to gain a different perspective -- SchroCat, you come to mind as someone experienced in FAC but not so much with such articles, would you have time for a once-over?
Also I believe this would be your first FA in some time if successful, TheAustinMan, (correct me if I'm wrong) in which case I'd like to see a spotcheck of sources for accurate use and avoidance of plagiarism or close paraphrasing. One of the above reviewers might like to volunteer for that, or you can post a request at the top of WT:FAC.

Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Working on it now. I'll see if I can do the spot checks too. - SchroCat (talk) 09:30, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

SC edit

There are a few points where the order of the references should be tweaked so they are in order – [47][13][48] is one example, as is [54][48]. I've made a couple of tweaks, mostly to bring a couple of points in line with the MoS.

Lead

"with a damage toll approaching that of Hurricane Sandy". That means nothing to 99 per cent of the planet, and it needs too much explanation to appear in the lead. There's nothing wrong with ending the sentence at "among the costliest U.S. hurricanes".
"However" is not needed

Meteorological history

"However" not needed (you have "nonetheless" doing the same job later in the sentence)
"over-50 year" -> "over-50-year"

Warnings

"to threaten the island nation in 18 years" The link on "18 years" is a bit of an easter egg: slightly better would be "to threaten the island nation since that of 1926"

Impact

"conditions destroyed all of the crops on the Cayman" -> "conditions destroyed all the crops on the Cayman"
"E.S. Parsons" -> "E. S. Parsons"
"preventing thru traffic": I'm not always sure on US vernacular, but is "thru" formal enough for use?
"$63,000,000": $36 million? (You have $73.5 billion just after and refer to $10–$13 million elsewhere)
"18 deaths occurred in the state": Sentences shouldn't start with a number. This should either be spelled out or the sentence tweaked slightly. (I's spell it out, as you have "nine" shortly afterwards
"24 persons": anything wrong with "people"?
Link for "anemometer"?
"21 persons" -> people

~~Done to the end of the third para of "Florida". More to come. – SchroCat (talk) 10:58, 1 October 2019 (UTC)~~[reply]

All done from me (just a minor tweak made on one point). Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 13:41, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review and complementary tweaks! These were all good suggestions, so I've made changes accordingly. As for the $63 million figure, that is the total damage toll across Florida in 1944 US dollars. Per footnote [nb 1], all monetary values are in 1944 USD (as originally reported) unless otherwise noted. The $73.5 billion figure is an estimate of what a similar storm in 2018 would do, while the $10–13 million figure is damage done strictly along the Florida coasts. --TheAustinMan^{(Talk ⬩ Edits)} 17:56, 1 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry - my typo on the $63/36 million. My point was in the formatting (ie, it should have been $63 million, not $63,000,000): I've changed it.

Support. All good from me. - SchroCat (talk) 12:36, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Spot checks edit

Spot checks undertaken to confirm a. that the information claimed in the article is supported by reference; and b. that no plagiarism or close copying has taken place. Checks were done on 3, 12a & b, 18, 31, 40, 41a & b, 51, 75a & b, 79 and 102. All except one are good.

FN 102 supports the following: "Gusts of 50 mph (80 km/h) grounded airplane traffic and yachts in New England. An empty coal barge was grounded upon Thompson Island, carried by wind-driven seas. One driver in Somersworth, New Hampshire, was killed after losing control of their car on a slick roadway—three passengers were injured. Downed wires in Newton and Quincy, Massachusetts, cut power to roughly 250 homes." Only "Gusts of 50 mph (80 km/h) grounded airplane traffic and yachts in New England" is supported by the citation - I suspect there is another report which you've forgotten to add which covers the rest. - SchroCat (talk) 09:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 10:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.