Number 9, February 4, 2007

The Hurricane Herald

Storm of the month

Cyclone Clovis was named late on December 31 near to Tromelin Island. Clovis strengthened as it moved to the southwest reaching its peak the same day with 60 knot winds (according to Météo-France). The JTWC intensified Clovis more slowly, and assessed that it reached its peak with 65 knot winds on January 2, as it was nearing the Madagascar coast. The JTWC maintained this strength until it made landfall on the island on January 3. The resulting floods damaged a number of structures in Mananjary and about 1,500 people had to be evacuated.^[2]

Other tropical cyclone activity
The only activity during January was in the Southern Hemisphere, with a total of 5 cyclones existing throughout the month.

• Dora, the second cyclone the Southwest Indian Ocean formed late in January well to the east of Réunion; and reached tropical cyclone strength at the start of February.
• The two storms in the South Pacific, Zita and Arthur followed very similar tracks to the east of the Dateline. The JTWC estimated that Zita reached its peak on January 23 and Arthur briefly had hurricane force winds two days later.
• Cyclone Isobel formed between Indonesia and Australia late in December and headed south, making landfall in Western Australia on January 3 as a minimal Tropical Cyclone.

New articles and improvements wanted

• Articles are wanted for each of the tropical cyclone breakpoints (see this list).
• An article is wanted for Tropical Storm Debbie (1965).
• The Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclone seasons articles need splitting into the 3 component basins.
• This sandbox for Typhoon Durian badly needs completion, please help.
• Large chunks of the project's imagery needs proper categorization.
• The number of stubs has markedly increased in the past few months, please improve them.

Member of the month

The January member of the month is Chacor, formerly known as NSLE. Chacor joined the project in November 2005, and has contributed to a wide variety of articles across the project. Recently he has generally focussed on the West Pacific and did most of the work on the first Good article in that basin: Typhoon Ewiniar (2006). He has also started the much needed process of splitting the Southern Hemisphere seasonal articles. Finally, Chacor is probably the user who maintains the quality of the most visible part of the project, the current activity.

Main Page content

• Hurricane Juan appeared on the Main Page as Today's Featured Article on January 29.
• Entries from 3 articles: 2000 Sri Lanka Cyclone, Hurricane Ignacio (2003) and Hurricane Bob (1979) appeared on the Main Page in the Did you know column during January.

New and improved articles

• The WikiProject has its first Featured topic on Retired Pacific hurricanes.
• New Featured articles: Hurricane Ismael, Hurricane Juan and the Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware and Maryland and Washington D.C..
• New Wikipedia:Good articles: 2000 Sri Lanka Cyclone, Hurricane Iwa, Hurricane Alice, Hurricane Kenna and 1936 Atlantic hurricane season.
• New articles include: Hurricane Ignacio (2003), Hurricane Cindy (1963), Hurricane Isaac (2006) and Chris Landsea.

Storm article statistics

Grade	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb
FA	16	19	23	25
A	7	6	2	2
GA	48	57	74	75
B	83	78	71	76
Start	210	200	193	195
Stub	11	15	16	16
Total	375	375	379	389
percentage Less than B	58.9	57.3	55.1	54.2

A quick note: When you create a new article please list it in the appropriate section on the project's page and add a fact from the article to the Portal. Thanks.