Talk:1999 Sydney hailstorm/Archive 1

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Archive 1

GA Review

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

A very well written article, a nice break from the last behemoth of an article that I reviewed too. Just a few small concerns.

In the lead, you introduce a fact ("The storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in its path.") that is not included anywhere else in the article. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should not include anything that is not mentioned in the body of the article itself.
I'll mention it in the 'Damage caused' section, I guess. The idea was to introduce the severity of the storm in the introduction, but your point about WP:LEAD is smack-on. I think this is fixed.
~~All one-two sentence paragraphs should either be expanded or merged with the surrounding paragraphs, as they cannot stand alone.~~
For the 'Conditions and climatology' section, this'll be remedied when I add what you suggest below. For the 'Northern Suburbs and dissipation' section, in my personal opinion the breaks are needed because it clearly distinguishes the three stages within this sector (over Harbour, northern beaches, and death).
This isn't essential for a GA pass, especially if you can't find any information, but perhaps you could beef up the "Conditions and climatology" section, which will look even shorter once you address the above concern. My suggestion would be to include a brief "history" of ice storms in the area. You sort of touch on this in the "Damage caused" section... migrating this (with slight rewording, since you discuss the 1999 storm as having already happened in this section, since it comes after the description) might not fill out this first section, but also thin out the large "Damage caused" section by removing information that fits somewhat awkwardly with the flow.
Yup, will do tomorrow (and, as you suggest, this will help remedy point two).
I've moved this paragraph (I couldn't exactly work out what needed to be reworded - if you could make minor tweaks if they're needed, that'd be great). In the future I'll hopefully be able to add another paragraph about frequency etc. (and make it another parapgrah with "Historical statistics and observations for the time of day and also the time of year, show that the occurrences of severe thunderstorms forming is rare and it is improbable that they will maintain their intensity and cause significant damage."), but I'm a bit strapped for time at the moment, and as you mention it's probably not essential for GA. Thanks for the suggestion about moving that paragraph.
Maybe this is a non-Canadian/American thing, but I've always seen time formats written as 00:00 as opposed to 00.00. I didn't change it while I was making minor changes, because I'm not 100% sure that it's not an acceptable way of displaying time. If it's in the MoS, just point it out to me. If not, all the times should be fixed.
The current versions are (by interpretation) acceptable, per WP:MOS#Times.
Doesn't it say though "in both, colons separate hours, minutes and seconds," or am I missing something that allows periods to separate time?
Ah, yes, they do need colons. Done. Daniel 01:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
I use Canadian English, so I get the whole "u in words" thing, but I've never seen "traveled" spelled with two ls before. I was going to change it, but then I remembered the great debate on medalist vs. medallist, so I thought I'd check to see if this acceptable for an Australian subject article.
Both are acceptable (see, for example, this: "v. trav·eled or trav·elled, trav·el·ing or trav·el·ling"), so I guess that WP:MOS#Spelling's claused about authors original spelling applies.
"The majority of damage created by the second cell was due to rain breaching damaged roofs caused by the large hail from the first cell, with hail penetrating residences in a similar fashion also contributing." (Secondary storm cell) I can't quite tell if this sentence is run-on or not, but there's definitely something grammatically/stylistically wrong with the part past the last comma. It needs to be reworded and perhaps made into a new sentence.
What it's trying to say is that the damage caused by the second cell was mainly due to rain breaching already damaged roofs, although hail also from the second cell also contributed to by doing further damages to property. I'll get some suggestions on this hopefully in the next twenty-four hours by people who know the English language better than me.
I updated it after a suggestion. Your thoughts?
~~Per WP:CONTEXT, it seems that there's a bit of overlinking going on in the "Damage caused" section (houses, planes, helicopters etc.) that requires trimming.~~
Yep, fair point. Fixed?
~~The first reference (Bureau of Meteorology) is broken.~~
Fixed, I think.
Just out of curiosity, were there any changes or repercussions with the Bureau of Meteorology? They seem to be taking most of the heat of heat for not warning people about the oncoming storm, did the storm have any consequences for them? If it did, it should be included in the article.
From 'personal knowledge', the answer is no, mainly due to the giant glossing-over done by Dr. Zillman (see 'References') in his report. However, it's my personal opinion, and there's no sources to that effect (I checked while writing the article). I couldn't find anything really referenceable, so everything about it is original research, hence why I couldn't/wouldn't add it.

To allow for these changes to be made, I am putting the article on hold for a period of up to seven days, after which it may be failed at any time. Thank you for your work thus far. Cheers, CP 02:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the constructuve criticism. I will hopefully have addressed everything within the coming fourty-eight hours. Thanks also for the general copyedit. Could I possibly ask that any points you feel are addressed by changes/moot/sufficiently refuted be ~~striken~~, just to make it easier for me to identify what still needs to be done? Cheers, and thanks again, Daniel 12:33, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers, CP 14:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Looks great now, and I will be passing it as a Good Article. Congratulations, and thank you for your hard work! Cheers, CP 21:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Daniel 09:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The first sentence is wrong

The 1999 Sydney hailstorm was the costliest natural disaster in Australian history... Insured damages caused by the storm were over A$1.7 billion.

According to Natural disasters, drought is also a natural disaster, and the last Australian drought cost $5 billion (eg http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~sai/ausdrght.htm and http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/livedrought.shtml) . Sad mouse (talk) 00:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I doubt if droughts are insurable. Besides natural disasters for these type of comparisons are events of short and definable length and a relatively defined geographical extent, neither of which is true of drought.--Grahame (talk) 02:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The first sentence doesn't say that it was the costliest insurable disaster, it just says costliest disaster. And like I said, Natural disasters considers drought to be a natural disaster, and gives multiple examples including the recent Australian drought. Sad mouse (talk) 02:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I changed it to The 1999 Sydney hailstorm caused more property damage than any other natural disaster in Australian history. This seems to be the most accurate, because it wasn't the most severe natural disaster, nor the one with the largest death toll or even the most costly, but it did cause the greatest cost in property damage (unlike droughts, which are more costly but in terms of lost revenue and stock). Sad mouse (talk) 02:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It was originally "in Australian insurance history", but that apparently got changed somewhere along the line. I must say that I don't like the current wording, mainly because it uses "caused"/"causing" twice in quick succession. Daniel (talk) 06:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I was bold and did the above, and updated the error in the main page blurb. Please note my edit summary. Daniel (talk) 08:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Catchy ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sad mouse (talk • contribs) 05:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Timing

I was driving on Sid Einfeld Drive, beside Centennial Park (the approx. centre of the storm), 1km east of Paddington. Hailstones of up to 12cm in width demolished my car, beginning at about 7:57pm, continuing for maybe 15 or 20 minutes. Alpheus (talk) 22:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)