Talk:Tornado

Sheltering on the first floor

In the Safety section, immediately after a photo of damage in Birmingham, in the UK, it's stated that people are advised to shelter either in a basement or on the first floor.

A lot of English speakers are unaware of this particular difference between American and British English, and even those who are might be led to assume the British English interpretation given the context of the UK example.

First floor in the US refers to the ground floor in the UK.

First floor in the UK refers to the second floor in the US.

Given that any misinterpretation here could lead to people putting their lives at risk when sheltering from a tornado, it might be worth replacing the term first floor with less ambiguous language. 178.238.147.66 (talk) 07:22, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be best to change it to refer to the ground floor which has the same meaning in the US and UK. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Alternatively, the article could refer to the "lowest floor", meaning a basement if one is available and the ground floor otherwise. TornadoLGS (talk) 02:00, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Landspouts and waterspouts as "true" tornadoes

Concerning landspouts and waterspouts, the second lead paragraph says "there is disagreement over whether to classify them as true tornadoes" due to those (usually) not being associated with a mesocyclone, e.g. non-supercell. Tornado#Size and shape implies landspouts that touch the ground or are stronger than 64 km/h are considered tornadoes. The Landspout article simply refers to itself as a tornado unassociated with a mesocyclone, while confusingly Waterspout is divided into "tornadic" (mesocyclone-associated) and "non-tornadic" varieties, the latter of which are still "non-supercell tornadoes".

I'm having trouble pinpointing where this disagreement with terminology can be found in the article body if at all, although it does seem to be a popularly held belief. Could we clarify which sources say a tornado must be associated with a supercell to be defined as a "true" tornado? 9³ (talk) 08:54, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to hear some discussion for this as well. I believe the popular opinion is that non- super cellular columns of rotation are in fact tornadoes. And I also agree that there is dissonance in the article and child articles. I don't believe many professional sources would claim a vortex must belong to a supercell to be defined as a tornado, as that would alienate plenty of notable tornadic events derived from waterspouts and gustnados/QLCS formed spin-ups.

Additionally as per WP:TECHNICAL I feel it's not the best move to apply meteorological discourse with vague consensus into an integral article, unless its actually necessary. Wikiwillz (talk) 20:17, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Gallery

I'm not sure that the gallery should exist. There are multiple photos placed across the article that illustrate its appearance and function. ?talkcontribs

Updating images in the article

Most of the images in the article have been taken before the year 2000, going back to the 1950s. With the abundance of available tornado footage and images I think updating this article to have more clear, high-res imagery would do it good. Ikethecatto (talk) 17:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 September 2023

In the landspout section I would Like to add that :tornado not associated with a mesocyclone "And is Formed Due to a developing storm Updraft causing rotation. 2601:603:382:4A60:30CB:7CC5:1474:CC47 (talk) 05:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 14:04, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

• 5000*500*

2400:C600:3663:815D:16C6:D950:E85E:9FAD (talk) 13:10, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 January 2024

The etymology, as it stands, is not consistent with its two linked sources. According to one of them (Etymonline) the English word comes from two Spanish words i.e. tronada and tornado (the latter, despite its ortographical identity to the English word, is considered secondary in Etymonline and entirely absent from M-W): now the article only mentions the latter, and (which is the actual, egregious point) it incorrectly attributes to it the ultimate Latin origin of the former. My proposed edit is as follows:

The word tornado comes from the Spanish word tronada ('thunderstorm'), from tronar, itself from Latin tonare (both meaning 'to thunder'); the English word was also influenced by Spanish tornado, past participle of tornar ('to twist, turn'), from Latin tornare ('to turn').

91.197.196.75 (talk) 19:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

(Still me.) I guess that was a no? 31.13.255.32 (talk) 17:23, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

(Also me.) Done by a kind soul: consider me satisfied. 80.249.126.241 (talk) 17:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 29 May 2024

I would like for this image to be added to the formation part of the tornado Wikipedia.

Representation of a tornado that is formed from an updraft and downdraft to bring down a Mesocyclone, touching the ground, forming a tornado.

CCChrisy (talk) 04:47, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@CCChrisy: Under which section? Charliehdb (talk) 05:14, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Please clarify under which section do you want the image to be added and reactivate the request after doing that. ABG (Talk/Report any mistakes here) 06:00, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

I’ll do it since I think I know what section that editor is talking about. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 15:24, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

@CCChrisy: It was the section that said “Formation”, right? West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Since my mention erroneously tagged and probably notified @Charliehdb; I am going to clarify that I meant to tag @CCChrisy. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 15:29, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Well if I put it in the wrong section; I know based on the time stamp that your edit request was made before I created this account. And I’m autoconfirmed now; so my advice (since your account @CCChrisy is undoubtedly more than four days old), I’d go make about ten edits somewhere (but don’t try to game the system) and you’ll be autoconfirmed (if you aren’t already) and you’ll be able to edit the image however you like. West Virginia WXeditor (talk) 15:33, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 July 2024

In this sentence:

Tornadoes occur most frequently in North America (particularly in central and southeastern regions of the United States colloquially known as Tornado Alley; the United States and Canada have by far the most tornadoes of any countries in the world).

Please change "America (particularly)" to "America, particularly" and "world)." to "world." The parentheses aren't needed. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 01:13, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

 Done Hyphenation Expert (talk) 11:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Gallery section

I attempted to remove the gallery section because it is a violation of WP:NOTGALLERY, but @WeatherWriter reverted it because 'Gallery has existed on this article for a long time'. Just because it has been there for a long time does not make it immune to Wikipedia's policies. First, there are many, many encyclopaedic images of tornadoes that are not in the gallery sections that do well at their job. Most of the ones in the gallery aren't. Some of the images show the tornado poorly, either the subject being too small or the camera being of poor quality. Others have a similar appearance to the ones that are not used in the gallery or are already used outside the gallery! The sections are pretty much there to shoehorn images into the article. I also believe that there are too many images in the article and will probably work on mowing them down once I start improving this article. However, the only file in the gallery that is probably worthy of being kept is File:Tornado time lapse.webm since it is a pretty good video about a tornado's life cycle. However, it should not be kept in the gallery and would be better used in the section #Life cycle. _ZZ^Z'S 23:30, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Keep gallery: WP:NOTGALLERY is specifically for random assortments of images with no text, which is not the case here. Specifically, "Photographs or media files with no accompanying text. If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context. "Most of the ones in the gallery aren't" is an opinion, and "Some of the images show the tornado poorly" is not a valid reason to remove a gallery, especially since several of the images are good quality, but that's up to the community, and not one person. E_F⁵ 23:32, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

And I see that you've gone ahead and nuked the gallery anyways. E_F⁵ 00:13, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Wrong policy. I meant WP:GALLERY, specifically this line:

Wikipedia is not an image repository. A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the below paragraphs or moved to Wikimedia Commons.

About 'nuking the gallery', I moved all of the files that were worthy of being kept outside the gallery while removing the ones that were watermarked or already used in the article. Over ten of the images and videos in the article contain a real-life depiction of a tornado, which shows how little value the extra images in the gallery have. Maybe you should read the edit summaries of the diffs instead of assuming I did it because I don't care about consensus. Also, simply because a reason is an opinion does not mean it should be disregarded. Gallery sections that mainly consist of poor quality, watermarked images or the main subject being barely visible when higher quality, more focused images are used in the article outside the gallery section is a valid reason for it to be removed, especially when the article contains an excessive amount of images. _ZZ^Z'S 00:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I read every summary, none of which indicate that you read my comment (although I will AGF and assume that you did). You removed over 75% of the gallery while this discussion was ongoinng, and while two other editors have challenged your bold removals. I never said that your opinion should be disregarded, I added that because opinions do not equal policy and can wildly differ in discussions like this. :) E_F⁵ 00:25, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I did read your comment. Whether specific images can or cannot be used in an article is not only decided on the community and can be determined by one person, especially when they can tell which images violate Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The only images I removed were ones that are used outside of the gallery or were watermarked (watermarked images should not be used in articles per WP:WATERMARK and no, the historic images that used to be in the gallery's credit or title forms an integral part of the composition). Also, it seems that I missed one (the AccuWeather video), so I will go ahead and remove that as well. _ZZ^Z'S 01:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@EF5 Are you going to continue this discussing? _ZZ^Z'S 04:21, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

No, I think we've both given our two-cents. I still support a keep of the gallery without watermarked and with hand-picked images, which we can discuss below if that is the outcome. :) E_F⁵ 13:03, 26 November 2024 (UTC)