Talk:Great Hurricane of 1780

message: I have some information that might extend the hurricane's timeline and location.
From http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/history/
Year: 1780
Date(s): 14-19 October
Principle Affected Area(s):  Northeast Florida coastal waters - not counted
Landfall Point(s): Unknown, likely an offshore event.
Remarks: Apparently the series of legendary October hurricanes were making their presence felt along the northeast Florida coast. It is possible the strongest of the three, the 11-18 October “Great Hurricane”, may have come closer to the Florida peninsula than previously thought. Mr. Josiah Smith made the following report from St. Augustine, “Thursday 19th October. The weather as mentioned on Saturday, growing worse, by Sunday evening it came on to Rain and blow excessive hard, and till the evening of yesterday was a mere Gale at about N. N. E. by which means the Sea came in very heavily upon the front of the Town and raised the Tide several feet higher than common, and which ran through some of the Lanes up to the Second Street, above 150 feet from the bay...”  
South Carolina Historical Quarterly, Volume XXXIII, 1932, Josiah Smith Diary, Page 24. 
Close Severe erosion occurred with this event. 
It is possible the “Great Hurricane” came closer to the coast than previously realized and the pressure gradient may have been very tight along the coast. This report could also be attributed to “Solano’s Storm” in the later portion of the period. 
Summary: This storm will not be counted as a hurricane, but it may be that the fringes of one, or more, of the series of “Great Hurricanes” influenced the study area.'''
Should we mention it at all in the article? There is only a few days of history on the storm, and this may be an extension of it. Hurricanehink 02:10, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dates 

message: There may not be much more information on this storm in which case it could qualify as B-class.  But at least it needs references. Jdorje 07:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Todo 

message: What is the information on sun spots doing in the article? I read the link and it provided only a vague hints at why the information might be relevant. Does anyone have concrete information that sunspots and intense hurricanes might be linked? If so, add the paragraph back, but it looked like vandalism to me, so I took the liberty of removing it. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië)
:I agree that the link was bogus, but it seems fairly likely the information was accurate.  If a real source can be found, the info could be added back...though obviously this article isn't the best place for it, there's so little real information on this storm that anything interesting could help. Jdorje 04:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They may be facts but you still have to include sources.  The link you give doesn't mention anything about the 1780 period. — jdorje (talk) 20:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

text: This Houston group, The Weather Research Center, seems serious enough about correlating solar cycles and sunspots to predict hurricanes, for 20 years. 1900 Galveston is still a distant memory to be reckoned with there, as well as Carla.--Incogm 07:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sun Spots? 

message: The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.
*This article has no images. Please see if there are any free use images that fall under the Wikipedia:Image use policy and fit under one of the Wikipedia:Image copyright tags that can be uploaded. To upload images on Wikipedia, go to Special:Upload; to upload non-fair use images on the Wikimedia Commons, go to commons:special:upload.[?]
*See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.[?]
*Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 25 foot, use 25 foot, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 25 foot.[?]
*Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.[?]
*This article is a bit too short, and therefore may not be as comprehensive as WP:WIAFA critera 1(b) is looking for. Please see if anything can be expanded upon.[?]
*Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]
You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Kmarinas86 05:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Automated Peer-Review 

message: Was just reading this article (seems a lot has been added, with some sources) and a lot does not add up.  I'm gonna do some changes, add any comments here.
* The death toll has been changed to '24000' now.  Yet the most accurate source given, the NHC, still lists it as >20000 or >22000.  The source that does say 24,000 says it is incomplete (and is obviously a less reliable source than the NHC).
* It is claimed that St Lucia had the most fatalities with 6,000.  In the next paragraph it is claimed there were 9,000 fatalities on Martinique.
* Some of the text appears to be lifted directly from the sources.  In particular the paragraph about St Vincent has many phrases taken directly from the Perez source.
* Some mention should be made of the other two deadly 1780 hurricanes - if only to avoid confusion.  A link to a season article in the intro would be appropriate.
* Deaths do not add up?  4500(barbados) + 6000(stlucia) + 9000(martinique) + 4000(french fleet) + 4000(eustacius) = 27,500.  Clearly this conflicts with the NHC number as well.  More digging into sources would be useful here - it's important not to believe every number given by every source; when sources conflict some way should be found to resolve them.  To start with a table of deaths by island would be helpful (many, many islands in the path are left out of that addition obviously).
* Wind speed.  The value of 200 mph is listed several places throughout the article.  It seems this comes entirely from the claim that bark was stripped from the trees in Barbados, and some other random guy's claim that this would take 200 mph winds to achieve.
— jdorje (talk) 06:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't be so quick to trust the NHC as canonical. The NHC is just another organisation in this case; its not like it issued advisories or produced a TCR - certainly it is not a primary source for this storm.  The individual damages are from the first reference in the article. The table on the NHC site is a referenced article, for example this one.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Point taken - though the NHC is a secondary source mostly based on other secondary sources, with knowledgeable people acting as the filter.  If we had primary or secondary sources listing the death toll from each island, could we add those together to get a total death toll of our own?  Or is that original research? — jdorje (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's probably fine. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why was the table moved to the left side? It looks a bit awkward now. Hurricanehink (talk) 20:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I thought we wanted secondary sources, given that we are a tertiary source? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 23:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article problems 

message: Storm deaths by island or region(estimates)
Island/region     	Deaths
Barbados          	4,500
Saint Vincent     	?
Grenada           	?
Saint Lucia       	6,000
French fleet      	4,000
Martinique        	9,000
Dominica          	?
Guadeloupe        	?
Antigua           	?
Saint Kitts       	?
Sint Eustatius    	4,000-5,000
Puerto Rico       	?
Dominican Republic	?
Total             	22,000+
My intent was to add a deaths-by-region table, that's why I moved the deadliest-hurricanes table down and to the left.  This table is just the beginning though, it needs to be filled out (areas with unknown deaths can probably be left out of the main article for now) and references added.  Unfortunately I'll be gone for the next week so I may not get to finish this for a while. — jdorje (talk) 05:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One possibility is the 'french fleet' is being double-counted, most likely under martinique.  This could explain some of the inconsistency in adding up these values. — jdorje (talk) 05:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the death totals are from here. Hurricanehink (talk) 15:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Deaths by region

message: I found a link saying winds were estimated at 135 mph. Shall I add it?
Here:Mitchazenia 13:18, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It also says a Hurricane struck England during the month of November. It doesn't sound very reliable. I'm against adding it. Hurricanehink (talk) 15:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd ignore the mention of the Great Storm of 1703 there. Its unfortunate but the fact of the matter is European storms are frequently known as hurricanes, the same is true of many sources. Incidentally, I have read data suggesting it was tropical in origin. That said, I would not trust that list any more than one on Wikipedia; in fact I'd trust it somewhat less as it seems to have a tendency to exaggerate. Find a real source for winds...--Nilfanion (talk) 23:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Winds 

message: There are a number of spots in this article where modern writers or meteorologists are mentioned (or the passive voice is used, as in "it is estimated that"), but the statements are unsourced. I think it would help this article's chances at GA if these statements were properly referenced. Chubbles 04:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Everything is sourced, actually. To avoid redundancy, sources are placed at the end of where one block of info is found. That is, if sentence 1 is from source A, and sentence 2 and 3 are from source B, ref A goes after sentence 1 and ref B goes after sentence 3. Hurricanehink (talk) 14:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We do need to avoid using weasel words though.  Saying "modern meteorologists say" something or "it is estimated that" is kinda misleading.  Better to say "According to NHC re-analysis" (though that sadly doesn't apply yet) or "Professor John Doe estimates that". — jdorje (talk) 21:29, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources

message: Wow, what an intersting read!  Another gem from the Tropical Hurricanes project. The article is very close to GA quality, however I would like to see a few minor fixes first:
* After reading through the article, I found myself wondering about what possible warning systems or preparatory systems may have been in place at the time, especially in heavily populated areas.  I think you need to at least summarize that aspect of the topic from a good source.
* I think you need to state in the lead exactly what data was typically recorded at the time, and state that a lot of data is missing because they didn't record it, if that's true, with a source.
* "Exceptionally deadly"?  Who said? A wee bit POV.
* "It is believed the impetus of the hurricane..." - use active voice and specify who believes that.
* "Late on October 10, the worst of the hurricane passed over the island, with modern meteorologists estimating winds in the hurricane reached over 200 mph." - break up into two sentences.
* "Severe damage was reported on Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua, and Saint Kitts - many ships were washed ashore in Saint Kitts - though it is unknown if any died on those islands." - reword to avoid using dashes, and currently it sounds like it is unknown if the ships died.
* "Throughout its path, the hurricane killed over 22,000 people, the deadliest hurricane in Atlantic hurricane history." - maybe reword to read, "...making it the deadliest hurricane..."
* Check wikilinking - some terms are linked more than once, which isn't necessary.
* Stylistic but grammatically incorrect comma usage. Remove commas:
** "The system strengthened and increased in size as it continued westward, and first began affecting Barbados late on October 9."
** "... causing heavy damage near the coastlines, and ultimately turned to the northeast before being last observed on October 20 southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland."
** "The cyclone gradually weakened as it passed to the southwest of Dominica early on October 12, and subsequently struck the island of Guadeloupe."
** "The hurricane destroyed all but two houses at Port Castries, and throughout the island, about 6,000 perished."
Thanks! --Mus Musculus (talk) 23:39, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright. First, there weren't any warning systems then. They didn't develop until the 1800s, as the National Weather Bureau (which ultimately became responsible for tropical cyclone warning) didn't formed until 1871. Next, I am not sure why a lot of data is missing, though it is probably due to its time period. As such, I put in that the hurricane occurred before the start of the hurricane database. Regarding wiki-linking, they're linked, at most, once per section, which I don't think is unreasonable. Other than that, I think I got everything. Hurricanehink (talk) 02:56, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you very much - excellent job on this article. --Mus Musculus (talk) 03:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA on hold 

message: It is more than somewhat incorrect to refer to the modern area of the Dominican Republic as the Dominican Republic before it became independent. I am fairly certain, but not completely certain, that the entire colony was called Santo Domingo before independence. Alll incidences of "Dominican Republic" should be changed to "Santo Domingo" with a note at the first mention that today it is the Dominican Republic. —Cuiviénen 23:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, good point. Before that is done, are there any other territories with the same problem? Hurricanehink (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: None that I know of. Most of the others are merely names of islands; the Dominican Republic is a country. —Cuiviénen 01:07, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For the future, though, other ones to watch out for elsewhere include Belize (called British Honduras before 1973), and Haiti (Saint-Domingue before 1791). —Cuiviénen 01:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yea, I remembered about Belize. Alright, I'll change it. Hurricanehink (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

text: No, because it was estimated based on impact. Its true intensity is unknown. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It's still only an estimate on the gusts. There were no readings and no official estimate on the sustained winds. Hurricanehink (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously I'm no expert but I don't see how it could have gusts up to 200 without sustained winds of 155 or more. I checked the official sources listed and none mention an estimate of sustained winds.--Marhawkman 20:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the reference for 200 mph, and the exact words are "The wind blew so strong that it stripped the bark off the trees. Meteorologists are of the opinion that this effect is produced on wind velocities of over 200 mph." It could've been a tornado for all we know, but there were no meteorological readings, and thus it shouldn't be classified as a Category 5 hurricane (although it is certainly possible it was). Hurricanehink (talk) 20:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dominican Republic? 

message: Since it's estimated that the storm had winds around 200+ MPH wouldn't it count as a category 5 hurricane?--Marhawkman 18:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because it was estimated based on impact. Its true intensity is unknown. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

text: It's still only an estimate on the gusts. There were no readings and no official estimate on the sustained winds. Hurricanehink (talk) 16:41, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously I'm no expert but I don't see how it could have gusts up to 200 without sustained winds of 155 or more. I checked the official sources listed and none mention an estimate of sustained winds.--Marhawkman 20:17, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the reference for 200 mph, and the exact words are "The wind blew so strong that it stripped the bark off the trees. Meteorologists are of the opinion that this effect is produced on wind velocities of over 200 mph." It could've been a tornado for all we know, but there were no meteorological readings, and thus it shouldn't be classified as a Category 5 hurricane (although it is certainly possible it was). Hurricanehink (talk) 20:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: class?

message: As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Meteorology and atmospheric sciences" articles. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I have made several minor corrections throughout the article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2007. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. It would be beneficial to go through the article and update all of the access dates of the inline citations and fix any dead links. Also, the quote in the impact section should have an inline citation directly after it. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 07:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Sweeps Review: Pass

message: I find a ton of info in David Longshore's 2008 "Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones", probably enough to expand the article two or three times beyond its current length. I'll work on adding the useful stuff eventually, but I was wondering if anyone thinks this has FA potential eventually? –Juliancolton | Talk 00:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heads-up 

message: Since WHEN has this hurricane had 200mph, and what source is there to back it up? 72.28.15.25 (talk) 01:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an estimate by modern meteorologists based on information from the 18th century, and the estimate is presumably not for sustained wind speeds. No-one really knows the actual intensity, although the damage caused would suggest it was in the higher category. Case-in-point, though, winds of 250 mph were recorded in Cyclone Olivia in 1996 (sources provided in relevant article), so there is no reason to think gusts of 200 mph were not possible. There are previous notes on this talk page regarding this matter as well.Trex21 (talk) 09:42, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ok, what the?! 

message: The current article (as of 20 Oct 2015) says:
among the French losses were the ships of the line Palmier, Intrépide and Magnifique and the frigate Juno
WRONG!!!!  Clowes was wrong. 
Palmier: sank off Bermuda 1782  https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmier_%281752%29 
Intrepide: burned off Cap Francois 1781  http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=Intr%C3%A9pide_%2874%29   
Magnifique: sank at Boston 1782 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Magnifique_%281750%29 
Junon (not Juno): Only ship lost:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Junon_%281778%29  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.36.123.206 (talk) 00:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  French warships sunk in the storm 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Great Hurricane of 1780. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add  after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.cdera.org/cunews/news/saint_lucia/article_1314.php
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 17:01, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Great Hurricane of 1780. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive http://www.webcitation.org/6bxpFoAqi?url=http://www.gobierno.pr/NR/rdonlyres/49EA64D0-305B-4881-8B85-04B518004BD5/0/Ciclones_en_PR.pdf to http://www.gobierno.pr/NR/rdonlyres/49EA64D0-305B-4881-8B85-04B518004BD5/0/Ciclones_en_PR.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 00:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: It previously read "The hurricane killed 22,000 to 27,501 people...".  That's between a round number and a weirdly specific one.  The first source given on this sentence ([2]) supports 22,000 as the lower level estimate, and the second source ([3]) doesn't mention 27,501 directly.  As far as I can see it gives round estimates in places such as "4,000-5,000" for St Eustatius, and "24,000 (incomplete count)" for Lesser Antilles.
I see above (back in 2007!) @jdorje added the numbers from [3] up to 27,500 , counting St Eustatius as 4,000 and not including (since not given in the source) any deaths from, e.g. ships destroyed at Grenada.
I suggest a sentence more like "Estimates of the death toll from the hurricane range from 22,000 to about 28,500 ..." , so I've made this change, but also left this comment in case someone can improve it more. Lessthanideal (talk) 22:43, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Impact section - death toll was expressed oddly