User:EF5/Guide to writing about tornadoes

Before reading this, please read Wikipedia:Notability and tornadoes.

Once (I hope) you've read WP:NOTENADO, it's time to actually start writing about a tornado, which is where this essay comes into play. I'll go in--depth on how to write about a tornado, what information to include, among other things. It'll be sort of like a YouTube guide, but on Wikipedia instead.

Lede

So firstly, you need a lead section, or lead. This is that strip of text that you see before any other sections, and summarizes key points. Let's take the first paragraph from 1997 Jarrell tornado, a good article, as an example:

• Wrong N: A large tornado called the 1997 Jarrell tornado would produce heavy damage across portions of the Jarrell area. The tornado killed many residents of the town, many in a single subdivision, and inflicted $40 million in damages in its 5-mile track. It occurred as part of a tornado outbreak across Texas and it was produced by a supercell that developed from rotation.
  • Several issues are present here. First, we want to be as detailed as possible when writing our lead, but also keeping it concise. The lead should summarize the key points of an article, which this lead doesn't do.
    • Date: The date should always go in the front of a lead. "On May 27, 1997," or "In the afternoon hours of May 27, 1997," is missing from this lead, which is not ideal.
    • Monetary year: After the "$40 million" should be a "(1997 USD)" or "(YYYY USD)" to help account for inflation.
    • State: After the "Jarrell" should be a "Texas", since there is more than one Jarrell in the world. If done correctly, it should look like "Jarrell, Texas" (link included).
    • Wikilinks: Wikilinks help readers understand what is being mentioned, such as "tornado" or "supercell". Without these links, readers would have to do their own research, which is also not ideal.
    • Bolded name: While this mainly pertains to my writing style, I try to avoid bolding the name of the tornado. In articles like 2011 Cullman–Arab tornado, this bolding is not present.
• Right Y: On May 27, 1997 (1), a large tornado (4) would produce catastrophic damage across portions of the Jarrell, Texas (3) area. The tornado killed 27 residents of the town, many in a single subdivision, and inflicted approximately $40 million (1997 USD) (2) in damages in its 13-minute, 5.1 miles (8.2 km) track. It occurred as part of a tornado outbreak across central Texas; it was produced by a supercell that had developed from an unstable airmass and favorable meteorological conditions at the time, including high convective available potential energy (CAPE) values and warm dewpoints.
  • This lead represents everything that a lead should be. The date (1), monetary year (2), state (3), wikilinks (4) and no bolded name are all present, and is effectively summarizes the key points from the article. Note that there are two more paragraphs in the lead of the Jarrell tornado article; those are optional and are typically used for longer tornado articles, like 1925 Tri-State tornado.

Infobox

1997 Jarrell tornado (10)

View of the Jarrell tornado as it moved near the Double Creek Estates area (11)
Meteorological history
Date	May 27, 1997 (1)
Formed	May 27, 1997, 3:40 pm. CDT (UTC−05:00) (2a)
Dissipated	May 27, 1997, 3:53 pm. CDT (UTC−05:00) (2b)
Duration	13 minutes (2c)
F5 tornado (3)
Highest winds	>261 mph (420 km/h) (4)
Overall effects
Fatalities	27 (5a)
Injuries	12 (5b)
Damage	$40 million (1997 USD) (6)
Areas affected	Jarrell, Texas and areas near Prairie Dell, Texas (7)
(8)
Part of the 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak (9a) and tornadoes of 1997 (9b)

An infobox is that rectangular box that you see on the right side of many article, notably tornadoes. These boxes contain general information, including the tornado's rating, the duration it was on the ground, an image/caption, wind speeds, fatalities/injuries, and other things. Since we've already used the lead of 1997 Jarrell tornado, why don't we also use it's infobox as an example, too?

• Date (1): The date is very important to include in an article. Otherwise, how would people know when the tornado happened? In this case, the date is "May 27, 1997".
• Formation time (2a), dissipation time (2b) and duration (2c): These are sort of like a more specific date. In the "formation" line should be the day the tornado touched down, and following that is the hour and minute it touched down, followed by whatever time zone the tornado happened in (in this case, it would be CDT, for Central Time Zone). If you can't find the eact minute the tornado touched down / lifted, then don't include these parameters. To do that, just uncheck them by opening up the template (double-clicking on the infobox) and then clicking on the blue checkmark that should be on the left of your screen.
• Rating (3): Arguably the most important aspect of a tornado infobox is the "rating banner". This is a colored banner (color representing the strength) with letters and a number after, and then "tornado". For the Jarrell tornado, it would be "F5 tornado" with the purple banner. Here's a more detailed table:

Taken from the storm color template, which is used on most tornado infoboxes
Rating	Template	Hex Code	Description/where used
EF5	{{Storm colour|EF5}}	A188FC	a tornado rated F5 on the Fujita scale or EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale
EF4	{{Storm colour|EF4}}	FF738A	a tornado rated F4 on the Fujita scale or EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale
EF3	{{Storm colour|EF3}}	FF9E59	a tornado rated F3 on the Fujita scale or EF3 on the Enhanced Fujita scale
EF2	{{Storm colour|EF2}}	FFD98C	a tornado rated F2 on the Fujita scale or EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale
EF1	{{Storm colour|EF1}}	FFFFD9	a tornado rated F1 on the Fujita scale or EF1 on the Enhanced Fujita scale
EF0	{{Storm colour|EF0}}	4DFFFF	a tornado rated F0 on the Fujita scale or EF0 on the Enhanced Fujita scale
EFU	{{Storm colour|EFU}}	CCCCCC	a tornado of unknown intensity

• Winds (4): Well, this one's kind of obvious. Winds, or "wind speeds" depending on who you ask, are the speeds at which wind moves when rotating around a tornado. These speeds can be as high as 321 miles per hour, and as low as fifty. When adding wind speeds to an article, it is important to use the {{convert}} template. In wikicode, this is what the Jarrell tornado's wind speeds look like: >{{convert|261|mph|km/h|abbr=on}}. You have to enter the "Source Editor" (click the little pencil at the top-right of your screen, it should drop-down and have a "[[ ]] Source Editing" option; click that) to insert this; doing it in visual editor won't produce anything due to the way Wikipedia works.
• Fatalities (5a) and injuries (5b): Fatalities and injuries are very important things to include for an infobox, because it's something people look for. How many people did the tornado kill? Was it a "demon tornado"? The Jarrell tornado had 27 deaths, as indicated by the "Fatalities" to the left of the number. Right below that is "Injuries", which Jarrell had 12 of. Fatalities and injuries must be cited. Since they are very important, all information has to be verifiable. When editing the infobox template, you'l notice that there is a "Casualties" parameter that lets you add both fatalities and injuries in the same line, but we only use that when adding infoboxes to sections of outbreak articles (a good example of this being the 2023 Adamsville tornado section).
• Monetary damage (6): This is the monetary damage a tornado produces, typically in United States dollars. This is laid out as the "$" symbol, followed by a number (in this case 40 million), and that is followed by the date the tornado happened and the "USD", which represents United States dollars. When laid out properly, it will look like $40 million (1997 USD). Like casualties, monetary damage must be cited, and if no reliable source discusses the monetary damage, then it shouldn't be included.
• Location (7): This is the location that the tornado happened in. This can include a town, county, U.S. state, but no less specific than the state level and no more specific than a town. In this case, it is Jarrell, Texas and areas near Prairie Dell, Texas", which is where the tornado occurred. A county-level example is 1974 Guin tornado, whose "location" line in it's infobox reads "Lamar County, Marion County, Winston County, Lawrence County and Morgan County, all in the state of Alabama".
• References (8): The "references" line is where extra citations go that don't fit in the infobo or would otherwise mess up the formatting. This can (and usually should) include references for the wind speeds, fatalities/injuries, and even location if that is needed. Any reference can go here, as long as it is reliable and relates to the infobox content. You can ignore this if you plan on bringing up the cited information within the article itself, as citations can go there.
• Outbreak (9a) and tornado year (9b): Now that we're rounding off our infobox, it's vital to include the outbreak (in this case it would be 1997 Central Texas tornado outbreak), and the year would be tornadoes of 1997, because the tornado happened in the year 1997.
• Tornado name (10): This is hard to forget, because if you don't add it, the infobox will automatically include the name for you! In this case, I have included the "name" parameter, since the title of this is "User:EF5/Guide to writing about tornadoes" and not "1997 Jarrell tornado". If you don't check the "name" box, the template will automatically take whatever the article name is and will slap it at the top of the infobox, so this isn't neccesary. If you're working on a tornado draft, don't worry, when you move it to mainspace the name will adjust and will remove the "Draft:".
• Image and image caption (11): The most eye-catching part of an infobox, if not the giant colored strength bar we mentioned above, is an image of the tornado. While not all tornadoes are documented, some are, and if you can get your hands on an image, then include it. Make sure that what you upload is properly sourced and not a copyright violation, as it will likely get deleted. The Jarrell tornado article has gone through several images, many of which are now deleted, but we settled on File:Jarrell tornado 1997.jpg, which effectively depicts the tornado. You can include copyrighted images under a non-free file rationale. Another editor on Wikipedia, WeatherWriter, has a very detailed explanation of this process, which you can read here. Now that you have the infobox down, I think we're ready to move on to the actual article!

Layout

Meteorological synopsis

The "Meteorological synopsis" section sums up what lead up to the tornado. Let's take the 2022 Pembroke–Black Creek tornado article, also a good article, as an example:

During the morning of April 5 (3), a quasi-linear convective system (QLCS), commonly known as a squall line, moved across Georgia (4). The QLCS was being propelled by a mid-atmospheric shortwave ahead of a cold front. Mixed layer convective available potential energy across Georgia was as high as 1,500–2,000 J/kg (2), with dew points in the mid-60s °F. As the QLCS was moving across Georgia, a few discrete supercells formed and became particularly robust, owing to strong wind shear and storm relative helicity values exceeding 300 m²/s². One of these supercells (1) eventually produced the Pembroke–Black Creek tornado.

• Supercell (1): How the tornado formed, and the supercell it formed from, is the only crucial piece of information that needs added in a "meteorological synopsis" section, but it is recommended that all info be added for a quality article. A supercell is a thunderstorm that typically produces tornadoes, that's really about it. It's important to note where the supercell formed at, as long as it is cited.
• How high was the CAPE? (2): CAPE, or convective available potential energy, is basically just the "fuel for a thunderstorm". The higher the CAPE, the more likely it is that a tornado will form. Because of this, it's usually important to include the CAPE values, in this case 1,500–2,000 J/kg (Joules per kilogram). If you can't find a citation for the CAPE value, then don't include it. If no verifiable information can be found about the CAPE or other number-related things in the "Meteorological synopsis" section, then don't include it.
• Date (3): The date, without the year, you're writing about should always be placed at the beginning of the section, if cited. It's good to know what meteorological setup you're talking about, because different days can do different things.
• Location (4): If possible, include the relative location that a severe weather "line" moved over, so that you can get a general idea of where the tornado would happen without actually having to put the exact location down. Don't be so specific as to have exact roads, or so little specific as to only have the country.

"Main" templates

The "main" template is a template that adds a "Main article:" line of text right below a header and above the text of that section, indicating that more information can be found at a main article, typically a tornado outbreak. This is usually only used in the "meteorological synopsis" section, because each outbreak page has its own synopsis section that the template can point to. Let's take 2007 Greensburg tornado as an example:

Main article: Tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007 § Meteorological synopsis

On May 4, a low-pressure area stalled over the High Plains and additional moisture coming from the Gulf of Mexico moved in behind the warm front and increased amounts of instability across much of the region, with CAPE values as high as 5,500 J/kg. In addition, the dry line, which marks a divided line between the dry and humid air mass, was positioned over the southern High Plains. This allowed for the initiation of scattered supercells on May 4. High wind shear also allowed for intense rotation in the atmosphere. All of the ingredients were present in the atmosphere for the developing of supercell thunderstorms producing damaging wind, large hail and tornadoes.

You can see that the "main" template points to Tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007#Meteorological synopsis, where more information on the severe weather setup can be found. In the source editor, which we discussed above, the template looks like {{Main|Tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007#Meteorological synopsis}}, and you can just replace the "Tornado outbreak of May 4–6, 2007" with whatever outbreak the tornado was spawned from, assuming it has a page already.

Tornado summary

The tornado summary, like the infobox, is usually required when writing an article on a tornado. The tornado summary is a section of text, usually five or more paragraphs, that explains how the tornado moved, things it hit and damaged, and it gives exact times for each of those. Let's take the first two paragraphs in the "tornado summary" section of 2011 Cordova–Blountsville tornado as examples:

The tornado touched down at 3:40 p.m. CDT (20:40 UTC) (1) in northeastern Pickens County, Alabama, damaging a few chicken homes at EF1 strength (2) and uprooting several hardwood trees at the same strength. The tornado retained this intensity, and widened as it crossed Pine Grove Road near Carloss. (3) The tornado ran parallel to the track of another EF2 tornado that hit areas a short distance north of the tornado. It crossed County Road 12, west of Owens, and moved through areas northwest of Stansel. As the tornado neared Reform, it turned to the east, directly impacting Lathrop. (4)

After the tornado impacted Lathrop, it moved through forested areas, uprooting trees at EF0 and EF1 intensity. Damage in the area was sporadic as the tornado neared Lubbub. At least two homes north of the town were damaged at EF0 intensity as the tornado crossed County Road 49, along with several swaths of trees. The tornado continued along a straight path, crossing into Tuscaloosa County before turning to the east. (5) It crossed Alabama State Route 171 at EF3 intensity, debarking several hardwood trees and inflicting minor damage to a home. At least four people were killed in the area; two fatalities occurred within a home that was destroyed at EF3 intensity.

• 

  Track and intensity map of the tornado as it moved through areas east of Ruth.

  Key

    EF0 65–85 mph
    EF1 86–110 mph
    EF2 111–135 mph
    EF3 136–165 mph
    EF4 166–200 mph
  

  Time (1): The time the tornado touched down at is very important information to include, as it gives the reader a good idea of how long is was on the ground for and what the tornado might have looked like (was it light or dark outside?) if no known image exists. A touchdown date, or time the tornado first reached the ground, should always be included, as well as a life time, or time that the tornado dissipated. If no citation or information exists on the exact times, then don't include them; it's better to be verifiable than to have potentially incorrect information.
• Strength (2): Be sure to give the strength the tornado was at as it passed by towns or other notable structures. this is important to include because it lets the reader know that the torrnado was at a specific intensity as it hit a location, hence why "that town was destroyed" or "several people died there". If you are writing about a tornado that happened after 2010, then the Tornado Damage Viewer, or ArcGIS, will be your best friend. It's considered reliable as it is put together by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and includes a ton of information on damage from specific tornadoes, the time they touched down, locations they hit, and several other cool things that are typically hard to find. The only downside is that they don't have information on tornadoes prior to 2009.
• Location (3): I'd assume this is obvious, but always mention where the tornado touched down, where it lifted, and tows it moved passed along its track. This is typically done for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it gives general readers a good idea of where the tornado happened, and that it gives a good idea as to where the tornado hit. The big difference in location here and the "meteorological synopsis" section is that you should try to be as specific as possible. This can include roads, houses, maybe even addresses if possible.
  • DAT maps: A DAT map snippet is a screenshot of the Tornado Damage Viewer software which I've mentioned above. It is included in tornado summaries if needed. The DAT map snipper to the right is of the 2011 Cullman–Arab tornado as it was at EF3 intensity. There are completely optional to include; not all tornadoes are mapped on the Tornado Damage Viewer. They give readers a visual idea of where the tornado occurred, and I'd say that you should include them where possible.

• Citations (4): End-of-paragraph citations are always needed when writing an article, no matter the subject. The citations can support a single claim in a paragraph, or even the entire paragraph. They go at the end, because no citation at the end indicates that the last sentence in the paragraph is not supported by a claim. Every paragraph should have one, and make sure the sources cited are reliable and verify the claim that they support.
• Direction (5): This is simple, it's just the direction the tornado moved in. Without a mention of the direction, readers wouldn't know if the tornado moved to the north, south, east, etc., information which is important to include. If there is no source to back up the direction, then don't include it.

Images

Image A: It is dark and hard to see the tornado.

Image B: While still dark, it is much easier to see the tornado.

Images are a crucial part of a tornado article, as they help illustrate the event without the need to add unnecessary detail. Tornadoes, especially deadly ones that happen at night, usually have a lack of available free photographs to use, with exceptions. One of the biggest things to watch for when picking out a photograph is the license. While many images from certain websites may be free, the vast majority of tornado images online are copyrighted either because they belong to storm chasers, or because people just don't want to freely license them. However, many images on the National Weather Service site (with a ".gov" at the end) are completely free-to-use, with the exception of images that are attributed to other people, such as "given with permission by John Doe".

I have two images, which should I use?

When you have several images of a single tornado, it's highly tempting to try to shove them all into the same page, which doesn't always work well. On the right are two photos of the 2015 Garland tornado, each taken moments apart. Which one should we use? Image B. Image B has a clearer and more defined view of the tornado, and you can clearly see the "wedge" shape as the tornado is illuminated by a power flash. Image A, on the other hand, only shows the left side of the tornado, and is only slightly illuminated. Because of this, Image B is used in the main article and Image A is not used. It is usually harder to determine which image to use if the tornado happened during the day, because both images likely look usable to a degree.

Non-free images

Non-free images, or "NFIs", are pieces of media which are copyrighted but are still allowed to be hosted on the English Wikipedia, where you are now. These images cannot be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, as they are considered copyrighted. Since I'm not the best at determining what can and cannot be a non-free image, I'll take an excerpt from WeatherWriter's process, which I have also linked below. In this case, WeatherWriter used File:1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado aerial of overpass.jpg as an example, and explained how it passes all ten points that are outlined at WP:NFI. If you need any help with non-free images, I'm sure they'd be glad to help.

Excerpt from: User talk:WeatherWriter/Archive 8#Tornado Photos

1. No Free Equivalent Exists – This was discovered over at the Wikimedia Commons, which the file was deleted under the precautionary principle (i.e., it may be free, but there is no confirmed proof that it is free to use). For most tornado photos, this will be a near-automatic pass. However, some confirmed free-to-use tornadoes photos exist, like the famous photo of the 2007 Elie tornado (File:F5 tornado Elie Manitoba 2007.jpg). In this case, under no condition could a non-free-file of the 2007 Elie tornado be uploaded to Wikipedia.
2. Respect for Commercial Opportunities – This file was taken by (1) an NWS employee and (2) is on the NWS website. If you go to the overpass file's non-free rational box (File:1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado aerial of overpass.jpg#Summary), you will notice a section specifically dedicated to "Respect for Commercial Opportunities". In that, I specifically wrote out that it was taken by an NWS employee, is on an NWS website, and that it "may or may not" be free-to-use. For 95% of photos from a NWS website, they will have this clause. Unless the Commons has confirmed evidence from the photographer that it is not free-to-use (example: Commons:Deletion requests/File:CookevilleTNEF4rubbleanddamage.jpg), you can add that statement for any photo on an NWS website. If it comes from a well-known storm chaser, like Reed Timmer, it cannot be a well-used photograph.
3. Minimal Use – This is done automatically by a bot after every upload.
4. Previous publication – This is a near given for tornado photographs (i.e., it needs to be published somewhere outside Wikipedia first...like an NWS website, news article, YouTube, ect...)
5. Content – It has to related to the article. For the overpass photograph, the exact overpass in the photograph is directly discussed in the Wikipedia article, which means it is content viable for Wikipedia.
6. Media-specific policy – Automatic if every other point is passed.
7. One-article minimum – The non-free file has to be used on at least one article. In the overpass photo case, it is used on the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado article.
8. Contextual significance – This related to the "Content" point. It has to directly related to the article's information and a reader has to be able to benefit from seeing the photograph, rather than reading about it. For the overpass, the overpass itself has been discussed by news articles and the damage to the overpass itself is discussed in the article as well. For a general tornado photograph, this point may be passed by a source saying the tornado was large, multi-vortex, "wall of darkness", ect... Something where the reader would better understand the object being shown through a photograph rather than text-description.
9. Restrictions on location – Use it only on a mainspace article (not draft-space, no templates, ect...)...Easy point.
10. Image description page – The "Media data and Non-free use rationale" box (seen at File:1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado aerial of overpass.jpg#Summary) has to be completely filled out. This is done entirely during the upload process and Wikipedia will not even let you upload the file unless text is inside every spot, so this is an automatic pass.

Example references included

To produce this at a set part of the page, copy-and-paste {{reflist}} in the source editor.