Talk:Tornadoes in Chicago

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle talk 22:23, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Chicago has been struck by 22 tornadoes?

• Source: Synthesis of sources inside the article - strike if not acceptable

• ALT1: ... that the sound of tornado sirens in Chicago has been described as creepier than the city's actual tornadoes? Source: This - it's a student newspaper, but I think it'll work
• ALT2: ... that an 1876 Chicago Tribune article lamented the fact that a tornado in downtown Chicago "could not have been caught and pickled for scientific investigation"? Source: "Saturday's tornado. Where it came from, how it looked, and what it did", Chicago Tribune, 1876
• ALT3: ... that Ted Fujita suggested that tornadoes in Chicago could not be ruled out, saying "[a] large, violent tornado might manage to smash through the Loop, damaging skyscrapers"? Source: Tornado patterns perplexing - Chicago Tribune, 1990
• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Swen Swenson (politician)
• Comment: Today is the 58th anniversary of the Oak Lawn tornado, the deadliest Chicago-area tornado, so I moved the page to mainspace today. I like ALT2 the most.

Moved to mainspace by Departure– (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 9 past nominations.

Departure– (talk) 20:38, 21 April 2025 (UTC).

• Good to go for DYK. Article was moved to mainspace on April 21, so new enough. Article is comprehensive and definitely long enough. Article is well-sourced, with Earwig assessing a copyvio as unlikely (highest match is 9.1%). The article is presentable, the hooks are properly cited and interesting. QPQ has been completed. ALT1 is my preference here, but promoter may find issue with that particular hook being cited to a student newspaper. I think it should be fine (it's a student newspaper from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, which seems like a uniquely apt source for this specific article, as opposed to some totally unrelated or undue source); but I'll defer to the promoter. I think ALT1 could be also tweaked a bit, to make it have a smoother (in my opinion) flow; something like, (ALT1b): that the sound of tornado warning sirens in Chicago has been described as creepier than the actual tornadoes?

If ALT1 is not fine, I'd go with ALT0. This doesn't have an impact on this article's DYK candidacy, but suggestion/question for the article's list of tornadoes: why is the date column 4th and not 2nd? Currently, the event column is 2nd but there are quite a few (essentially) N/As in that column. Think this may be just a preference thing, and definitely not a make-or-break issue for the list at all. Soulbust (talk) 09:28, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

@Soulbust: Yeah, my main problem with ALT1 was that there isn't a way to phrase it in a way that isn't awkward. ALT0 is synth-y as well. What's your opinion on ALT2? The source is available online in the Chicago Tribune archives, or in a book by Grazulis (pinging @WeatherWriter: who has the book to verify - thank you in advance if you choose to verify!).

As for the table, it's not easy to fix now that I made the table (easily spent 5 hours getting sources and writing the summaries for secondary prose) and I don't know if there's a tool to automatically swap two columns on a table over 100 entries. As of now, I still don't know if I missed any and some of the entries are half-baked but it's presentable enough. Standard practice on other tornado list articles is rating, location, county, state, coordinates, timestamp, path length, and width (see List of United States tornadoes in April 2025 for an example) - the nature of this table made me drop location to add to the summary, drop state and coordinates (as most don't have coordinates), and that led to a few issues early on that aren't the easiest to reverse. Departure– (talk) 14:44, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

I can verify Alt2 comes from Grazulis’ book 1680–1991 Significant Tornadoes. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:14, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

@Soulbust: Do you mind taking a second look at this before this gets promoted? Departure– (talk) 14:36, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Hey sorry, I missed the ping for some reason on your initial reply from last week or so. ALT2 is nice. I don't think the ALT1b suggestion I made is too clunky, though I would defer to the promoter on that and if they can make a truly smooth/non-clunky reading of it then that would still be my pick to promote, but ALT2 is quite nice definitely and would go with that one if the promoter has any issue with the wording on ALT1. Also no worries on the table, I understand it would be quite the time-consuming endeavor to adjust it (not even "fix" it, as there's not anything actually wrong with it). Soulbust (talk) 14:46, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

Maybe something like:

• ALT1: ... that Chicago's tornado siren has been described as creepier than the city's actual tornadoes?

Feel free to cross it out if not interested, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:42, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

• That could work. The main reason I oppose this was that the source has one foot in unreliability - having it in the article is one thing but backing up a hook is another. I'm going to bring this to WT:DYK because this is a good hook either way. Departure– (talk) 23:59, 12 May 2025 (UTC)
  • Sounds like a good idea. More reliable sources call the siren eerie and spooky, which is a good deal less over the top, but still on the same track, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 00:52, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

• The issue then becomes, is a passing mention in the title of a The Independent article (Newsweek is generally unreliable) enough to base a DYK hook on? Departure– (talk) 01:03, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

• Per WT:DYK, preference is for either ALT1 or ALT2. The original quote is sourced in the article, to F Newsmagazine and the original to News Center Maine. No objections came at WT:DYK (whose preference was on ALT1) to the student magazine with the auxillary citation to News Center Maine, and no other clear issues have arisen. Pinging @Rijiii and Soulbust: to touch base before this gets promoted. Departure– (talk) 23:16, 23 May 2025 (UTC)