Wikipedia Rewrite History
By Paul Homewood
It has been well established for a long while that Hurricane Camille is the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record. Camille recorded sustained wind speeds of at least 195 mph just before making landfall on the Mississippi coast in 1969.
I was therefore astonished to find that Wikipedia now show the maximum wind speed as 175 mph, thereby downrating Camille to only the 8th most powerful Atlantic hurricane.
Now I can’t prove it, but I am 99.9% sure that Wikipedia were showing a wind speed of 195 mph only a year or two ago, and therefore have seen fit to revise their page.
To make matters worse, the reference they quote for the figure of 175 mph is the report, The Atlantic Season of 1969. This report makes quite clear that, even at landfall, an appraisal of the character of splintering of structures within a few hundred yards of the coast suggested velocities approaching 175 kt (201 mph). The final reconnaissance flight into the hurricane, about 100 miles offshore, estimated even higher speeds of 180 kt (207 mph).
The official NOAA record states:
The actual maximum sustained winds will never be known, as the hurricane destroyed all the wind-recording instruments in the landfall area. The estimates at the coast are near 200 mph.
And the official report into Camille also stated:
http://www.coast.noaa.gov/hes/docs/postStorm/H_CAMILLE.pdf?redirect=301ocm
So why do Wikipedia ignore all of this official data, and have they changed their own account of Camille? Could it be that the true account conflicts with their global warming agenda?
This sort of rewriting of history is becoming only too common where climate science is involved. I smell a stoat!
Comments are closed.
Can’t you simply edit back to accuracy, Paul?
Yes – AND sometimes the self-appointed Wiki-page “guardian” nixes your correction in a few minutes. You ought to read the definition on RationalWiki of CAGW. You can learn how much the warmists hate that corruption of the ‘pure’ AGW. No real climate scientist ever uses CAGW.
But somebody ought to fix Camille. The guardian can get himself banned if misuses his editing privileges.
Wikipedia is written and edited by you and me and is not an authority in itself
I smell a WC…
Wikipedia is updated by “SME’s”. I believe Wikipedia staff act as moderator’s.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia. That’s why it’s not an accepted scholarly reference.
Wikis have always been plagued with such edits to fit some agenda or other. In very rare cases where the situation is clearly malicious, they have been known to lock out some people from editing them. Mostly, it is hopeless.
Wikipedia should never be trusted…it can be “edited” by anyone.
I suspect there is a major rewrite going on by minnions of the “warmistas.”
Locally, a Ph.D. Climatologist weather historian has maintained, researched, and compiled superb records in his detailed, factual Monthly Weather column for decades. Recently, that weather column has been replaced by a generalized double-speak column. The offshoot is that major snow events in the region…such as a 2003 forty inch dump…were not listed on the graph in the new article.
So those of us who have helped keep track of such things need to do as your blog does, Paul….Keep the actual data flowing. Many thanks.
The wiki site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Atlantic_hurricane_season also says that Camille was only 175mph winds.
Yes, they’ve made sure they’ve covered all the links
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Camille&diff=650312464&oldid=650312227
I wonder if there’s a confusion between 175kt and 175mph? Cock-up before conspiracy???
+1. There was some similar confusion over Haiyan/Yolanda with a 300 mph wind gust speed reported in my local newspaper last year. It would appear somebody did not convert kph to mph properly.
Did you check the way back machine for the old page? http://archive.org/web/
I did! The page from April 10, 2010 says max sustained wind at landfall was 190MPH. I chose this date totally at random. Way Back Machine to the rescue. http://web.archive.org/web/20100410204304/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
Wayback Machine proves that on June 14, 2013 (picked at random) the wikipedia Camille page had sustained winds of 190mph at landfall. Is in both the summary table and the introductory text. Is still a bit wrong (should more probably have been 195). Paul’s memory is good.
Best use of Wikipedia (IMO, three books in comprising 6 years of research and writing) is to start with the footnote references, the closer to primary sources the better. A ‘fast search’ web technique. And if primary references are scant, with most footnotes to MSM or gov reports or equivalents, beware. Be very wary. See Arts of Truth for many examples.
If you go back even further, say 2005, it said the winds were in excess of 210 mph. Seems the hurricane gets slower and slower as time progresses. Who knew that could happen? Maybe that’s the “cure” for global warming—just wait until the temperatures are edited back down and viola! Problem solved.
Wiki should only be used as a rough guideline. Any encyclopedia written by anyone who wants to get on and can get past the “guardians” can write whatever they wish. No peer-review there.
I did work on the gulf coast. In the eighties an old lineman from Coast Electric told me, “I stayed for Camille. I’ve seen the wind blow 200 miles an hour once. Once is enough. I’m leaving next time.”
The trouble is that most people do take wiki as gospel
Good idea!
Paul, I’m astonished that you’re astonished to find that Wikipedia is not factual, almost everything on wiki is suspect, but it is often a useful starting point for further research.
Trouble is most people don’t get beyond first base, so never achieve complete satisfaction ~(:<()#
For years William Connolley and minions have been scouring Wiki for any reference to climate, and making sure it “conforms”. He has the brass to go online, e.g. at WUWT, and defend his editorializing.
Whoever made the edits was both clever and stupid. They also changed the 1969 hurricane season page to 175mph. But they left the footnotes intact. Camille fn 2 says 195 mph, fn 3 says 190. Both are hot linked. It is very difficult to completely rewrite history in the age of the internet.
One of Wikipedia’s strengths is it is always suspect. Its a good attitude to have when you read anything.
The wayback machine is your friend :
2004 “Winds in excess of 210mph”
http://web.archive.org/web/20040401184233/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
2005 “Sustained wind speeds of 190 mph”
http://web.archive.org/web/20050914124530/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
2014 “Estimates put sustained winds around 190 miles per hour”
http://web.archive.org/web/20141121020907/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
Current : “Estimates put sustained winds around 175 miles per hour (282 km/h)”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
The downgrade of sustained winds from 190mph to 175mph appears to have happened very recently – since January, in fact.
Thanks….it begs the question, why would someone find a need to adjust in this fashion? Someone about to release a peer reviewed research article that needs to tell a certain story in support the more CAGW “extreme events” story? As one living Fl. happy that nothing major has occurred for almost a decade. Fingers crossed it stays that way for another decade but what will be will be.
It makes one ask if we even should be paying the least bit of attention to current temperatures and extreme weather rankings, knowing that 40 years from now a “reevaluation” can change everything. Data is apparently meaningless in the case of climate.
archive.org is your friend for things like this – simply paste the address into the bar for all grabs – this was from Feb 4 of 2006:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060204105005/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
Camille started as a tropical wave that left the coast of Africa on August 5, but it wasn’t until August 14 that it developed a circulation near Grand Cayman. The wave already had strong winds, and was designated Tropical Storm Camille with 60 mph (95 km/h) winds. The storm had a well organized circulation from the start, and rapidly strengthened from August 14 to August 15 to a 115 mph (185 km/h) major hurricane before hitting the western tip of Cuba. Land interaction weakened Camille to a 100 mph (160 km/h) hurricane, but its perfect conditions returned as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico (probably while passing over the Loop Current).
On August 17, Camille reached an extreme minimum central pressure of 905 mbar (hPa), and it continued to strengthen to a peak of over 190 mph (305 km/h) winds (possibly the strongest ever recorded in a hurricane). In the hours before landfall, a reconnaissance aircraft was unable to obtain a surface wind report, but it estimated winds up to 205 mph (335 km/h).
“Now I can’t prove it, but I am 99.9% sure that Wikipedia were showing a wind speed of 195 mph only a year or two ago, and therefore have seen fit to revise their page.”
I didn’t read all the comments, but you can always go back and check the edit history on Wikipedia. You can even find where the wind speed was firt changed, and by whom, or at least the IP number.
For example
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hurricane_Camille&oldid=20847872
A scanned, typed document from NOAA concerning Camille: https://coast.noaa.gov/hes/docs/postStorm/H_CAMILLE.pdf?redirect=301ocm
Regardless of what was and is written in Wikipedia about intense tropical cyclones like Camille, estimates of peak wind speeds in the most intense storms are usually very subjective and involve piecing together a variety of indirect measures. It would probably take an array of very sturdy wind monitors with backup power equally spaced no more than about a mile apart over at least a 50 mile stretch of coast to have a good chance of measuring close to the peak wind for an intense storm striking the middle of the network. NOAA has a network of CMAN stations right on the coast, but they are so few and far apart that they almost never are in position to measure the peak winds in the strongest storms.
I suspect the best estimates of peak storm winds has an uncertainty of at least about 10% for recent well-monitored storms and as much as 20-30% or more for older and less well monitored storms like Camille. Consequently, it is very difficult to determine which storm really had the record highest surface wind. However, Camille stands out as one of the few extremely intense storms to reach the US coast at near full strength, which is fairly unusual in the US. Most extremely intense storms weaken significantly before striking the US coast.
That is a given. What is not a given is adjusting data to reflect a story of extreme events only occurring within the last decade (2nd place to 8th place for what reason?). It is really a sad indictment of the religion of CAGW. If this was just one event, so what? But it isn’t and only gives one cause for concern and distrust.
This Wayback version of the page has it at 210mph:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050409065934/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
Revision as of 02:14, 3 July 2013
Hurricane Camille
Category 5 major hurricane (SSHWS/NWS)
Hurricane camille.jpg
Hurricane Camille in the Gulf of Mexico
Formed August 14, 1969
Dissipated August 22, 1969
Highest winds 1-minute sustained: 190 mph (305 km/h)
Lowest pressure ≤ 905 mbar (hPa); 26.72 inHg
Fatalities 259 direct[1]
Damage $1.42 billion (1969 USD)
Areas affected Cuba, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Southern United States, East-Central United States
Part of the 1969 Atlantic hurricane season
Click on the “view history” tab at the top of the page and you can see all of the changes. i went back and grabbed the text from July 3, 2013. You can see that it listed 190 mph winds.
My guess is that editing of all historic unusual weather events on Wiki will be attempted, [may have already happened(?),] where the salient facts are reduced in intensity by a small but significant amount (say 10% max). This will then perfectly chime with the general ‘the weather’s getting worse’ meme that the CO2heads and catastrophists wish to convey.
Summary ..as @Rud Istvan says it is tampering cos someone has changed the top speed, but not changed the References link to ..they contradict
.. Further than that I am out of my depth
..ha user Tchannon has just re-edited the page to include 190 & 200mph but left the top 2 mentions of 175mph (strange cos only a few weeks ago he changed a mention of 190 down to 175)
(66 people have a watch set up on the page , so will they change it back ?)
……………………………………………
, but left Do guys not know, that the first thing you do is, check the TALK button (top right) ?
There you will see that Paul’s issues have been extensively complained about .
– next you check the edit history and look for “Climate Gatekeepers” like William Connelley (not there this time)
– then you can check reasons people gave for changes
* There is no need to use Waybackmachine with Wikipedia since all changes are logged in the history AND you there is a function to compare changes (however this page has been modified 612 different occasions in thousands of ways.
Setting a watch I guess is the only easy way of understanding what’s been fiddled & by who)
– I imagine there is a standard way of comparing “top wind speed”
see the careful phrase top right “1-minute sustained “175 mph (280 km/h)”
ie there is a difference between top gust and top “one minute sustained”
click on the link and you see that there is another standard measure of “10-minute average at a height of 10 m (33 ft).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone_scales#Wind_speed_conversions
2. (Rud Istvan already checked the references) Checking the citation next to the 175mph fig cites 2 sources, neither mention 175mph nor 282Kmh
#2 “it is estimated that gusts reached 322 km/h [200 mph]”
#3 “190 mph sustained winds ”
3. Note the caveat “but the true speed will never be known since the weather equipment was destroyed at landfall”
4. If people can give a margin of error for a figure and justify that aswell ..then it’s not very credible
5. Another trick is circular reference citations e.g. stuff like thw Wikip quoting the Guardian as a reference, which when you check then cites the BBC, which cites Wikipedia !
Anyway I’m out of my depth ..I’ll leave it to more experienced weather observation bods
Talk button is top left .. I mean, not top right
OK this makes my head spin: here in the LIST of RECORDS page they quote a reference and bump the speed down to 175mph
That is on the List of Atlantic hurricane records Wikipedia page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Atlantic_hurricane_records#Most_intense
” In terms of wind speed, hurricanes Allen and Camille (in 1980 and 1969, respectively) were the strongest Atlantic tropical cyclones on record, with maximum sustained winds of 190 mph (310 km/h). However, these measurements are suspect since instrumentation used to document wind speeds at the time would likely succumb to winds of such intensity.[20] Nonetheless, their central pressures are low enough to rank them among the strongest recorded Atlantic hurricanes.[1]”
– This is SEEMS to be backed up by the reference : http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E1.html
stating “From the best track database, Hurricane Camille (1969) and Hurricane Allen (1980) have winds that are estimated to be 85 m/s (165 kt, 190 mph). Measurements of such winds are inherently going to be suspect as instruments often are completely destroyed or damaged at these speeds.
BUT BUT That ref page doesn’t actually discount the 190pmh fig or give an alternative
NOTE when they NOAA classify US MAINLAND hurricanes in terms of intensity BY PRESSURE they put Camille at #2 http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E14.html
below FL of 1935
Thanks for this information. I only use Wiki as a starting point, never an actual reference. I go to the links provided or google the terms I find interesting. Wiki alone is not enough.
Since I don’t use Wiki much, I had no idea how Wiki works. I did not know about the “talk” tab until last year. Thank you for explaining Wiki for those of us who rarely go there.
UPDATE : I should have simply first Googled “Hurricane Camille” +175mph
– the fig was indeed downgraded from 190mph to 175mph LAST YEAR
and from 1st to second strongest to hit US continent since 1900
– that does not excuse 2 things
1. the reference links should not contradict the Wiki Info
2. MOST importantly , it is negligent for such fundamental data updates to be made, without putting in a the a note about the context.
from NOAA http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/data_sub/re_anal.html
“April 2014 – A re-analysis of the database for Hurricane Camille, an extremely intense hurricane that devastated the U.S Gulf Coast on the night of August 17, 1969, has been completed. Based upon this reassessment, Hurricane Camille is indicated at landfall on the Mississippi coast to have been a Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with peak sustained winds of 175 mph and a central pressure of 900 mb. This is the same category as analyzed originally, but the peak sustained winds were reduced from 190 mph and the central pressure lowered from 909 mb. Camille is also reanalyzed to have undergone genesis as a tropical cyclone 18 hours earlier than first indicated on August 14, 1969. When comparing Camille with the two other known Category 5 hurricanes that have struck the continental United States since 1900, Camille (900 mb and 175 mph) ranks between the 1935 Labor Day hurricane (892 mb and 185 mph) and 1992’s Andrew (922 mb and 165 mph) as the strongest hurricanes on record at landfall.
– Revisions to the Camille’s database were accomplished by obtaining the original observations collected – mainly by ships, weather stations, coastal radars, Navy/Air Force/Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) Hurricane Hunter aircraft reconnaissance planes, ESSA/NASA satellite imagery – and analyzing Camille based upon our understanding of hurricanes today. (The agency ESSA is now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA.) Margie Kieper, Jack Beven, Hugh Willoughby, Chris Landsea, and the NHC Best Track Change Committee all made substantial contributions toward the reanalysis of this devastating hurricane. This research is supported in part by the NOAA Climate Program Office.”
THe actual pdf doesn’t say much more
Thank-you for your efforts,
I’ll still use my old (1982 ed) Encyclopedia Britannica as my first port of call. At least there, when I note an update to it (postit note style) 600 more wannabe editor are not looking over my shoulder to correct me later.
Also with wikipedia you never know whether any particular page’s entry has been corrupted by a self styled know-all, until you start to research the information.
On the interweb I find it better to use Google scholar first, and leave Wiki as the reference of last resort.
Wikipedia has mixed kt and mph. It was 175 kt and not 175 mph.
akseli, no it’s not that simple ..the pdf from NOAA gives the new recaculated speed as 175mph.
The question is is this recalculation justified.
On Google scholar I cant find the proper paper
“A Reanalysis of the Atlantic Hurricane Database” mentioning the 1960’s