I did send out an ezine on the 24th Dec but it hasn't turned up anywhere. If it does, this replaces it. So I hope this gets through. Please delete anything that says 24th Dec as it is out of date and you will get rather bored otherwise.
This weekend's weather (30th/31st December)
Cloudy with occasional rain in most areas except Hawkes Bay. Weather for New Year's Eve: rain, but not too much wind. New Years Day: clearing in most areas. Bit late now to say this of course, but that's what I said just before Xmas. (it's been on my website for a while)
Next weekend's weather 6th/7th
Snow in central North Is. Fine cool spell coming. Some rain around north from Taupo upward mainly in W right through to Northland, on Saturday, but clearing in most districts on Sunday.
The moon approaches and leaves the equator to head further north on January 2nd. My interpretation is that therefore the force of the southerlies will peter out and allow for more settled weather to return. In the UK this northbound moon with a perigee attitude will bring warmer winds from the south and some sunshine over the next few days in the E and SE right up to the 9th in some places. The 4th-6th sees some unsettlement again in NZ in most districts (except the far North, Wanganui and Nelson), in Australia(mainly Victoria)and in the UK everywhere except the S and SE. Over Melbourne it clears on the 7th only to deteriorate again by 10th/11th.
Whatever happened to dear old global warming?
Tsk tsk, don't you hate it when the world doesn't comply with your theory. What do you get when you combine the worst winter weather in the US for 20 years; a really cold England with sea freezing at Whitehaven in Cumbria, being frozen for the first time in living memory(though one can remember the Thames freezing in the winter of 1962/3), snow warning in NZ in summer in both islands, the coldest November in 50 years just gone, the 90s cooler than the 80s and unseasonally wintry weather caressing SE Australia? You tell me.
Gisborne does look set to have virtually no significant rain right until April.
Nothing like now to make one think about next ski season. Coming up in autumn and winter in 2001 will be a cloudy and wet April; a cool and windy May; a cloudy, windy and cold June; a cool July; a mild and dry August and a mild, cloudy and wet September. Looks like early snow on Ruapehu around the beginning of June and around 25th, then again around July 11th.
On Dec 19th the Moon crossed the equator. This was a potential
eruption/earthquake time. I thought we'd get something slight around
Wellington and we did. On Dec 21st we were greeted with a Herald headline
'Mexican's Flee Volcano Rage'. But were thousands of Mexicans, 60 km's
away in Mexico CityÝ evacuating? No. Even in the villages right underneath
the mountain some inhabitants were staying put. By 22nd a TINY Herald
article read 'Popo Quietens but Mudslides feared', and by Saturday, there
was no mention of the situation. I had to go onto the internet to find out
what if anything was happening. I didn't even find an update, only an old
report showing that this is far from something new and unexpected..
'Popocatepetl, the second highest volcano in Mexico, is a giant
stratovolcano, 70 km (~45 miles) southeast of downtown Mexico City, and 45
km (~30 miles) southwest of the city of Puebla.Ý Popo became active just
before Christmas 1994 after five decades of quiet. During the previous two
years the volcano had frequently had a small column of steam rising from
its summit crater. After midnight on December 21, 1994 (two days after a
Full Moon/northern declination)a series of earthquakes signaled that
eruptions had again started. Popo is one of the most active volcanoes in
Mexico, having had 15 eruptions since the arrival of the Spanish in 1519
AD. The Aztec Indians who lived in Central Mexico recorded additional
eruptions in 1347 and 1354.'
But despite attempts by the modern media to exaggerate, most of the eruptions in the past 600 years have been relatively mild, with ash columns rising only a few kilometers above the summit.
Bob McDavitt and I have been exchanging emails and discussing the moon's
role. Whereas I am pressing the point that weather is a pattern, just like
the tides, he maintains weather is a mixture of pattern and chaos. I'm
sure he won't mind if I stick this in here.
Some of the exchange may be of interest to readers.
K: B, a point in your argument needs addressing in logic. You say the
weather is 20% chaos.
B: Oh well, ...thereabouts.
K: That would allow one not to have to explain the 20%. Therefore 80% is
NOT chaos, meaning it is patterned and so it follows; controlled by
something. So what controls this other 80%? I say the moon..and you
say..what? It seems to me that if you say you don't know, saying THAT
would bump the 20 up to 100% chaos.
B: The sun
K: Then I would say please show me how the sun forms a Low and pulls it
east at a certain time. Show me how the sun causes a wind change. Show me
how the sun causes the weather to change during the dark of the night.
B: Many factors
K: Can you name them in a list and show me which is the main one? It seems
to me that as soon as these factors multiply, we are into the realm of
scientific uncertainty and once again approaching 100% chaos.
B: You might be right there too. OK, my argument about weather being a mix
of pattern and chaos may well be subjective.Ý But that's the way I think,
and I'm being honest therefore in stating it.
K: Fair enough. Chaos is how many out there in the public would interpret
the official forecasting, too(g)..
B: Augie Auer disagrees with me on this too...he thinks it will all be
explainable someday.
K: I don't think we have to wait for Some Day. It was explainable
thousands of years ago and I think is again now. Earthquakes are a prime
example and are hugely a function of positive and negative declination.
Tornados mainly happen around Last Quarter. Full Moon nights are clear.
Perigees nearly always bring winds.
B: Well anyway I looked at your web site, but its all very confusing....if
we are moving towards a southern declination and apogee of the moon early
next week then my understanding of your theories is that means weaker
weather systems moving southwards.
K: Not necessarily. Because the moon is in our hemisphere we could be in
for gusty weather. The deeper lows to the south are caused by the
proximity of the moon down here, thereby pushing the High to shift to the
North.
B: Your forecast for 25-31st also goes for "disturbed westerlies and
fronts", so it agrees with our weather maps...but how do you get that
forecast from that moon?
K: I didn't get it from anywhere else, like some weather satellite. I
don't have access to any metservice technology. So yes I did get it from
the moon and the moon alone.
B: As far as we're concerned science is only a third of weather
forecasting, another third is art and another third is the communication
itself.
K: That's a worry. I could imagine a furore if a surgeon said "a
scientific base is only used in a third of my medical operations - for the
rest I have to be good at painting and explaining myself."
B: What's your weather for Adelaide?
K: Adelaide fine, light winds Xmas day
B: Thanks, Ken, I'd agree with that forecast. But how does that work in
with the same moon giving us a windy Xmas?
K: Simply put, I'd say because we're further south, closer to where the
moon is.
B: Why should Auckland be less windy than Wellington?
K: Difference in forecasts between locations is explained by local
topographical differences, latitude, height above sealevel, west or
easterly exposure etc. The middle of the Desert Rd is going to get a
different climate to Stewart Island or Fiordland. Wellington is windy
presumably because the initial westerly gets funnelled down through the
Straits by some vacuum process occurring because of Wellington's hills
turning the westerly into a localised northerly. The weather is what the
moon does considering all these factors. The moon brings the potential for
rain, wind and settled conditions, and these factors do the rest.
B: Ken, if you go to the earth viewer at
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth
change from sun to moon, and from NOW to 27Dec 04:00...you'll see the moon
is then 398,990km overhead Adelaide....compare with 27 Dec 02:00 the moon
is 398,898 km over 22S 166EÝ more like Norfolk Island than southern
NZ...hence we being further south, means we are further away from where
the moon is.Ý It still doesn't make sense to me....can that 2km difference
in distance explain the difference in forecast between Adelaide and
Wellington?
K: No. The moon is a moving situation, and a moving mindset is required
rather than any static display. In 2 hours time our moon becomes their
moon. Whereas when it was our moon it was bringing southerlies up,
affecting only us in a certain way, when it is the Adelaide moon it is
lining up something else.
B: We think weather is... a combination of air, fire, earth and water.
Sunlight (fire) striking the ground is turned into heat that makes (air)
float up into the sky taking evaporated (water).Ý Moist air is cooled,
forming clouds.Ý One place warms faster than another and this is what
makes the wind blow.Ý The greatest amount of heating occurs at the equator
which explains the tradewinds.Ý Sinking air helps explain why all this
planet's deserts are at 30 degrees N or S. (sorry about that Australia).
Conservation of angular momentum helps explain why lows move SEÝ a lot in
the southern hemisphere.Ý Add cyclic behaviour to this heat engine, we
have the ice capped poles, six months of darkness yet they still get
weather. They are the cold end of the heat engine.
K: The trouble I have with that model is that the sun is a constant, so is
the earth's rotation, so every place should then get the same weather
everywhere every day of the year. We know we don't. Something varies it,
and that something is surely the moon.
D: Where we are as part of the Pacific Ocean, anticyclones either migrate
east or linger... depending on the structure of the upper winds and that
pattern keeps varying...we haven't found many cycles in these variations,
thus can only explain part of their variance.
K: I have found cycles, I just don't think you're looking for moon-related
ones.
B: It's true we need new techniques. There is more weather pattern if we
have a planet in which the atmosphere is simply "cloudy" all the
time...like Venus.Ý
K: Which is what I was saying earlier. If we had no moon we'd get the same
weather every year/day. Venus has no moon, so a more regular pattern will
show up. Also, Venus's day is longer than its year which makes daily
rotation not a factor.
B: Mars (cloud-free) has weather, but no patterns have been found that are
linked to Mars' moons (Phobes and Demos)
K:Ý But they are so tiny compared with Mars. Our moon is so relatively
huge that Wanganui astronomer David Calder calls earth the 'double planet'.
(continuing)
Hi there Ken
I listened to the Mike Havoc show on Monday past and heard your
prediction... about the earthquake in Wellington... I had 2 colleagues in
Wellington that day and as they came to board their plane...an
earthquake... what an awesome prediction... look forward to reading more
on your website.
Unbelievable!
Cheers
Chris.
New Year Greetings
May I take this opportunity to thank readers for their support and
interest and wish everyone a safe and happy holiday period. If anyone has
ideas, requests or suggestions, please write.
Contact
Editor: Ken Ring
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