Hi to those who have recently joined this ezine, where you will find regular bulletins of weather to come and a forum for topical comment on climate and environment. At the risk of getting up some people's meteorological noses, this author believes the weather is created by the moon. The official forecasters tell us accurately about weather yesterday, today and tomorrow; but this space tries to look a little further ahead. I do not have all the answers, nor do I claim 100% accuracy, but then, neither does the metservice.
95bFM report (Tuesdays)
We've had fast weather systems over the last few days, very changeable
which is what you get when the moon crosses the equator as it did on
Saturday. It's slowed down now. It brought some rain on the weekend, and
there are still some showers around this week in the North Island. There's
still quite a bit of moisture up around us and north of us, even though it
might be blue skies. If there's no rain about it just gets cooler.
That goes for Wednesday, Thursday sees a probable cloudy period and Friday
showers in most places, hopefully missing Auckland.
The weekend should be relatively clear after that, with a fair bit of
shower activity next week.
There's a low forming to the north of the country which I think will bring
some damage to the far north on the weekend. It hasn't reached the
metservice's maps yet.
There's an awesome threesome coming. On Thursday 21st is the New Moon,
followed by the northern declination on Friday and then the perigee, the
8th closest for the year, on Saturday. It's always hard to call the
weather right on a perigee. Either we'll have rain or cold.
Astrometeorologists call this a SuperMoon. Even though it's only the 8th
closest perigee for the year, it'll still make its presence felt.
Despite what the papers say about warmer weather supposedly approaching, I
think the cold snap that we're experiencing will continue through the
winter months. Psst!!..global warming .. come over my house..
Wind is going to be a factor in some parts of the country over the next
few days. At the moment it's quite windy up north, about 20 knots.
Wednesday and Thursday will see the strongest gusts, so if I had a big
boat I'd be going down and tying it up. Whakatane will get some big winds
nearer to Thursday.Ý The South Island won't get much in the way of wind,
but Campbell Island will see strong winds until Thursday, which could
affect the rat extermination programme.
Another earthquake period is coming. Nearer to next weekend I'd expect to see a massive shake given news coverage.
The snow is falling exactly as predicted. On Whakapapa it was June 9th, 12th and 15th, and coming up will fall on 21st and 25th. On Turoa; June 2nd, 10th, 21st and 26th.Ý A nice cold winter.
Letter to Herald
(sent but wasn't published)
Dear Editor
The notion that scientists might push the earth away just to save global
warming proves how desperate they now are to convince us of a non-existant
problem. Beyond computer temperature projections that don't parametize for
natural fluctuations anyway, the declination cycle of the moon or the
presence of clouds, global warming has simply not been proved. Rather the
opposite. The climate cooled between 1940 and 1975, just as industrial
activity came into its own after World War Two, proving that CO2 emissions
didn't warm the planet THEN so there's no reason why they should now.
Since 1979 temperature observations have been in dispute. Surely a better
idea would be to send the scaremongers off on their own little asteroid,
because their panicky ideas are the only threat to global wellbeing.
KR, Titirangi
This comes from an online training manual website for pilots (listed below
in Links), sent to me from Mike, in Sydney.
"..The atmospheric tide is associated with lunar and solar gravitation,
solar heating and resonance. The tide is not apparent in latitudes greater
than 50° - 60°. The atmospheric tide is an internal gravity wave with a 12
hour frequency. The semi-diurnal (twice-daily) pressure variation is
similar to the semi-diurnal gravity variations at the earth's solid
surface, the solid earth being subject to tides - the solid tide. A point
on the earth's surface moves up and down by as much as 50 cm, with maximum
gravity occurring at 1000 and 2200 hours. In the low latitudes a
semi-diurnal pressure variation is quite noticeable. Atmospheric pressure
peaks at about 1000 hours and 2200 hours local solar time with minima at
1600 and 0400. The semi-diurnal pressure variation at Cairns is about 2 mb
either side of the mean, i.e the pressure might be 1015 mb at 0400, 1019
mb at 1000, 1015 mb at 1600 and 1019 mb at 2200. Meteorologists adjust the
daily pressure observations to remove the tide effect..."
(Comment: Oh, do they now!? That quite contradicts what metpeople around
here say about the atmospheric tide being too puny to be noticeable. If
it's too puny then surely they wouldn't have to factor it out. Are we
being given a true picture?)
Last Saturday night featured a fascinating programme about continental drift. The whole Pacific plate, the so-called Ring of Fire, is drifting east, away from Australia and under the Californian coast. It is constantly on the move, like a horizontal escalator. It is fed from under-sea volcanoes and slides back under land again, creating more heat and more volcanoes. What massive celestial thing would be powerful enough to pull that giant Pacific plate towards the east?Ý (Answer next week)
I am honoured to have been approached to be a guest on the TV1 programme Today Live, on Wednesday 27th June. Cameron Bennett, standing in for Sue Wood, will interview me about moon/weather etc.
20th: average
21st: excellent
22nd: excellent
23rd: average
24th: bad
25th: bad
26th: average
Atmospheric tides
http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/section1a.html#atmospheric_tides
Cam pictures of the skifields
www.snow.co.nz
Global warming website
www.globalwarming.org
Changes to polar ice caps
http://polar.jpl.nasa.gov/
One of NASA's sites
http://www.sepp.org/
Hi Ken
Re Dr Don T.Ý If it is true that gases of differing weights will uniformly
mix then why do hydrogen and helium float away and why was chlorine gas so
effective in the wars?
(Agree. Either CO2 mixes or it doesn't. If it does then it's not CO2
anymore, it's part of something else. If it doesn't, then because it's
heavier than air it'll sink. So either way there's no problem. But CO2
does stay being CO2. Isn't that what all the fuss is supposed to be
about?-K)
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