Hi. Welcome to the weather ezine, which looks behind the weather and way ahead, and at the way the MOON creates our climate. This revives the ancient mathematical system of longrange weather forecasting, before words like satellite, computer or meteorology were dreamed up.
December will be a blue moon month, i.e. a month with two full moon phases. These will be on this December 1st and 30th. This occurs every 3 or 4 years. Previous blue moon's have been in July 1996, May 1999, and to come are Aug 2004 and July 2007. It is nothing to do with the moon itself - just something that happens when the moon phase cycle doesn't quite fit into the solar calendar. It was widely reported in the northern hemisphere, which saw their blue moon in November, but down here the astronomers seem not to have noticed..
For Tuesday, December 4th.
Yesterday, Monday, the moon was at its northern declination. Typical weather over a northern declination is prolonged showers and shallow anticyclones. The Full Moon to Last Quarter period is generally unsettled. Little wonder rain was been the feature of the last few days.
The moon has just set, so it'll get quite hot today, as it does on a near Full Moon day in summer. It could be a burn-day so cover those kids with cream and hats. The met-service has forecast a few showers, but I think they 're off-mark again. Just like NIWA were when they said the last three months of the year, October to December, would see below average rainfall (18th October Daily News). Although it has been warm the humidity has been very high. For the last week the barometer has remained at a steady 1020mbs.
December is going to be a wetter month than November was. Last week I said 'a low will pass quickly up the country on Thursday the 29th, and would probably peter out in a day or so'. That mainly lasted until the 2nd and even longer in places. I underestimated its potency. I estimate today will be the sunniest in Auckland for the whole month (most sunshine hours in the day). Coming weather should be mostly dry until the end of this week. The weekend will see some more showers, mainly on Saturday around lunchtime. Next week will be mainly sunny too, packing in on the Friday. Then December will close down weather-wise, as far as long spells of fine weather goes. And a cyclone, the first of three this summer, is due to hit our shores around the 14th.
The organizers of this recent event inserted a letter to the NZ Herald, stating ' 21mm of heavy rain was experienced in Auckland in three hours last Thursday which was not forecast by any meteorological service..' My website would have told a different story. All month I have been predicting rain before the show. I rang the organizers to tell them the next date they have selected, being 22nd November 2002, will see overcast skies and lots of cloud, possibly drizzle, and if they wanted a blue sky event they needed to choose the 8th November 2002. I left a message but no one has called me back..
Recently I gave a talk at a school in one of Auckland's more affluent areas. I was asked to come because Room 4 were all excited having discovered my website and were following it. They were a great audience, very keen and enthusiastic, and they were guided by a teacher brave enough to expose them to new angles. I started by asking who knew what a Full moon was. All put up their hand. Then I asked what a New Moon was. No hands went up. Oh dear, I thought, the education system has done a runner when it comes to the moon. You'd think it would be covered somewhere. But no. Instead, what is going around schools now is a Ministry for The Environment sponsored pamphlet entitled 'Climate Change'. In it you will find the following nonsense..'the sealevel will rise, oceans will spread out and ice caps will melt into the sea .. so that many of our beaches could be damaged or lost.. You can .. turn off a light when you leave a room, go by bike instead of car, put on a sweatshirt and turn off/down a heater..' The inference is, if you don't do these simple tasks, the oceans will rise up. Yeah, right.
The Full Moon is a night moon, meaning it is only out at night and hidden from view by day, as it does not rise until sunset. In our summer the moon is over the northern hemisphere, being in a low air-tide phase during the day. As drifting clouds slowly obscure the sun, temperatures cool and as the clouds drift away there is greater input of the sun's heat after the cloud has drifted away. This condition will occur also in the Last Quarter phase during the afternoon when very high temperatures can occur especially in summer.
All seasons have their turn of droughts, excessive rainfall, cold or warm humid or dry atmosphere. These changes are controlled by the moon and its orbital changes over approximately a 19 year cycle. Whatever the moon's orbital changes, so our weather changes with that alteration. The moon orbits to the east, which is why weather arrives from the west and drifts to the east. The Full moon is in a different position on the moon's orbital path each month and returning to about the same full moon position in twelve months. Naturally the other phases of the moon follow in the same manner. The moon has a changing declination (N to S each month) each year over the 19 year cycle. This regular movement takes place every 27.5 or so days. In this way the moon is full while the moon is at the northern declination during the month of December in the southern hemisphere and at the southern declination in June.
Weather forecast 19 and 38 years ago
From the NZ Herald of 4th December 1982 we read:
Northland moderate variable
winds with a few showers;
Auckland: moderate winds, fine and becoming milder, outlook - mainly fine.
Compare YESTERDAY 19 years ago, for Northland through to Taupo where it said;
variable skies and a few showers.
Let's go 38 years ago.
For the 3rd of December 1963, for Auckland equivalent to yesterday, windy and cool;
then for the 4th, equivalent to today - fine weather;
for the 5th, tomorrow: fine weather with warm afternoon temperatures.
Reading further we have for 2nd December 1963: 'rain washes out many sports events.'
It was a Saturday. Back then on December the 17th 'a severe electrical storm knocks out power in Whitianga..' which is why I' ve been saying all along that around 14th-17th, the tail of a tropical cyclone will hit us again.
Although there's more to it than I have mentioned here, it's a system that will work most of the time, more or less, but it's something the metservice would rather wasn't popular knowledge.
Surfies will notice the wind has gone slightly north today - it always does this briefly after a full moon. (see Correspondence).
It WAS good last weekend, but not at the moment, in fact less than average. Prospects get better this weekend, not fantastic though, and won't be excellent again until the 14th.
Earthquake-prone periods in December are 7th-10th, 15th-16th, and 22nd-24th.
Climate Change Summits are:
Wellington
Thursday 29 November 2001, 9.00am - 5.00pm
City Cinema, City Gallery, Civic Square, Cnr Mercer & Victoria Street
Christchurch
Tuesday 4 December, 8.00am - 5.00pm
Meeting Rooms 6 & 7, Christchurch Convention Centre, Kilmore Street
Auckland
Wednesday 12 December, 9.00am - 5.00pm
Hauraki Room, Level 1, Aotea Centre, Auckland City.
Citizens For Truth About Climate Change (CTCC)
Some feel the need for a special interest group representing alternative views to global warming. Objectives would be
1.. To call on the government to explore evidence, if any, of global warming, rather than just listening to the opinions of their own employees.
2.. To disseminate information to media and the ministry that expresses alternative and conflicting research results.
3.. To implore the government not to disadvantage NZ's many small businesses and consumers who are aware that ratifying the Kyoto Protocol will have a devastating effect on our economy.
4.. To reinforce that there IS a significant area of doubt and uncertainty as to global warming.
5.. To reinforce that there is a significant number who are more concerned about truth than politics, who are suspect of a ratification rushed through just prior to the next election, and who are calling for more opportunities for public debate.
If you would like to be associated with the above and receive information of further developments, just email me now at ken@weatherman.co.nz with the letters CTCC in the subject box. The email list will be kept confidential.
May 6th, 1965 - Herald
Jet Trails Could Affect Climate
Condensation trails from high-altitude supersonic jet airliners may cause substantial changes in earth's climate, the science editor of the New York times says in an article. The article was based on a recent speech by Dr P.N.Abelson, editor of Science, The Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science..
Nov 22nd, 1974 - Daily Times
Rain God is Angry
Mrs Dorothy Mundey, the London woman who claims the Australian people owe her money for breaking droughts during the past 8 years, is claiming responsibility for the rain which washed out the MCC's game against Queensland Country XI in Queensland and for waterlogging parts of the Gabba at Brisbane. With her hypnotic powers and 'extra sensory perception,' Mrs Mundey claimed she can induce rain where and whenever she requires. 'The Australians owe me money for breaking droughts they rang and asked me to break,' she said from her Wimbledon home. 'But they haven't paid me. I intend to keep on disrupting the MCC games in Australia with rain until the debt is settled..'
http://members.tripod.com/~bernardboyd0/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/bdfboyd/index.html
http://www.gns.cri.nz/news/earthquakes/recent_quakes.html
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/ipcc.htm
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/shame.htm
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/dalybio.htm
http://www.globalwarming.org
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Hi Ken
As a South Island-based avid glider pilot, I am very interested in the incidence of nor'west conditions.
For the last 6 or 7 years, I have remarked to my colleagues that a nor'west follows a full moon (within 4 to 7 days. These winds have even occurred when not forecasted to by the traditional forecasters. Without any analysis, it feels like only about 4 or 5 times that this has not occurred in the last 6-odd years. However, the last few months have not seen any significant nor'west winds following the full moon.
I wondered if you had any explanation for this. Is the moon in a more distant path or something?
Regards
Tim
(The moon causes a definite wind shift around the Full Moon, either NW or NE, but always more to the north. I wouldn't limit my expectation to just the NW. To predict properly you would have to record every one assiduously and then compare present conditions to your historically verified pattern.
I do have those records, and looking back over the last few years, which is all I have had time to do today(!), I see the pattern is the same for Canterbury as for anywhere, that is, NE or NW. The shift into the new quadrant is only for a few, 3 or 4, days.
This ties in with the age-old folk-lore about the most unsettled weather in the phase cycle being between Full Moon and Last Quarter.
As most heavy rain weather comes in on northerlies, this is consistent. Why this should be is probably because after Full Moon the moon starts to pick up speed, moving faster to the east. It is quite a sudden yank, like the movement of the sun away from solstice position.
After all, the Full moon is a kind of lunar solstice, representing the high point of
the pendulum swing. Depending on the moon's declination north or south at the time, and the orography, would determine the wind direction. The main thing is that a shift definitely occurs. - K)
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