Forum Archive Index - December 2001

["hugh webber" <hugh.webber@clear.net.nz>]

An interesting article in The Economist of November 24 2001 in the Science & 
Technology section - unfortunately consistently the best part of The Economist 
as
it means their economics and politics sections don't keep up the S & T standard 
-
entitled Meteorology - Folk Wisdom. The first part gives an amazing graph of 
the 
C Fistula tree's ability to predict the arrival of the monsoon rains 45 days 
after it 
flowers and the second part is on predicting whether the monsoon will be early 
or late by measuring wind directions and speeds in different areas some time
before the onset. But its all done scientifically - no mumbo jumbo charting and 
it
all works.
And while we're on meteorology I have my own theory on why the Met Svce & 
are consistently too pessimistic on Canty weather. The weather nearly always 
arrives from across
the Tasman and the rain is blocked off by the Southern Alps. But the rest of 
the front hits the
bottom of the South Island and turns north with some of it travelling up west 
of the Southern Alps
and the rest travelling up east of the Alps. But this sector
drifts off to the east in the direction of its original impetus without any 
natural barrier to
contain it and by the time its level with Chch its out to sea or over Le Bons 
Bay on Banks
peninsula. Its this eastward drift which I'm sure the meteorological models 
don't account for as
they're always predicting rotten weather/rain for Canty and it hardly ever 
happens.
Pardon the digression - I'll have to find a variety of hebe which accurately 
predicts NZ economic
cycles ;-).
Then I'll resign from the NZ Sceptics Society - not.

cheers,
Hugh   

----------
> From: jerrold poh <jerm@musician.org>
> To: sharechat@sharechat.co.nz
> Subject: [sharechat] lunar cycles (was Mary is into TA)
> Date: Sunday, 2 December 2001 20:05
> 
> Seriously now, if they're any bFM listeners out there, you'll have heard
> of this guy called Ken Ring (a New Zealander), who predicts the weather
> using lunar cycles.
> 
> The crazy thing is, his predictions are usually for a week (or was that
> a fortnight?) in advance, and the results are just as (if not more)
> accurate than those guys on the news or on the weather channel. 
> 
> He has some good theories aswell, like why the chinese keept with the
> lunar calander, so they could co-ordinate the planting of their crops,
> and why stone henge was aligned to the lunar phases. 
> 
> Anyway, the point I'm making is that past history, in a way, does
> predict future events :).
> 
> 
> Jerrold.
> 
> 
> On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 12:43:38PM +1300, nick wrote:
> >              Too warm and humid.  It is december though and to be fair to
> > chartists i think if  an alien from another planet, who had never been to
> > earth was handed a chart of annual weather patterns he would be able
> > by studying data from past years be able to establish that he was more
> > likely to need his shorts at this time of year than in july
> > 
> >         Nick
> > 
> > 
> > >  - its been warm in Chch the last 3 days. If I drew a graph I could
> > >  then point out that its trend line shows its going to get warmer
> > >  but in fact a dirty great front swans in from over the Tasman and
> > >  we get a dose of snow.
> > 
> >  Hugh
>  
> 
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