Roger J Smith

Okay, I have downloaded my scanned image (previous file) and you can see it at almost any size now, small for overview, large for more detail. This flexed set-up is the normal appearance of the field systems of these planets, and the convention I adopted was to number them 2, 1, 4, 3 in the order that the earth would encounter them because the leading segment on the same side of the Sun as the planet was thought to be the primary field sector, with the rest of the structure built up as a balance or resonance of some kind. Whether this is true or if it’s just simply the case that the motion of the planets creates this complex curved structure is difficult to determine and at any rate irrelevant to how the theory operates in its atmospheric application. But in any case, the one piece of evidence I had that the J-1 or S-1 field was somehow more important to the system than the J-2 or S-2 field was that the solar variations seemed to peak when one planet was in that sector of the other planet’s field structure, and a secondary peak would occur for the –3 field sector. This sketch did not show the Mars field structure, but it is similar to the current S-field structure, on the much smaller scale of the segment of the solar system between the Sun and Mars (which you'll note is just behind the earth now, we passed it on 7 Nov and it is currently in EOD 19 Nov). As a result, there are strong Ma-1 and Ma-2 field sectors that the earth has been moving through for several months, especially considering the fact that Mars just passed its perihelion back in the summer and is moving relatively fast now. You'll remember that in this theory, if the earth is in a field sector, the effects show up over timing line one. Thus, eastern North America was in the warm Ma-1 field most of the summer, which is typically a weak ridge that adds about 5 dam to the 500-mb flow from my analysis of past data. This field sector is now over timing line 2, which explains the persistent ridge over Newfoundland and the western Atlantic. This ridge should build over the next month as the V-field retrogresses into it, and the J-3 field (see diagram previous file) progresses into the same timing sector. The Ma-2 field is currently just between timing lines 1 and 9 over central North America. A Mars field sector standing alone is a rather weak feature that can be occasionally overwhelmed by stronger energy flow in a J-field or other feature, so when you're looking at or for Mars fields in weather data, expect them to show up better in monthly or even seasonal trends. From what I've picked up here in the past year, I suspect that Mars fields and Bartlett highs are probably one and the same. The Ma-4 field, in theory would be the persistent European high of this past summer and autumn, and its current position should be Ukraine to western Urals. Having said that, a J-field moving across timing line 3 should also resemble a Bartlett high, but I would expect a J-field alone to be more dynamic than a quiet, omnipresent speed bump feature. The J-4 field sector was over timing line three most of October, from my analysis of second-order variations, and has recently been pulled well to the north by its energy rotation, but I expect to see it return to these latitudes next week. This weakening of the J-4 field has allowed the S-3 field to become a dominant player over western Europe. When J-fields and S-fields interact in the atmosphere and try to set up their energy rotations in the same place, the J-field usually dominates and the S-field energy is seen as a weaker background system, rather like how two TV programs being received on one channel used to look back in the days before cable television sometimes. In fact, that TV reception analogy is probably good way to visualize this system in general -- a lot of complex signals are being transmitted around in the solar aystem magnetic field, and out atmosphere somehow acts as a receiver and the programs are visible if you tune in at the right locations. J-FIELD and S-FIELD VARIATIONS The J-field structure appears to be quite intense, and can be correlated with the temperature regime by taking daily or monthly data and subjecting that to a 398.9-day filter which is the period between Jupiter oppositions, or the mean period of our planet’s passage through the four-field structure. The results of this for 160 years of Toronto’s temperature data show a pattern that identifies the four-field structure of what I call the “J-year.” The amplitude of this even when smoothed to a running mean of 11 days is quite large, about 1.5 C degrees. Since I think that there are some second-order variations introduced by different flex angles as Jupiter moves around its slightly eccentric orbit, I suspect that the actual intensity of the J-field temperature signal is around 2 to 3 degrees. This is more or less a third of the total variation for monthly anomalies in a variable continental climate such as Toronto has. The situation for the S-fields is almost as strong. For some reason, the S-2 field shows up stronger than the J-2 field or any of the other segments. The S-year is 378.06 days long. There is a sharper signal in the data because Saturn has a more circular orbit than Jupiter and is further from the Sun. I have concluded that the basic physics of the field segments must be that these are rotating sectors of enhanced solar wind directed towards the planets, or else there would be no obvious reason for these field sectors to be warmer, in theory. At the same time, there must be some kind of interactive flux at work because the signature of the large satellites of these planets, presumably ingrained into their magnetic fields near source, somehow works back towards the inner solar system and can be traced in energy flows around the fields. After several years of observation, I discovered that these energy rotations were in two opposite systems. The J-field energy rotations corresponding to the four larger moons of Jupiter, revolve around the J-field systems in an anti-cyclonic pattern, or clockwise. The S-field energy systems rotate counter-clockwise, or in cyclonic flow. This means that a typical J-field in atmospheric terms will be a warm ridge of considerable magnitude with predictable energy flows racing around it in periods as short as 1.7 days (for J-I) and as long as 16.75 days for J-IV. The dominant player is J-III (Ganymede) with a period of 7.166 days. The system has some intriguing features. The three closer satellites are locked into synchronous orbits that have mutual "resonances" so that J-I, J-II and J-III are never in a three-moon alignment. There is a constantly repeating 435.17 day cycle of these three satellites. What happens in that cycle is that J-I overtakes J-II slightly earlier each 3.54 days, and at the moment we are at the point where J-I overtakes J-II about half-way between their eclipse positions (when they are behind Jupiter) and their transit positions (when they cross the face of Jupiter). This point will slowly retreat to the "mutual eclipse" positions around February. The last time there were mutual transits of J-I and J-II came back around May and June. This has implications for severe weather forecasting, as the J-field energy peaks get quite a boost when events are aligned. These details will be explored more in a later session. Meanwhile, J-II and J-III have the same kind of mutual dance over the 435.17 days, and we are about to enter the sequence of mutual J-II and J-III transits later this winter. This will be a very significant factor in the weather analysis that follows when we get past the theory stage and into the (much more interesting) real-time weather sessions. J-IV has an orbital period of 16.75 days and has long cycles of mutual transits with J-III, every 3.42 years, and as luck would have it, this winter is one of those peaks. I also find this has a direct application to timing line 3 forecasts, because the track of J-III energy peaks in the model when a J-field is over timing sector 3 runs over southern Greenland, where J-IV runs over central Greenland and north of Iceland. About a week ago, during that persistent blocking high over the UK, there was a sequence of J-III and J-IV transits which played out in the form of the cyclonic storm development in the lee of Greenland and around Iceland. Just to complete this segment, I will mention that the S-fields have the strong lunar energy features embedded in them as well. The difference is that these rotations are cyclonic, so when the various moons are in transit, the energy is rotating around the base of the S-field rather than across the top of the field. This makes the S-field appear on the weather map like a large meridional block of low pressure and, you guessed it, the current weather pattern shows strong evidence of being an S-field pattern. For this reason, the temperature peaks in an S-field analysis show up as strong rises before the postulated time of the field passage, since the flow becomes generally southerly ahead of the core of an S-field. The S-moon system is a lot more complex in terms of timing and mutual resonances than the J-moon system. The key player is S-VI (Titan), which is a much larger moon than the rest. However, the energy level scale for these satellites is not totally dominated by S-VI. The rest of the crew from S-I with its period of 0.95 days to S-VIII which takes almost 80 days to complete an orbit, are all visible in terms of rotating energy around the S-field. S-IV and S-V energy has quite a noticeable modulating influence on weather in the S-fields because of their orbital periods of 2.74 and 4.52 days. The inner three make fairly frequent alignments, and S-moon alignments show a strong peak of significance in my North American research into severe storms and lightning. The general theme of S-field patterns is that near the centre of system rotation, you get fast-moving energy waves that can overtake each other at any angle to the system's rotational grid, so you find all possible permutations of activity; for the volatile region of central North America, mutual transits of S-I/S-II and SII/S-III tend to take place across the central plains or Ohio valley, Lake Erie regions, and may produce active severe weather. Well, there is a lot to digest here already. I think we are nearing the point where this theory can be related to active weather patterns, and after a few more odds and ends that need to be mentioned for that to be feasible, I propose to start a daily posting in this quiet synoptic room (so that it's easy to find) which will be essentially an astro-climatology model analysis and prognosis. This way, you can gradually work yourself up to speed on the model in the same way that I gradually discovered the material for it, one case study at a time until some general themes and trends emerge. I think you will find the most immediate application of the theory comes in terms of severe weather forecasting. The applications to longer-range forecasting are also fairly obvious by now, I would think -- if you can relate atmospheric variations to predictable features in the solar system magnetic field, then you may have some idea what to expect the very complex atmospheric flow to be doing. The problem is that this research is not really finished yet, and I am still working on some aspects of how various components interact, what makes them occasionally flare up or fade out as they tend to do, and what happens when Mercury and Venus move through field sectors (large storms develop being the basic answer to that). If people have questions after getting this far, I don't plan to add too much more this week, so we could get into Q and A if anyone wants. However, as I say, the real process of understanding how this theory works is probably a season or two of real-time application. So, watch for a few more small details of the theory, then a daily discussion posting which I will place around 0630 before most start their day, so it's there for the day and I can check it out for questions or comments at various times.

We have examined the atmospheric “field sectors” that are retrograde and associated with Mercury and Venus. Before moving on from that, I had mentioned the characteristics of the Venus (V-) fields but we did not touch on the periodicity of these. Venus orbits the Sun in about 225 days and overtakes the earth once every 1.6 years, or 583.9 days to be more precise. What this means, interestingly, is that Venus returns to a similar position every eight years. In that eight years, there will be five inferior conjunctions and five superior conjunctions. The period is not exactly eight years, but about 2.3 days short of eight years. So, knowing that there is to be a Venus inferior conjunction on January 14, 2006, there were similar events around Jan. 16 in 1998, Jan. 18 in 1990, Jan. 21 in 1982, etc. And you will note by looking at archived weather maps for November and December of 1997, 1989 and 1981 that there were similar mid-Atlantic blocking highs showing retrograde motion, comparable to this year. Venus blocking ridges do not always make such a distinct appearance as the current one, if there is a strong prograde field such as a Mars or Jupiter field in the same vicinity the Venus field may just be washed into the whole zonal flow until the block rises to a higher meteo-latitude. Venus is currently rising towards the ecliptic plane but won’t reach it until around Dec. 28th. The pattern of Venus inferior conjunctions, then, from the current one forward, is that the following year (2007) will have one in August, then two years later there will be one in March (2009), followed by one in late October (2010) and finally a June event in 2012. With the slowly changing dates in each series, there is a long cycle of 253 years where, for example, if you go back from this winter’s January event, you will find that while this sequence drifts back through January into February then March through the 19th century into the late 18th century, the autumn series drifts back towards December then into January. Around 253 years before any given event, the next sequence falls on the same dates. So looking for close Venus analogues involves taking every eight years back for about 64 years (after which you are more than three weeks out) and then going to the date 253 years previous and taking the various years that fall within say 40 years of that on either side in multiples of eight. This will give you a Venus analogue set for comparison. The number crunch for Venus in the CET was not of a very high amplitude, and in fact the same could be said for the Toronto temperature series; Mercury creates a stronger signal for both. I suspect that this is because the Venus blocks move so slowly that second-order variations tend to mask their presence in the data. It is usually fairly easy to find the corresponding atmospheric blocking features but as we just saw with this year’s blocking high, it can create a period of anomalous cold while if it were part of a different regime it might be associated with anomalous warmth. I found that the V-field pattern showed up better in Toronto precipitation, and I have not had the opportunity yet to study UK precipitation data for this theory. Now moving on to the various prograde field sectors that dominate the flow; I should introduce this by saying that, ignoring the retrograde blocking highs already discussed, if the model was comprised only of the lunar events and there were no other planets in the solar system, then the theory would hold that the atmospheric flow would be essentially zonal within the framework of the theory’s grid, and that the lunar events, while potentially fairly strong, would be weaker than the lows we observe now, and the variations in the atmosphere would be rather subdued. There might be ridges and troughs in the upper flow to some extent, but I would expect the earth’s atmosphere to be permanently in the kind of bland, boring weather pattern that sometimes prevails when the flow remains zonal. These field sectors associated with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in particular, are very strong features of the model. I began to discover evidence of them when my original work with the lunar events began to leave a lot of unexplained variations, especially in temperature regimes. There were also additional low pressure areas that did not seem to fit the lunar theory alone. Each of these planets, as well as Uranus and Neptune, apparently generate a complex four-sector field system in the solar system magnetic field. I sketch this out for Jupiter in its current location, and for Saturn in its current location, below (next file, just to be on the safe side, I am using a scanner - generated file). J-fields and S-fields in the solar system, north polar view, as of Nov 2005

Very interesting weather here around Vancouver, BC. Low level fog covers most of the city, although today the sun finally broke through where I live for the first time in about a week. But if you go up to the higher hills and Coast Range ski resorts, it is clear and you're looking down on a vast sea of fog. Temperatures range from 5 C in the fog to 15 C in the sunshine at higher elevations. A classic inversion. As CC was saying, this warm, dry weather covers most of the west. By contrast, a major lake effect snow storm is about to strike in Ontario and the Great Lakes states. This should begin around 06z and last about two days. Some areas will get two feet of snow from the lake effect storm, with winds gusting to 50 mph.

I am eight times away and also under a blanket of low cloud and fog. Mid-day temperature near 7 C and almost calm conditions, 1/16 mile vis in fog.

We have more or less the same weather pattern over western Canada too. A strong high, although not particularly cold at night, fog formed around midnight and just burned off around 0815h (it is 0845h here now). Overnight lows generally 2 to 4 C and daytime highs rather mild near 10 C. Pleasant, as rain is quite frequent here in November.

Nov 19/05 Field sectors The analysis of field sectors began in this research with a full study of how solar cycles can be linked to the interactions between Jupiter and Saturn. This led to a theory of field sectors which states that the "sunspot cycle" of about 10.6 years on average seems to be modulated by the motion of Jupiter through the field sectors associated with Saturn, as well as the motion of Saturn through the field sectors associated with Jupiter. The geometry of the field sectors provides that in most cases, when Jupiter is in the strongest portion of the S-field system, at that same time Saturn is in the strongest portion of the J-fields. So which of the two conditions is more significant for sunspot development was not immediately clear. Since we are more interested in the weather aspects of the theory, I will just briefly summarize what was discovered about solar variations in this study. When the Sun is active and there are more or less regular cycles of 10 to 11 years (this applies to about 70% of the records compiled from around 300 A.D. by Schove), in these cases, there will be two sunspot peaks every 19.85 years, one as Jupiter passes in front of Saturn, and the other when they are opposite one another. Since the field sectors are curved and come in sets of four, two pairs that are relatively close together in space, the double-peaked nature of many solar cycles is possibly related to this finer detail. The other 30% of the time, solar cycles diminish in intensity or disappear altogether for many decades as they did in parts of the 15th and 17th centuries, as well as other periods well back in the past according to what evidence is available (such as auroral records, and some sightings of sunspots). Here, the peaks are not as well correlated to the interaction of Jupiter and Saturn, but the lower activity seems correlated with certain relative positions of Saturn and Uranus or Neptune. What this suggested was that the sunspot cycle could be "shut down" for periods of time because Saturn in particular was not generating a strong field system for Jupiter to disturb. Incidentally, a lot of number-crunching on both sides of the Atlantic has convinced me that there is little weather variation with sunspot activity. I think that the correlations for temperature and precipitation are so low as to be negligible, so I have come to the conclusion that solar variations and weather variations are two independent results of processes in the solar system magnetic field. Solar variations themselves seem to have no direct impact on the weather. Some time later I can post more about this astronomical portion of the theory, but I wanted to get right to the main agenda, the weather-related aspects of field sectors. The main points to remember are these: (1) Field sectors are either "active" or "passive" in this model. An active sector is one that links the Sun to a planet other than the earth (I assume the earth generates fields as well, and these probably play quite a role in the weather variations on Mars in particular, but we are always in these field sectors.) When the earth is in a field sector, the direct effects, usually a ridge or cut-off high, show up over timing line one. The field sectors in atmospheric terms then drift east or west from that point as the earth leaves the field sector in space. (2) For the inner planets Mercury and Venus, the motion of the field sectors in the atmosphere is retrograde. Mercury and Venus are actually in an alignment at this moment, racing towards their "inferior conjunctions" with the earth. (I.C. is the point where the inner planets pass between earth and the Sun). Mercury will be there on Nov 24 at 16z, while Venus will reach its I.C. on January 14, 2006 at 00z. But as of early today, Mercury was passing Venus at about EOD Nov 1. (3) The Mercury and Venus "fields" may have the curved structure of the outer planet fields (see sketch in point 5 below) but these sectors are probably so close together that most of the time we experience them as one combined field. So I do not refer to numbered fields for Mercury (Me) or Venus (V) but simply call the resulting atmospheric features the Me-field and the V-field. At this point in the development of the model, I assume that the Me and V fields oscillate back and forth across timing line one. Since these planets are not always in the earth's orbital plane, the projection of these sectors into our atmosphere varies in latitude. The overall system seems to be that the atmospheric field sectors split near the equator as they spiral into the magnetic field and atmosphere. For the northern hemisphere, I have found that for Mercury, the fields may be as far south as 30 degrees meteo-latitude around Mercury's southern latitude max of -4 degrees, and as far north as 70 degrees for the northern latitude max of +4 degrees. Roughly the same applies to the Venus field sectors although Venus is closer to the earth so the apparent latitude variation is more like -8 degrees to +8 degrees. The equilibrium position for the field sectors is then 50 degrees meteo-latitude. (4) Mercury fields apparently rotate in the atmospheric system between timing line 4 as their eastward limit and timing line 7 as their western limit. Since Mercury rises through the earth's orbital plane around EOD Nov 7 and falls back below it around EOD May 7, the highest point in Mercury's orbit is around EOD Feb 6. Thus, if Mercury is in inferior conjunction after this date by about two weeks to a month, its blocking high will be found over northern Europe as it rounds the Sun after its "superior conjunction." This will be the case in 2006, which is one reason why I have predicted strong blocking over Scandinavia later this winter. The motion of the Mercury field in various winters is quite different for Europe. With a period of 88 days, the "synodic period" of Mercury is 115.9 days, which means that every year, the inferior conjunctions of Mercury fall about 17 days earlier than the previous year. You can visualize, then, that the periods 20-30 days before Mercury's I.C. (when the field sector will be over Europe) each year after 2006 will see an earlier winter appearance of the block, and at a lower latitude. The effect shows up quite clearly in an analysis of the January CET series 1658 to 2005: reducing the data series to a complex 7-year cycle (the actual is 6.58, and the data are arranged in blocks of either 6 or 7 so that from a starting point the steps are 7, 13, 20, 27, 33, 39 and 46 yr), we find an almost perfect sine curve of January temperatures ranging from a minimum of 2.8 in the case closest to 2006, to a maximum of 4.2 in the second year after that. We'll leave our introduction with this information, and get into more details as real-time situations evolve. Right now, the Me-field is stretched out across the western and central Atlantic. I believe that parts of it retrograded past France and Iberia about a week to ten days ago. As Mercury is currently rising, its blocking will move generally northwest towards the eastern arctic of Canada. This will show up in terms of dramatic storm development next week off the east coast of North America. Meanwhile, the Venus field block is probably embedded in the current high over the UK and is probably the feature expected to retrogress across the Atlantic in the next two weeks. Eventually, this high pressure will translate to Greenland, as Venus rises above our orbital plane around Dec 18 (at EOD Dec 7). Venus field blocks are typically large circular highs that seem to circulate mainly below-normal temperatures until they finish their retrograde motion, then on the rebound eastward they tend to be warm. This is probably more to do with atmospheric dynamics than any transfer of heat energy from the magnetic field structure. Once again, we'll deal with this Venus field sector in more detail in real time. The one general comment I can add about both Me and V fields is that as they retrogress, it is a lot easier to see them in isolation when the planets are above the earth's orbital plane (the reverse is true in the southern hemisphere). The effects of retrogression at lower latitudes is bound to be masked by the constant subtropical jet stream and a westerly pattern, so that finding the retrogression may be a matter of some fairly sophisticated techniques like the Hovmoller diagram technique which isolates retrogression within this westerly flow. When the effect goes closer to the poles, the field sectors are more likely to separate from the westerlies or any other field sectors, and thus show up as cut-off highs or omega blocks. To keep the files manageable, I will post this now and begin describing the outer planetary fields in the next session. Look for that later this weekend. I would like to lay down a basic framework, even if it means simplifying a fair amount of complexity, so that we can get into the details by looking at real-time data. Then after the winter is over, we can return to the theoretical framework having seen some of the details in active weather patterns as an orientation to how the theory works in real time.

Continuing with the field analysis now, there is a very significant concept that we need to introduce here to make general discussion clear for weather-oriented readers as well as any astronomers who get interested in this theory. This concept is meant to simplify or clarify location of planets in the solar system for those who don't have a strong foundation in astronomy. Astronomers use a system of "right ascension" or celestial longitude to locate objects in the sky in terms of their east-west position. These systems work roughly as follows (relax, we're not going to use either of them). Right ascension divides the sky into 24 hours and begins with the vernal equinox. At that point (in the modern epoch) where the Sun is located around March 22nd, the right ascension is said to be zero hours and from there, north-south meridians are drawn around the sky, so that what I've defined as the northern max position is around 6h R.A., the autumnal equinox is about 12h, and the southern max position is about 18h. Now, as far as celestial longitude, that is at right angles not to the equator like right ascension, but to the ecliptic plane, so it varies slightly from right ascension. It also uses degrees, so that R.A. 6h would be 90 degrees longitude. Now before I introduce the clarifying terminology that I use, I should for the sake of completeness mention that in astronomy, the north-south aspects are handled by two corresponding systems. When you're using right ascension, you then speak of north-south location in terms of "declination" which is distance from the celestial equator. Therefore the declination of the Sun at the winter solstice is 23.3 degrees south. However, its celestial latitude is zero. Celestial latitude runs along the ecliptic plane so the sun's latitude is always just about zero. I say just about because the Sun actually bobbles around slightly due to the gravitational influences of Jupiter and Saturn in particular. These variations are very small in terms of even the minutes and seconds of celestial latitude. Now, the clarifying terminology that I find essential to making field analysis easily visualized for weather-oriented readers is that of "earth-opposition date" or EOD. Essentially, any object in the sky, but with greater relevance any object in the solar system, will have an EOD defined by taking its position (in R.A. for the sake of clarity) and considering at what date the earth would be in "opposition" with the object, or in a straight line between that object and the Sun (the concept is not necessary for Mercury and Venus but could be used for them). To give an example, right now Jupiter is on the far side of the Sun, and its EOD is approximately April 25th. Since Jupiter moves about one-twelfth as fast as the earth, its EOD will change by one day every twelve days of earth time. We had our 2005 opposition with Jupiter on April 3 and we will next pass Jupiter on May 4, 2006. Jupiter was behind the Sun (actually a little above its disk) on October 22, 2005. At that time, Jupiter was located at EOD April 23. The convention that I use (in common with most astronomers) for depicting the solar system is the view from above the north pole of the earth (and most of the other planets, Uranus more or less rolls along in its orbit and its poles are oriented at a large angle to the orbital path), so that as you see below, EOD January is near the top of the diagram and EOD July is near the bottom. This diagram shows the current locations of the four large outer planets. In this research, Pluto is not mentioned because data analysis has failed to find any significant temperature or precipitation peaks in phase with it (which is a way of saying that at least for the Toronto data that have been extensively analyzed, some significance can be seen for even Uranus and Neptune, but as I'll document in a later segment, Jupiter has the largest signature in the data, and it's quite a large one). LOCATION OF THE OUTER PLANETS, EARTH AND MARS AS OF NOV 16, 2005 ................................................................................ ............................................ ................................................................................ ............................................ ......................................................o......................... ............................................ .....................................................Saturn..................... ......................................... ..............................................\...............|........................................................... ... ................................................\...EOD....|............................................................. ..................................................\...Jan....|.............................................................. ................................................................................ ............................................ ..............................................................Earth..Mars....... ....................................... ...................................................................o..o......... .......................................... ..............................................................*................. ........................................... .............................................................Sun................ ......................................... ................................................................................ ............................................ ...........................................o.................................... ............................................ .......................................Jupiter.................................. ....................o................... ................................................................................ .....................Uranus............. ..............................................................................\.............................................. ...............................................................|...EOD.......\................................................... ...............................................................|................ ...\.......................................... ...............................................................|....July........ .....\............................................ ................................................................................ ............................................ ................................................................................ ...........o.Neptune.................. the diagram is accurate to direction from the Sun but compresses the scale somewhat, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are really about 2, 4 and 6 times the distance from the Sun of Jupiter. Most of these planets have fairly circular orbits, when compared to Mercury, Pluto and some of the asteroids, which have eccentric orbits in the order of .10 to .30 (this basically means they have elliptical orbits not circular). Mars is quite a bit closer to the Sun in EOD August and September (about 1.4 times the distance of the earth to the Sun there, and about 1.9 times in EOD February and March). But the other outer planets have only minor eccentricities in their orbits. Jupiter is also a little closer to the Sun in EOD September than in March. Saturn, like the earth, is closest to the Sun in EOD January. Saturn just passed its "perihelion" and will be in opposition on January 27, 2006. At the slow pace that Saturn is moving, it is now at EOD January 25. So for now, just familiarize yourself with this frame of reference, which makes our discussion of certain concepts of field analysis a lot easier than it would be if I were trying to use "right ascension" as my frame. The next session, to be posted in a few hours, will talk about field sectors that are associated with the planets, and how these relate to the atmospheric system being used in this theory. As I say, the field sectors move with the planets, but they are not linear and also there is a complexity to them which moves beyond anything that you might anticipate if you're familiar with astrology. I should mention here (as good as anywhere else) that as far as I can determine, both the western style of astrology and Chinese astrological concepts that are apparently based somewhat on Jupiter, have no relevance to this theory or for that matter to anything else. The concepts involved in conventional astrology talk about the significance of birth date, linear alignments of planets, the Moon and the Sun, and even concepts of right angled lines between these. None of this is directly used in this theory especially when it comes to cause and effect. I went to the trouble of reading some astrology "texts" to compare notes, and I didn't really find anything there that I would want to add to the framework being developed here. Meanwhile, there are aspects to this theory which have no part to play in astrology as outlined in these texts, especially the curved nature of the field sectors. So, I just wanted to go on the record here as saying that I have no particular interest in astrology as practiced, and I would imagine that if there is any significance to it, that lies in some kind of minor overlap with the physical frame of reference in this theory, but I have never really seen any real-world significance to it. In particular, I can think of people I know who share birth dates and who have entirely different personalities and whose daily "horoscopes" would not be likely to overlap. That part of astrology in particular seems entirely spurious to me. Anyway, I won't touch on this again, but I didn't want anyone, skeptic or enthusiast, to confuse my research with astrology. I perceive the cause and effect in this theory to be actual physical processes such as magnetism or the known processes in the atmosphere, and not mysterious supernatural forces.

Nov 16/05 Introduction to Field Analysis (note to reader -- this is part of a series of sessions designed to familiarize readers with the new theory of astro-climatology. It is recommended that new readers start at the beginning of this thread.) Today, I just wanted to make a brief introduction to the second stage of the theory, now that we have had an introduction to the first stage, lunar events. There are a few basic concepts that I will outline here today which are the general foundations of field analysis. Here, we are talking about sectors in the solar system magnetic field which rotate with the various planets as they orbit the Sun. The first point to be stressed is that these sectors are components of the outflowing solar wind and in each case represent variations in solar heat output of about 1-2 per cent at a maximum. Their effect on the earth's atmosphere (viewed as explained earlier as an extension of the magnetic field) is apparently due to their persistent influence on given areas of the atmosphere over weeks or months, which allows the development of the meteorological processes familiar to all of you in terms of ridges and troughs. Since there are many field sectors at play, the effects are cumulative so that a number of weak to moderate effects can be all added together for some portions of the atmosphere. The second main point to stress is that field sectors associated with the two "inner planets" that orbit closer to the Sun than the earth, are responsible for retrograde motion in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the rest of the field sectors for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the outer planets will be generally prograde or will drift eastward in the atmospheric system. Due to time constraints, I am posting this general statement and I will continue with a second file in a few minutes. -------------------

Sunny, 7C, light winds (and eight time zones behind, so it's 1 pm here). _________________________________________________ For those of you still in the clear, have a look for Mars near the almost full moon. By about 9-10 pm it should be easy to find, a bright object that has a slight reddish tint (the moonlight washes out some of the red you would see otherwise), located below the Moon. From Mars, look to the left (east) and you'll find Aldebaran, a red-tinged star that should appear about half as bright as Mars, then further left and lower, the familiar Orion. On the other side of Orion, you can locate two fairly bright stars, the "twins" of Gemini (Castor and Pollux) and then Saturn off to their left. Any night you have clear skies this week, notice how high the Moon is around midnight. It will peak at one of its highest declinations of 29 degrees on the weekend.

Astronomical Agenda for the period Nov 15 to Dec 31 2005 This table lists the major "lunar events" as discussed in previous files in this thread on the new theories of astro-climatology. The table is arranged by date (left margin) and time in UTC or z time (scale across top of table). The events are then listed in the table in the appropriate location. ^^-----02------04------06------08------10------12------14------16-----18------20------22------ Nov 15............................MaC............................................... ............................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 16..Full........................................................................ ................................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 17..................A........................................................... ................................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 18.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 19..................NMax........................................................ .............................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 20.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 21.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 22............SC................................................................ ................................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 23.............................................................................. ..........RC.................................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 24.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 25.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 26.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 27.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 28..................SpC......................................................... ............................................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 29....................................JC........................................ ................................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Nov 30................MaO........................................................... ..................A........................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 01.............................................................................. new............................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 02.............................................................................. ......................................SMax..... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 03.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 04.............................................................................. ..VC............................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 05........................perigee............................................... ............................................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 06.............................................................................. .......................................RO...... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 07.............................................................................. ..UC............................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 08.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 09.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 10.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 11.......................SpO.................................................... ................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 12.........................MaC.......................JO......................... ............................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 13.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 14.......................................................A...................... .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 15.............................................................................. .....Full......................................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 16............NMax.............................................................. ............................................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 17.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 18.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 19................................................SC............................ ................................................ ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 20.............................................................................. .........................................RC..... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 21.............................................................................. ................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 22.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 23.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 24.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 25.............................................................................S pC............................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 26.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 27..................JC....MaO................................................... ............................................... ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 28.............................................................................. .................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 29...........A.................................................................. ................................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 30....................................................................SMax...... .............................................. ___________________________________________________________________________ Dec 31.......new.................................................................... ............................................... (Jan 1/06: SO event) ___________________________________________________________________________ These are the major "lunar" type events that we will be monitoring during the next six weeks as the theory is expanded to include the field sectors. I have included the timing of the lunar perigee, which does not generate its own event in the system, and the weak VC (Venus conjunction) and UC (Uranus conjunction) events. There are also VO and UO events in the system but I have not shown them for clarity. Now, to build a little more theory now that we have some concrete examples to work with, the intensity of complex events is not derived from a simple addition of intensity levels, but after studying how such events unfold in reality, I have used the formula of adding the strongest intensity to half of the next strongest intensity and one-third of the next strongest, etc. In effect then, complex events will be stronger than single events, but their intensity builds only moderately from the foundation of the strongest event. We do not have any really coincident lunar events in this period, but the full moon on December 15 is close to the N Max and the new moon on Dec 31 is close to the S Max. These will probably turn out to be double-centered strong lows near the timing lines. When the events are more like 18-36 hours apart, the situation is usually one of having two lows sharing one upper trough. The formation of a secondary seems to be best indicated at around 12-18 hours of separation in the timing. As we are going to discover by studying actual events, this lunar-based astronomical agenda is only about half the story in terms of using the model to analyze low pressure areas. The other half of the story will be revealed in a few days' time. The field sectors in the SSMF generate complex energy-wave formations as well, and these are interactive with the lunar events. I will deal with these major field sectors before the month of November is finished, so that by December first we will be able to start looking at daily weather patterns through the perspective of this theory. So right now, you're in the intermediate position of having access to half of the timing and intensity data for the model, although there are a lot of details that remain to be addressed. I think the best way to proceed is just to take the theoretical foundations and spend a whole season examining actual events. This will probably be a better way to handle questions about how things relate in the model, and by the end of this winter season I hope you will have the basic concepts well enough understood that perhaps we can start to deal with questions about details and application to forecasting. I'm sure that you can anticipate some of the possibilities as well as the potential limitations of this method already. The next set of theory sessions will get into the field sectors and how they apply to the model. If you have any questions so far, either PM me or raise them on the thread. Anything along the lines of "I just don't see how this can work" I can already answer in general terms by saying that this is a theoretical framework that is extensively researched with relation to the data from the vicinity of timing line one, so for that region at least I can stipulate that anything presented as a hypothesis here has already been tested out. I am currently assessing how things fit together in the vicinity of timing line three. So for now, we'll keep tabs on how these astronomical events play out but keep in mind that there is a second set of energy peaks to be discussed yet.

(part two of lunar events session) The physics or cause and effect behind these postulated lunar events is still somewhat of a mystery to me at this stage, but I have reached the following conclusions. Before I list those, I think you'll agree it would be quite useful just to know these events would happen, even if we had no good explanation for them. I visualize the system as follows. The earth's atmosphere is an extension of the magnetic field and that is an extension of the solar system magnetic field. A system of nine timing lines is constructed, as we've already discussed, and these connect the north to the south meteorological poles, which are essentially the locations of the magnetic poles. The atmosphere is then visualized as a directional field system within that frame of reference. All of the remarks that follow apply to the northern hemisphere, the reader can make the necessary adjustments to the southern hemisphere as required. All of this part of the model and theory apply to the moving westerlies in the mid-latitudes. Systems moving westward in the subtropics or tropics are less completely studied in this research even today, but at the time when this part of the theory was developed, there was no attempt made to discuss events outside the mid-latitudes. Lunar events are defined to be those astronomical events where the Moon aligns with a significant source of gravitational force or energy. These include the Sun, the galactic equator (encountered twice as southern max and northern max), the larger planets and the larger fixed stars which happen to lie within 10 degrees of the Moon's orbital path. Let me just discuss the situation that applies to other massive and nearby stars further afield from that path, such as Canopus in the n.h. or Alpha Centauri in the s.h. -- most of the candidates for possible inclusion in the model are either apparently too far from the orbital path of the Moon to produce the required potential for interference, or are too close to the galactic equator to be separated out in the data. The key concept to remember here is that the Moon passes through an alignment with each of these sources twice in one lunation. The most obvious examples of that already discussed are new moon and full moon, and southern max and northern max. It may not have been obvious yet, as it was not to this researcher for a year or two, that if there is going to be a significant event when the Moon passes Jupiter, for example, there will be another one when the Moon is opposite Jupiter. Thus, the complete timetable of significant fixed events, listed in general terms, would include the following list, using the letter short forms for each source of the gravitational energy impacting on the atmospheric system: (Gal. eq.) N Max, S Max (Reg) RC, RO (Spica) SpC, SpO (Ant/Ald) A, A Let's just note that these will occur in the order of N Max, RC, SpC, A, S Max, RO, SpO and then A. The convention adopted is that since Antares and Aldebaran are virtually opposite one another, their events are just simplified to the designation A. To give some idea of how intense these interference waves are for each of these fixed events, I list the following levels of intensity, with 10 being a maximum storm intensity. N Max and S Max peak near 7 RC and RO events peak near 5 SpC and SpO events peak near 4 A events peak near 3.5 You'll see that for Regulus and Spica the events are either "C" which stands for conjunction (where the Moon is seen next to the star) or "O" which stands for opposition, the opposite case. Now that's the fixed schedule of the events that always fall in the same rhythm every 27.32 days. They may have slightly different spacing due to the changing lunar perigee cycle, but in essence this series of events always comes and goes at the same pace every lunar month. I first thought that the RC event, for example, was a resonance of the N Max from upstream, but its timing proved that it was probably being independently generated. The pace of these fixed events is about one every three to four days. The more variable events start with the most dominant of the events, Full and new moon, which are listed as Full, new (peak near and these will occur wherever the Moon's orbital path dictates. In practice, full Moons occur with the N Max in late December, and then occur 2-3 days later than them for each month that goes by, until by late June they fall at new moon. Then the cycle returns through the second half of the year. Conversely, new moons fall at the S Max in late December, and reach full moon in late June. The fact is that the Moon is not always full or new on the same dates of each year; if you examine some data, you'll find that every year, they fall about 10-11 days earlier than the year before, which makes them fairly similar every 3 years. There is a more exact repeat of dates every 19 years. So, this winter, take note, the new moon around Dec 30-31 will also be the S Max event. This kind of doubling up of events is very significant to the model. In fact, the whole question of spacing between events is significant, and this is where the next set of variables, the planetary events, comes in. The planetary lunar events include the following main players: Jupiter (JC / JO) peak energy level 7 Saturn (SC / SO) peak energy level 5 Mars (MaC / MaO) peak energy level 4 In the research, I found some peaks of significance for the UC and UO events, but these are almost like background noise compared to most of the events in the timetable. As for Mercury and Venus, the events are likely to come close to the new and full moons, so that they are usually secondary features of those peaks. Well, this gives some overview of the main lunar events. I did not really finish trying to describe what the cause and effect process is postulated to be. As each of these events occurs, some kind of interference pattern sets up in the earth's atmosphere (seen as part of the magnetic field). This interference pattern apparently sets up nine waves at the timing lines, in each hemisphere. These take on an intensity governed by some kind of equation for mass and distance of the source, as well as the Moon's distance from the earth at the time, so that any events that happen at perigee will be that much stronger than those at apogee. I just wanted to stress that the gravitational force or energy being interfered with by the Moon could be conventional gravitation, and is not likely to have anything directly to do with postulated gravitational waves, which are still being studied in a rather preliminary way by scientists after fifty years or so of effort trying to isolate them. It is also clear that the process is not exactly the same as conventional gravitational force, because the energy levels derived from the study so far do not conform to anything close to M / R squared or even M / R. In fact, the energy levels are closer to something like this (taking away the variations caused by the Moon's distance from earth): Energy level = (Logarithm Mass of generating object) / (Logarithm distance) so that both mass and distance in this energy level model drop off rather slowly. Jupiter and Saturn on this scale have log mass values that are fairly high fractions of that of the Sun while their distance values are on this scale also high fractions of the shorter distance to the Sun. Things get very approximate when trying to fit the more distant galactic objects to the model, but it's clear that the events, if real at all, are being generated by an interference of fairly powerful waves or wave energy that does not lose much of its intensity over long distances. By the end of this series of theory sessions, and based on some of the observations made in the winter to come, I hope to have this equation more formalized and I will present the updated version of it. Perhaps in any discussions that come up, I will also make some advances in this understanding. This session ends on this note, and the next posting expected some time tomorrow will give a timetable of the significant lunar events for this winter period, Nov 15 to Mar 15, so that we can conclude this portion of the theory and move on to the other, interactive portion, which is the role played by the field sectors in the Solar system Magnetic field or SSMF.

Theory Session 3 Nov 13/05 (please note: this is an ongoing series of on-line seminars to introduce a new theoretical framework known as astro-climatology. Interested parties are advised to begin reading from the top of this thread.) In this session, we will discuss some of the basic components of the lunar orbit and the "lunar events" which form one of the foundations of the theory. Before getting to that, I have improved the map used in the last session and I am storing it here so that I can retrieve it for on-line discussions of events later in this series. My intention is to try to give you the basic foundation of the theory within the next week or two, in about four sessions, so that when the interesting winter weather begins to roll out, we won't be restricted by having the theory only half-explained where it's necessary to point to concepts in all of the foundation areas. The order in which I am discussing these foundations will be the same as the order in which my research uncovered them over a fairly long period of time (roughly 1980-1995). -- Blank map for future discussions -- ^^^65........\.XXXXXXXXXXX...................|................................x.......... .................65^^ ^^^^-..........\...XXXXXXX.......................|..................................x...... ....................-^^^ ^^^^-............\.3.5................................|............x...........4.0.....x..... ......................-^^^ ^^^^-..............\....................................|.............X.............\......x.............x...........-^^^ ^^^^-................\..................................|...............X...............\...x..........x..x........-^^^ ^^^60..................\................................|.............X....................\....x.....x.....x......60^^^ ^^^^-....................\..............................|........x.XXx......................\..xxx........x......-^^^ ^^^^-.......................\...........................|.......x..XXXX.......................\............x.....-^^^ ^^^^-.........................\.........................|.........x.XXXX...........................\........x.....-^^^ ^^^^-...........................\.......................|...........x.XXXx............................///..x......-^^^ ^^^55.............................\.....................|......x.x....XXXX............///(50).........x..x..55^^ ^^^^-..........................TL3\...................|...XXX..x..XXXX..///..........................xx....-^^^ ^^^^-.................................\.................|..X/XX.....XXXXXXX.......................xx...xx.-^^^ ^^^^-...................................\...........///|.XXXX..XXXXXXXXX..............xxxx...........-^^^ ^^^^-......................................\...///.....|XXXX.....XXXXXXXX......xxx........///.........-^^^ ^^^50...................................///..\.........|..........XXXX......xxxx.///.........................50^^ ^^^^-............................///............\......|...............X.///x.......................................-^^^ ^^^^-...................../(50)...................\...|.../(45)..X...............................................-^^^ ^^^^-..............///.............................../\|..............X..............................................-^^^ ^^^^-.....///..................................///.....|\..............X.............................................-^^^ ^^^45....................................///............|...\............X..........................................45^^ ^^^^-.............................///...................|........\.......X...........................................-^^^ ^^^^-......................///..........................|..............\X..............XxX............XX........-^^^ ^^^^-.............../(45).............................|...XXXXX.....TL3.\.XxX.......XXX....X...X......-^^^ ^^^^-.....///...........................................|..X...................X.......\\\.........XX...X....X..-^^^ ^^^40....................................................|...X..............X... .................\\...XXX..X....40^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^10W^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The lunar orbit Although I said in my introduction that it would be assumed that people would have some basic astronomical knowledge to understand this new theory, the following information about the Moon's orbital variables is not necessarily that well known. The Moon orbits the earth at an average distance of 384,000 km and describes a slightly eccentric orbit so that every "lunation" or orbit around the earth, it is at some point about 6% closer than this, and at another point about 6% further away. One "sidereal" lunation of the Moon requires 27.32166 days to complete. I am not going to use so many decimal places for most of my descriptions, to keep things fairly user-friendly, but in this one case, just to prevent any needless work on the part of anyone enthusiastic enough to start crunching numbers, I give this important element in five decimals. By "sidereal" (which you pronounce side -ee-real) I am referring to the time taken by the Moon to perform one orbit relative to the fixed background of the stars (even that changes slowly over long periods, of course). You can visualize this as follows. In the winter, as you know, when you look up to the south around midnight on a clear night, you'll see Orion and if you're in a very dark area away from city lights and the Moon is not bright, you'll see the galactic equator or "Milky Way." The sidereal period of the Moon is the time between successive crossings of this galactic equator, or any other fixed point along the Moon's path. The fact that the Moon requires an extra 2.2 days to get back to the moving line between earth and Sun (this line moves with the earth as it goes around the Sun), gives a longer "synodic" period of 29.53 days which is the time between successive new or full moons. And you will observe also that the planets such as Jupiter and Saturn are moving along the same path as the Sun and Moon, the "ecliptic plane" and so the period between occasions when the Moon passes Jupiter, for example, amount to 27.5 days, Saturn more like 27.4 days because it is not moving as fast, and Mars 28.0 days because it is moving faster. For Mercury and Venus, a more complex period emerges because they are always fairly close to the Sun in the sky, so on average the Moon passes them also every 29.53 days. Another important period for the Moon is the time between perigees, which is on the averaqe 27.55 days. What this tells us is that the Moon's closest approach to the earth is a little later in its sidereal orbit every lunation, by about .33 days or 8 hours. This means that in about 8.9 years, the Moon's perigee makes a leisurely circuit of the orbital plane so if the Moon is closest to the earth around the winter new moon as it was last winter, then about four or five years later it will be closest at the winter full moon. The other significant lunar period which impacts on the research on a longer time scale and will be discussed briefly in a later session on long-term change, is the 18.6 year cycle of declination which was apparently known to the ancient peoples and thought to be of some importance by them. This comes about because the Moon does not orbit around the earth right above the equator, but in a plane which is inclined to our equatorial plane (extending out into space) by 5.1 degrees. This creates two points where the Moon's orbit intersects our equatorial plane, the "nodes" and these also move forward like perigee, although about twice as slowly. As a result, it takes 18.6 years for the nodes to make one circuit of the lunar orbit. What this means for us is that the Moon occasionally reaches its highest orbital point around the winter full moon, when it is already high in the midnight sky here in the northern hemisphere. But instead of being where the Sun would be six months later, the Moon is another five degrees above that in these extreme cases, and in fact the winter of 2005-06 is one such time, so we will be noticing the winter full moons are very high up in the sky indeed. I have sketched out the current path of the Moon around the ecliptic plane, which technically is the path of the Sun through the fixed star background. The Moon does not follow this precisely but instead may be found as much as 5 degrees above or 5 degrees below this plane. The diagram is for the sky as seen this month, Nov 2005. Be aware that the Moon (and the Sun) are moving from right to left across this sky background. The planets are also moving slightly, but not enough to matter over the course of one month on the scale of this diagram. The Sun is shown for Nov 15 and its position on this diagram would change by one-twelfth of the width of the diagram, from right to left. The OOO symbols depict the path of the Moon, which can be taken to run 5 degrees above the ecliptic at the "northern max" shown as N Max, and 5 degrees below that plane at the "southern max" shown as S Max. ..........................Galactic...................equator.................... ................ .............................../...................................\....................................................... ............................/........................................\..................................................... ........................../............................................\................................................... ..........................O.N Max....................................\................................................. ..................O.../........O.........................................\............................................... .............O.x..../..........A..F..x..O...............................\............................................. ......O.R....Sat/..............Mars........O...........................\............................................ O-----------/---------------------------------O-----------------\-------------------------------Eq ............./...................................................O................\..........................JupxO......... ........../.........................................................your-.O.........\............Sun@.O......Sp........... ......./...................................................................Ne-..O...\........OA.....(15th)............. ...../................................................................................ ....O................................... ../................................................................................ ...S Max............................... ................................................................................ ..............\.............................. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^note that the Moon (O) moves from right to left. THE MOON's PATH THROUGH THE SKY AS SEEN IN NOV 2005 The main elements of the "lunar event calendar" can be seen on this diagram now. Follow along from right to left, and we'll follow the Moon through one lunation starting where it dips below the equator in the sky. Now this is not the same as making a southward pass through the earth's equatoria plane, because that is inclined at an angle, but in the case of 2005, the Moon's "descending node" is very near that point. The Moon last went through this location around Oct 30, so what we'll trace out is pretty close to the Moon's path through the sky this month. First of all, the Moon passes Jupiter, as well as the bright star Spica, around Oct 31 to Nov 1st. Soon after that, it passes just south of the Sun on Nov 2nd, so there is no solar eclipse. Around the 4th, it passes Antares, a bright red star that always appears low in the sky in the spring and summer months. Soon after this, around the 6th, the Moon passes the galactic equator at a position known as Southern Max in this theory. As I've stressed, this year the southern max position is close to 29 degrees south, its maximum southward declination. (declination is the scale north or south of the equator as depicted above in the sky's frame of reference. The Sun does not follow the equator but instead the ecliptic plane, which as I've explained is within a few degrees of the lunar orbital path sketched out here.) I left out their positions for clarity, but Venus and mercury as of the 6th were both near this southern max position. Mercury will move in front of the Sun later this month, while Venus is edging towards it, ready to pass in fron in mid-January. Shortly after the Southern Max, the Moon passes Neptune, then Uranus. Neither of these planets is bright enough for naked-eye viewing, and at this stage of the theory explanation, I don't include them in the detailed information. If you happen to be reading soon after I post this on Nov 13th, the Moon is now rising up towards the equator and the full Moon position is reached on the night of the 15th-16th, shortly after passing above Mars on the 15th. That full moon position is marked by the letter F. Close to this position (which is opposite the Sun's position in the sky) is another bright red star, Antares. Around the 18-19th, the Moon reaches N Max and will be seen very high in the sky on clear nights around those dates. By the 21st-22nd, the Moon will pass to the north of Saturn, then on the 24th past the bright star Regulus ®, and by the 27th it will be back to the start of this lunar orbital month. When I began my research using some suggestions I had received about the influence of the full moon on weather events in North America, I had little if any warning that any of these other events might prove to be of any significance. Gradually, I was able to find that low pressure areas formed near timing line one in the model on most of the occasions described above. This shows up to some extent in the Toronto temperature and precipitation series, the usual signature being a temperature peak about 1-2 C degrees occurring the day after each event (this due to the lag between timing line one and Toronto's location downstream), and a rainfall or precipitation peak of about 3 times the background. The stage of my research by about 1984 was that, after four years, I had come to the conclusion that some, but not all of the variations in the atmosphere were being produced by these lunar events. Part of my interest in UK and western Europe weather is to study in more detail than previously how this same situation applies to timing line 3 and the weather in Britain. Since London is at a quite similar orientation to timing line 3 as is Toronto to timing line one, I should be able to find similar effects as the pattern is generated over the nine timing lines. I will say a little more about this process in the next posting which will occur within about an hour of this one. To keep the files manageable, I am now going to post this file and start a second half of the description of lunar events.

Rain becoming heavier here -- this is the same weather system that Rich and/or C-coops is looking for tomorrow for his snow. 7 C and winds SE 14 mph.

THEORY SESSION ON TIMING LINES, TIMING NUMBER AND METEO-LATITUDE -- posted Nov 11/05 Kindly refer to previous session for an introduction to this topic. If you start with this session, you are likely to run into concepts that were explained there. If you were able to sketch out the global map of timing lines and meteo-latitude as mentioned, you would have a map that would include the following segment, which I have sketched out in a format that I can use as a blank map later to update with weather system modelling and other notes. I will post a more comprehensive global map in the next session but I wanted to give people something fairly limited but a good introduction, to work on over the next few days. This map segment shows in a schematic way the vicinity of the British Isles and western Europe. The longitude of 10W is the only longitude line shown here, but you might assume a slightly Mercator projection. Since this is meant to be very conceptual and a basic introduction to the local application of the theory, I would not place too much stress on exact map details here. The UK and Ireland are represented by the x symbols on the map, and Iceland is also depicted. The outline of Europe is shown also. ^^^65........\.xxxxxxxxx.........................|................................x...... .....................65^^ ^^^^-..........\...xxxxx............................|..................................x... .......................-^^^ ^^^^-............\.3.5................................|........................4.0.....x..... ......................-^^^ ^^^^-..............\....................................|.................x.........\......x.............x...........-^^^ ^^^^-................\..................................|...............x...............\...x..........x..x........-^^^ ^^^60..................\................................|...........xx....................\....x.....x.....x......60^^^ ^^^^-....................\..............................|........x.xxxxx..................\..xxx........x......-^^^ ^^^^-......................\............................|.......x..xxxx........................\............x.....-^^^ ^^^^-........................\..........................|...........xxxx.............................\........x.....-^^^ ^^^^-..........................\........................|.............xxx..............................///..x......-^^^ ^^^55............................\......................|......x.x....xxxx............///(50).........x..x..55^^ ^^^^-.........................TL3\....................|...xxx...x..xxxx..///..........................xx....-^^^ ^^^^-................................\..................|..x/xx.....xxxxxxxx.......................xx...xx.-^^^ ^^^^-...................................\...........///|.xxxxx..xxxxxxxxxx..............xxxx...........-^^^ ^^^^-......................................\...///.....|xxxxx.....xxxxxxxxx......xxx........///.........-^^^ ^^^50...................................///...\........|..........xxxx......xxxx.///.........................50^^ ^^^^-............................///.............\.....|...............x.///x.......................................-^^^ ^^^^-...................../(50)...................\...|.../(45)..x...............................................-^^^ ^^^^-..............///.............................../\|..............x..............................................-^^^ ^^^^-.....///..................................///.....|\..............x.............................................-^^^ ^^^45....................................///............|...\............x..........................................45^^ ^^^^-.............................///...................|........\.......x...........................................-^^^ ^^^^-......................///..........................|..............\...............xxx........................-^^^ ^^^^-.............../(45).............................|...xxxxxx.....TL3.\.x............x..x...............-^^^ ^^^^-.....///...........................................|..x...................x.......\\\..........x.............-^^^ ^^^40....................................................|...x..............x... ...................\\....x........40^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^10W^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The concepts of the theory which are added to this map are meant to give you a foundation rather than the whole picture. First of all, timing line 3 is depicted, running generally southeast to the west of Iceland, then Ireland, then into France and Italy. Notice how the timing line curves more to the east as it approaches the equator. Also depicted are two lines of "meteo-latitude" namely 45 N and 50 N which intersect their respective terrestrial latitude near 11 W. Just connect the /// symbols to derive the lines of meteo-latitude. These can be thought of as west to east pathways for elements in the model at a defined energy level in the model. In other words, based on empirical observation systems of roughly equal energy level follow these lines of meteo-latitude. Their actual meteorological characteristics may vary also with conventional latitude but these system meteo-latitudes only vary from those by small amounts. They are about 10-12 degrees closer to the equator across North America. This conforms to the observed situation that the rain-snow boundary in winter is often around 37N in North America when at sea level it is often around 45-50 N in Europe. Of course, there are other lines of meteo-latitude around the hemisphere besides these two. Note how they begin to flatten out to the east of Britain -- by about timing line 6 they have finished gaining terrestrial latitude and around timing line 7 they start dropping slowly southward again. When I post the global map you'll see there are some significant modifications to that in eastern Asia because of the topography there. The other concept illustrated in the map is timing number. Any given location on the grid has a defined timing number, and this is an extension of the timing lines. The convention I have adopted for this is to define the timing lines as having their own timing number set to .5 so that timing line 3 has timing number 3.5 -- the same applies to all timing lines. As you read in the first session, there are nine timing lines in total. This means that as you go east from the UK around the northern hemisphere, you'll come to timing lines 4 (in the Baltic area to western Russia), 5 in the Urals or western Siberia, 6 around eastern Siberia, 7 in the western Pacific, 8 in the eastern to central Pacific, 9 fairly close to the Rockies, and then back to 1 near the Great Lakes, with 2 running east of Newfoundland slightly then towards west Africa. So in this system, timing number 9.5 is at timing line 9, and 9.99 increases not to 10.0 but to 1.0 -- there would be no defined location for a timing number lower than 1 or higher than 10. This concept of timing number (TN) is important to the research and the operational use of the model in two ways. It helps to quantify the motion of systems being studied or predicted in a more precise way. It also gives a system-oriented axis for other model elements that may be projected on to the grid. For example, there has been a strong J-field sector over the UK in recent months, according to my research. I can track the motion of this by noting when elements of the J-field cross a given timing number. There is no particular reason for any element to be right on a timing line. The significance of the timing lines is only in the lunar portion of the theory, and states that defined events in the lunar cycle will cross timing lines at astronomical event times. Refer to the map and you will see that timing line 3 is defined as TN 3.5 while further to the east, I have located timing number 4.0 which would be halfway to timing line 4, which is largely off this map grid, just making a brief appearance in the northeast corner of the grid. In a few days time I will have some better maps to show you, but this will give people something to sketch out and, bear in mind, with slight variations to shape the model to real atmospheric flow patterns, the timing lines are 40 degrees apart which means that every tenth of a timing number will be 4 degrees different, so if 3.50 is at 10 W then 3.60 will be at 6 W and 3.70 will be at 2 W. All of them are parallel (in the frame of reference of this grid) and convergent at the north meteorological pole over at 78N 100W. Field sectors may drift around anywhere in the model grid and timing them will be a matter of comparing similar cases from past data. Although this may set up hopes for a cyclical model of forecasting, in reality, the field sectors are somewhat interactive so there are a very limited number of analogue cases. Each case has to be built from its elements and since there is no grand repeating cycle of all major elements (in historical time), there is no way to make a total analogue forecast using this technique. I should also mention that these locations are not permanent over long periods of time. The earth's magnetic field is a slowly changing entity and my research points to slow drifting changes in the timing lines. I have not even begun to sort that out for Europe yet, but for my Toronto data set 1840-present, I have noted that timing line one seems to have been a few degrees further east than its current location (through WI-sw MI-IN-KY-eTN-SC) around 1880-1890 than either before or after, and it may have drifted a little west of where it is now for much of the early 20th century. The implications for century-to-century variations in climate are obvious -- if the north magnetic pole is further south as it was in the 19th century, the whole system will be more distorted and various regions will expect to see greater variations from the long-term average. The 19th century was in fact much cooler in North America than the 20th century. The differences are much less significant for Europe until the more recent postulated global warming period since 1980. For operational purposes, the timing lines may shift in the system because of off-centered major components in the solar system. Therefore timing line 3 is not always found at 3.5, this is an equilibrium position. Its current location is closer to 3.6 than 3.5 and I am expecting it to drift west over the course of this winter. Locating it at any given time is a matter of observing where low pressure systems are at defined astronomical event times. The system was built from surface weather patterns and it is probable that in its final form there will be a nested vertical series of grids that are slightly tilted towards the west. For reasons I will explain in a later session, this implies that the energy creating the lunar events in the atmosphere usually falls into the upper atmosphere in a curved path that, seen from a polar perspective, would imply a slightly curved set of force lines between the Moon and the earth. A straight line would result in a stacked system of low pressure from surface to highest atmospheric levels. This is a grid used for describing and predicting events in the model. So far, we are still building up some knowledge of the theory's frame of reference. This tells you nothing about the events themselves or the postulated theory. The first concept that I uncovered in my research journey from 1980 to the present was the basic set of major lunar events that take place every sidereal month. This leads to the next segment that I will post during the weekend of Nov 12-13 on the lunar orbit and lunar events. So stay tuned for that and also for some higher grade maps, but I wanted to have this interactive map available because I can then block-copy it and use it for anything that comes up later by way of questions or illustrations. As long as you get the basic concept that there is a timing line generally to the west of the British Isles, that it is curved rather than north-south, and that the flow is generally WSW to ENE in the model in this part of the world, that's the main point here. I plan to keep up a fairly slow pace with this theory explanation so that anyone who is following along can absorb one concept at a time without spending a lot of time in any given week. Some may come upon this much later and if you do, I would suggest a fairly leisurely pace. Some of the concepts to follow are fairly detailed and this may require time to digest. Just to review: Timing lines, nine in number, are locations where lunar events are expected to occur. Otherwise they form a foundation for a timing system for non-lunar components of the model. At any given moment, the timing lines may shift in the system due to second-order variations. This drift is usually slow and so within given months the operational timing line positions are fairly constant. At this moment, timing line 3 is closer to 3.6 than its equilibrium position of 3.5 -- it is normal for the timing lines to oscillate mainly in the range of about .7 to .3 in their timing sectors, so they don't often get as far afield as the midway point to the next timing line. This is related to blocking as we'll discuss fairly soon. Timing number is the specific location relative to the timing lines, and is defined by a two decimal location where x.50 is on timing line x. Any value higher than .50 in the decimal position shows a location east of a timing line, any value lower shows a location west of it. Midway between two timing lines, the value will be y.00 where y is the timing line immediately to the east. Meteo-latitude is a concept of system latitude which corresponds fairly closely to terrestrial latitude, adjusted to the system's displaced poles. In practice, it is an empirical system and as such has no precisely defined locations. For most regions, it is higher than terrestrial latitude between timing lines 3 and 8 and lower otherwise, reaching its lowest values relative to terrestrial latitude on timing line 1. The amount by which meteo-latitude exceeds terrestrial in the interval of 3.5 to 8.5 peaks at about 8 degrees near timing number 6.0 but in the narrower segment where it decreases below terrestrial latitude, the difference can be 12 degrees.

I have only one word for rain, and I can't mention it here. Today's weather for Vancouver BC is ... light rain, winds SE 20 mph, temp 10 C, 5 mm past 24h and vis 3 miles, SLP 1019 mb falling slowly.

Hey C-coops, have you met Mike from Canmore yet? Vancouver BC -- cloudy, dry at my location, rain just to my west, 10 C and light S winds.

I will post my local (Vancouver BC Canada) weather for 19z or so each day that I can, just to give you something to contrast and compare. My lat 49.2 N, long 123.0 W, 120 m asl. Today's obs temp 6, dew point 6, rh 100%, light rain, wind E 14 mph, 3 mile vis in light fog. SLP 1024 mb. 'orrid. 6 mm rain past 24 hours.

This seems like as good a place as any to repeat my qualifier, stated in the previous thread (theory intro) on this forum. I do not seek to challenge anything already established in meteorology in this research. Textbook meteorology, and for that matter, climatology, proceeds from the very necessary empirical starting point which says, okay we understand the physics of the atmosphere, we understand the patterns of weather that form climate, but how do we analyze and then predict weather events in real time, because this is what people are looking for meteorology to do, to give them advance notice of changes in the weather. As far as processes in the atmosphere, these are already fairly well understood and my theoretical approach is meant to provide more of a timing and locational frame of reference than an alternative to these processes. So you're not going to be reading something later on about how vorticity doesn't exist or lapse rates are unimportant or anything like that. Whatever you already know transfers over to this framework and the main additional attribute that it may provide is a better sense of timing and evolution, which will be especially useful the further out you go since the models run out of accurate developmental details around days 5 through 8 and more or less degenerate towards climatology if an effort is made to drive them too far beyond day 15. When you read this research, it will be clear why this is so and would remain so if the variables in this research are not fed into the models long-term. We are talking here about energy cycles of 3 to 10 days that won't even incubate for day 40, let's say, until somewhere around day 30. So you could have the biggest super-computer imaginable and it would still have no luck anticipating what it doesn't know will happen after time zero. On the other hand, I wouldn't put it past the natural order (or God if you prefer) to have planted the seeds of these developments in the here and now, so that extremely sophisticated models might detect them from further out than I think they could. What I do try to accomplish in this research is to provide an observed set of cause-and-effect hypotheses that have their origins outside the system. When you consider these in detail, you then get the feeling that you are actually just re-visiting traditional meteorology, but with some sort of new dimension as to timing and predictability, because now you can foresee the kinds of pattern development that you always were aware existed and governed weather forecasting in general. Also, another grand qualifier needs to be repeated -- this is just one avenue of research, and even after this length of time and effort, I doubt very much that it forms the total foundation for understanding weather patterns. Ocean currents and SST patterns are obviously a large part of the total picture of global climate. Whether these are causes of climate patterns, or co-dependents of more complex cause-and-effect mechanisms that affect both together, remains to be proven. I suspect the latter, which means that I am not excessively worried about how SST variations would "screw up" the model I am trying to develop -- it's likely they would be handled as part of the overall pattern development. But I am aware that this may not be exactly the case. And if a huge volcanic eruption occurs, or the Sun starts to give off considerably more or less heat, then all bets are off, but I think we would all settle for an understanding of the "normal" climate regime for now. And finally, global warming -- does it matter at all to this model, do you just take the results and warm them up slightly, or do you try to factor in changes in pattern that may result? At the moment, I am taking the resistant approach of saying, global warming of natural origins is part of the model itself, and global warming of human origins will fall into the system as an increase in surface temperatures mainly overnight lows, and as such, won't for many years make that much difference to how the model performs. The wonderful thing about the atmosphere is that it's pretty obvious what's actually happening at any given time, and theories can be tested out. However, I am also at the stage here where I am trying to extend a working theory in one part of the world to this part of the world, and so I expect this process to involve considerable trial and error at first, just as it did for my first attempts in North America. I may find myself regrouping from observed errors, but if these are systematic errors then it should be fairly easy to redesign the details for Europe. That's really what I am doing this for, to study how the broad general theory will play out in detail over Europe. I am also looking at Australia and New Zealand for the rather obscure reason that they are in the same timing sector of the magnetic field as Europe. As time goes on, I will try to issue predictions that are worded in the terminology of this theory. Then you can see whether these are just re-worded versions of conventional forecasts, which in itself would be interesting because it would add cause-and-effect reasoning, or whether in some cases different outcomes were predicted, in which case a better indication of the theory's value would be provided. Just to give you an idea of what might happen to meteorology if this theory became established over a few years (say after 2010) this is how one might analyze the current weather pattern. You'll find this is almost like an alien language, but it's what I have been using for about 15-20 years now. J-4 field continues to cover most of Atlantic with central timing line at 3.35. S-2 field slightly ahead of this near 3.55. Lunar event currently on timing line 3 at 3.50 (A) is weak to moderate at energy level 3. All lunar event evolutions expected to be of normal type as 2.4 day interval from A (3) to S Max (7.5). Therefore expect rapid development especially J-field which phases with S-max at 5:23z as strong J-I / J-III energy peak likely near 3.5 ... this places rapid development zone over Ireland to Wales. S-field rotations continue to send weak pulses southeast with dampening influences of stronger J-field and lunar energy systems. A more phased appearance likely by Monday to Tuesday with J-field progressing to 3.7 and S-field retrograde slightly due to principal components moving east to west at high latitudes. With SO event timed for 7:12z and height fall from J-field evacuation in field-free strong NNW flow held in place by hidden Me retrogression 30W, prognosis near 3.5 will be sharply forced upper flow, and UK may see very volatile system development with all internal J-field elements forced to rotate against strong jet then released in phase. S-field internal energy peak at 7:18z bringing strong cyclonic energy into system suggests possible meso-scale wave entrainment along jet giving ideal conditions for TRW development and narrow wind-max along perhaps southern Ireland to central England axis. I hope that by March, a statement like the above will actually mean something to my readers and that you'll see these elements of the circulation. But what you see already is more than good enough to make accurate weather forecasts, so there is a rather obvious point that comes up from that, the short-range utility of the research can only be small if forecasting is already quite good. We can't go from 80% accuracy to 120% accuracy. Everyone knows there's an upper limit to accuracy that comes from sheer detail, so the room for improvement is generally very small. I think there is potential for this approach to improve model interpretation skills, which is to say, maybe we don't always get the most out of long-term models because we have to imagine the weather elements that will occur in a general pattern. This approach gives you some additional weapons in that struggle. Now, the thing to remember is, I could write this about a period in February or June as easily as the next four days, but the accuracy of the forecast would depend on whether the field sectors were correctly predicted. The processes can be anticipated over the conventional time horizon. That's what excites me about the new approach. Where it is least useful is in 24-hour forecasting where conventional meteorology has a full handle on the processes. However, it does have useful applications to severe weather forecasting, especially in the tornadic thunderstorm or windstorm categories.

NOV 4/05 _ Welcome to the ongoing theory seminar presented by Roger Smith over the winter of 2005-06 ... the intention is to proceed in very small, easily digested steps so that by the end of the process, the reader will have an overview of this new theory and can then use it for his/her own research or forecasting as desired. Any research work that you might then produce in written or electronic form, if based on this seminar, should observe the copyright principle and give appropriate reference to this material. Any concepts or additions/amendments/improvements that are suggested by NW readers over the course of this seminar will then be attributable to those individuals under the same principles. ---------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION TO ASTRO-CLIMATOLOGY -- OVERVIEW A general introduction and overview was posted in this forum several days ago. In this session, I will proceed in a somewhat easier to follow series of steps for the reader. The first order of business is to create a framework within which the theory can be explained. I should point out at the very beginning that the name of the theory, "Astro-climatology" is meant to convey the principle that the theory somehow unites principles of astronomy and principles of climate and weather. Perhaps it should be named Astro-magneto-meteorology, but that's quite a mouthful. One could imagine a school of AMM with competing schools of WAMM and BAMM following along in short order. It's a daunting task for me to try to reduce the theory to one paragraph, but this is required by the conventions of science, so here goes. Astro-climatology seeks to investigate and to some extent explain or predict the variations in the earth's atmosphere through a complex series of hypotheses that relate the atmosphere to the magnetic field of the earth, the solar system magnetic field, the motions of the earth's Moon and the gravitational field in general, especially where it relates to the Moon's orbital motions relative to other objects in the solar system. The general framework for this research as far as the earth's atmosphere is concerned is the "meteorological grid" which is an adaptation of conventional latitude and longitude to the actual conditions of the atmosphere as related to the magnetic field. Any given point on the earth's surface is located at a defined meteo-latitude, which in most cases varies from terrestrial latitude by no more than 15 degrees. And, each point is located at a defined timing point which is based on a system of timing lines. The primary timing line, or "timing line one" joins the north meteorological pole (78N 100W) to the south meteorological pole (78S 80E) and runs south-south east then south-east from the NMP to the equator and crosses it near 10W, from which it runs south-east then south-south-east to the SMP. A system of nine timing lines has been adopted, with successive timing lines further east at regular intervals, so that timing line 9 is immediately west of timing line 1. Specific weather events are then located within this grid and analyzed with reference to it as well as to the conventional grid which still governs the Coriolis force. In very general terms, the theory has two large foundations that are interactive but independent. The first is the concept that the Moon generates powerful waves in the atmosphere which are captured in the atmosphere, seen as an extension of the magnetic field, at the nine regular intervals suggested by the timing lines. These powerful waves occur when the Moon intereferes with gravitational energy and possibly waves emanating from such sources as the Sun, the larger planets, the galactic equator, and the fixed stars along its path. This sets up a lunar monthly tiimetable of weather events that is both regular with regard to some of these events, and slowly changing in terms of others. This explains in part why the process was not observed in earlier research which assumed regular effects repeating at intervals. The second foundation is known as field theory. The solar system magnetic field is essentially a three-dimensional modelling of outflow of solar energy. It must be stressed that no variations in this flow amount to much more than 1 per cent. Long-term variations in solar heat output would be of greater significance than these sectors. However, the sectors are fairly broad and slow-moving, which placces the earth within them for relatively long periods of the year. A cumulative effect on the earth's magnetic field and therefore the atmosphere build up and are projected onto the surface by the structure of the magnetic field's timing structure. The key concept is that whatever cause-and-effect results are postulated as the earth moves through a field sector, the effects will fall on to timing line one. Other effects in other regions are either off-centered extensions of the same phenomena, or moving by-products of them after they are established. In other words, for the northern hemisphere, the "action" is generated over eastern North America, and then it translates mainly downstream towards Europe and then Asia. However, some effects are retrograde, and these circle around the NMP in a complex pattern, or in some cases, they move westward through the subtroipical latitudes. All of this is explored in detail in the theory (later). Therefore, the weather pattern over any time scale for any given location can be conceived theoretically as the interplay between the lunar atmospheric waves and the system of ridges, troughs and other energy flow dynamics of the field ssctors. When I say, "other energy flow dynamics" I refer to a large body of research that identifies and predicts variations within field sectors that have their origin in high-energy interactions between Jupiter, Saturn and the Sun. Apparently these are sufficiently focussed and energetic to tranmit energy patterns from the strong magnetic fields of these planets to the inner solar system. Hence the patterns in what I label the J-fields and S-fields are based on orbital variations of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. There is usually a four-component structure for both J-fields and S-fields, which means that at any given time, we are dealing with four J-fields somewhere around the hemispheres, and four S-fields. Quite often these overlap, as is the case in 2005. The fact that Mercury and Venus have no moons, and that Mars has very small ones that display no impact on the data as far as can be seen at this stage, somewhat simplifies the theory -- the field sectors of these planets are fairly strong also, but without the internal variations. The field sectors of Uranus and Neptune show up in statistical form in the research, but they remain largely uninvestigated to date. They would have some amount of internal variability from their satellites. The asteroids and Pluto have been investigated also, with the finding that there are some possible interactions for the larger asteroids, but not necessarily for small and distant Pluto. In overall terms then, the theory can be summed up as being the effects of the Moon and the solar system magnetic field strucutre on the earth's atmosphere, seen as an extension of the earth's magnetic field. THE METEOROLOGICAL GRID The familiar system of latitude and longitude uses the north and south pole as its fixed points of reference, and this determines the location of the equator. Convention defines the Greenwich longitude as zero degrees, and so points east and west are defined from this. The choice of 180 degrees of total latitude and 360 degrees of total longitude are, of course, entirely arbitrary. In the meteorological grid used in this theory, the system is modified so that the north meteorological pole is set near the North Magnetic Pole at 78N 100W. Although the South Magnetic Pole is not exactly opposite this (it is located near 65S 125E) we place the south meteorological pole at 78E 80E which is directly opposite on the earth's sphere. This defines the meteorological equator to be a curved (w.r.t. the terrestrial equator) line that heads as far south as 12 S near 100 W and as far north as 12 N near 80 E. In practice, the met-equator derived from the real state of the atmosphere is rather subdued and we place it nearer to the terrestrial equator although with the same general curvature. The timing lines in the system run from pole to pole, but tend to curve regularly towards the east until they meet the equator, then towards the west as they head south to the south pole. Timing line one runs from the central Canadian arctic south southeast along the west coast of Hudson Bay into western Lake Superior, from where it goes across Michigan towards South Carolina. It then travels along the familiar path of Cape Verde hurricanes towards Africa, and reaches the equator around 10W. From there, it travels through the Congo and Madagascar on its way between Crozet and Kerguelen towards the south pole. I will post a map in the next session, but I think if you can find a blank map and sketch out the system, you'll probably get a better feel for it than by just looking at a map. The other timing lines, 2 through 9, can be located by dividing the globe into equal segments. This places timing line 3 fairly close to Ireland, into France and the Med. The significance of that fact is that whatever the theory suggests for the Toronto data set located just east of timing line one should have a roughly equal significance for the UK relative to timing line three. In any case, if you take the blank map and sketch on this system, you can then compare what you have to what you know about the mean flow of the atmosphere. You'll notice quite a similarity in general. The mean 500-mb flow over North America shows a trough near timing line one. Over Vancouver where I live at present, the mean flow is about 290 degrees. Back in Ontario where I used to live, it was 250 degrees. For the UK, you'll derive about 240 degrees, which seems about right. Of course, the system that is derived from all this is subject to what I call "reality re-tooling" since this is after all as much an empirical as a theoretical system. So the actual lines that I have derived, especially for meteo-latitude, are adjusted in some places to respect the principles of atmospheric flow around large topographical features. For example, in eastern Asia, the meteo-latitude lines split to some extent around the large barrier imposed by the Himalayas, Hindu Kush and Tibetan plateau. Okay then, this very brief introduction to the grid system will bring this session to a close. The next session in about a week will begin with the promised map and will get into what is meant by "lunar events" and how these were identified and assessed in the research data. I would suggest holding off on questions until after the second session. I think a lot of questions might be answered by the following list of observations on the research. Bear in mind, this all applies to the very limited concept of the "generating zone" of the model over the Great Lakes region as implied by the Toronto data series from 1840 to let's say 1992 since that's about when the theory was up and running. -- most lunar events show a signature of about 1.5 to 2.5 C degrees in the data. Individual events are larger, in the range of 5-8 C degrees, but other considerations make the latitude of all events in the sample set highly variable. So isolating any one factor such as "new moon events in November" will yield a smaller peak of significance. -- this theory was not uncovered earlier for several reasons, many of them accidental. Much interest was shown in lunar effects on the atmosphere in Europe in the 1880s. The data set chosen was that of Berlin, Germany. By unfortunate coincidence, that location lies about mid-way between two timing lines, which would imply a large lag between lunar event and atmospheric response. Also, in the 1880s and 1890s, the climate was undergoing a large natural variation, and my research data indicate that the timing structure changed radically around then for North America. Timing line one was apparently east of Toronto before 1880 and drifted well to the west after 1880. I think this all has something to do with the understandable low-significance results of the early research, which then led to a lack of interest in the subject in later years. -- it is widely known that the Moon induces "tides" in the atmosphere on the order of 1-2 mb twice every 25 hours, analogous to the ocean tides. My research has little to do with that fact unless one can somehow link the much larger systems generated in the magnetic field oriented atmosphere with these tides. I have not proceeded along those lines and suspect that the effect is not related. -- one general proof of the concept of lunar effects on the atmosphere can be given as follows. The Moon has a sidereal period of 27.32 days (the 29.53 days between full moons is a result of the extra time required for the Moon to reach the changing position of the Sun relative to its orbit around the earth). Hence in this theory, weather events should be moving from west to east at a speed that would take them once around the earth in periods of 27.32 to 29.53 days. Let's simplify that to 28 days. This implies 360/28 degrees of motion every 24 hours. Now 360/28 is 12.8 degrees. Therefore, on the average, a well-developed low centre should make 12.8 degrees of progress every 24 hours, or 3.2 degrees every six hours. This is very close to the actual motion of systems. One could also see that considerations of which event and the changes in orbital speed of the Moon (it is moving 10% faster than average at perigee) would also show up in the data. This system would be more regular, except that complexities get in the mix -- the timing lines oscillate as I'll discuss later, there is a second set of generating energy waves that is not on this timetable, and redevelopment processes involve stalling of centres with new features forming downstream. Time to clear the room now -- as I say, kindly hold off on questions until we get a little more substance on the table, otherwise I will be asked to go faster than I think is the best speed for this process in general. After all, this has all taken me the better part of thirty years, and there have been periods of false leads or re-thinking concepts so what I'm laying on you is a pretty large body of work. I think it's best if we take it one step at a time and try to link the concepts to weather events in real time. Speaking of which, the recent strong low was the "new moon + JO" event of Nov 2 in lunar terms. I will explain what JO means in the next session when I give you a list of the major lunar events and how they usually size up in relative terms. Maybe you'll guess what it means before then. ___________________________________________________________ NOTE ON THIS THEORY SESSION: All subsequent portions of the ongoing series will appear in the same thread. This will allow later readers who hear about this to start up from this same base and catch up as they wish. I consider the theory to be in an intermediate stage of development. That means it has been substantially tested and it has attained a modest level of completeness, but that work must now continue to develop it globally, since much of what I have done so far relates directly to North America. My work in 2005 on forecasting and research over the UK and western Europe is aimed at providing me with real-time experience of how the theory works. The theory could be used to generate a model forecast, but I consider the current global models to be quite accurate over at least the 3-5 day time frame, and I suspect that many of the processes in the atmosphere predicted by this theory are routinely absorbed into the models by way of the initial data and equations of motion used. Where this theory might have an advantage over other models would lie beyond 5 days in particular. There is no reason why the theory could not be used to generate model maps well out into the future. Studying such output for North America has convinced me that this is feasible. I have not had enough time to do the same thing for Europe yet. My LRF, available on the members' LRF thread, is based on a more general application of the theory. ... and if anyone cares about formalities, Roger Smith is a climatologist by training, a forecaster with 30 years of experience, and 25 of those doubling up forecasting with research into global climate. Born in the UK but resident in Canada from the age of eight onward.

Just wandering through and this point about snow cover -- I think the general flow pattern might develop regardless of the snow cover, but the surface layers would remain colder then deposit more snow if snow remained on the ground from a previous event. Then I think this could eventually prolong and deepen any given cold pattern within limits that would be defined by some definite future condition, if you "catch my drift." Something like a second-order variation that might reduce a temperature curve by 3-7 C degrees for a week to ten days, and 500-mb heights by a much smaller relative amount of 2-3 dm. I suppose you could point to last February and early March as a case where snow cover failed to materialize on a large scale and a potentially quite cold pattern lost some of its bite because as I recall the 510 dm thickness contour made a close pass with the southeast and temps fell to -9 C over some local snow cover but it probably never fell below -2 C wherever snow had failed to accumulate. In a climate like southern Ontario you can get long periods where the ground freezes without any real snow cover and the upper level flow is just so well established that this feedback fails to dislodge a cold pattern. I'm not sure if this is possible in the more delicate radiation balance over the British Isles. Perhaps you can think of a case where the ground froze and temperatures managed to reach low values for a period without snow cover. I don't know of any but that's not surprising, I just know of the more celebrated cases of snow and cold.

Brief reply to one question -- what I'm saying about the magnetic field and the atmosphere is more of a conceptual framework, the magnetic field itself is certainly tied to the earth's crust but what I'm exploring is the concept that the atmosphere at any given time can be modelled as a boundary between the terrestrial magnetic field and the external SSMF. You'll see what I mean when I get into this, whether you agree or not afterwards I can't say. And the point about nine waves being broken up etc, the system under consideration follows an empirical framework which takes the mean climatology into account. I have no obvious practical way to verify theoretical predictions that the system might make about distant past or future events, you can imagine I'd be thrilled if I could demonstrate that the system produces reasonably accurate back-casts of known weather events as well as future events as they come down the pipe. It has been my experience that over North America I'm closing in on that, but as I've indicated, my work over the next few months or years in Europe will be at first directed to investigating how the system should be structured in detail, as I already have a broad framework. The factor that probably wasn't made clear that might help you visualize what comes next is that the short waves are derived from astronomical timing while the long waves are derived from a slowly-changing consideration of where the earth is in relation to field sectors. To give one brief example of today's approaching weather event, the low will be shaped by two sets of variables, one from the lunar orbit and one from internal dynamics of a field sector. The larger background is determined from where the earth lies as of today in the solar system magnetic field. This is why you won't just find nine identical low pressure systems around the globe in each hemisphere. Here's another very basic concept for orientation. The grid being used is essentially the earth's magnetic field and not the terrestrial lines of lat and long -- so the north "meteorological" pole would be around 80N 100W. Although the south magnetic pole is closer to the equator than the north magnetic pole, it makes little difference to the results to place it exactly opposite in Antartica southwest of Perth AU. So you can derive where the "meteorological equator" would lie. I have developed seasonal shift algorithms and otherwise the nine timing lines are roughly equidistant lines of longitude in this system, but they curve more than you might expect, so I'll post a map of this in one of the first sessions. Anyway, if people are patient and take this one step at a time, then I think you'll have a good basis for passing judgment on this concept after about three to six months. As I say, it's fairly detailed but I don't think any given portion of it is very hard to follow. And as for mathematics, it's more along the lines of gravitational theory where you're dealing with a postulated force. In this case it's a postulated reception grid like a person saying, I have a TV set, if I program it for this channel at this time, this is the expected program. So it's mathematical in that sense, and I am developing the physics equations regarding magnetic field intensity. Frankly, there is work for hundreds of people to do if this concept has any merit, it's sort of like back around 1885 in physics when they moved past the ether concept and started to glimpse the first outlines of particle physics. I have the feeling that there is more work ahead than behind in this field.

NOV 1/05 ... About two weeks ago I placed a long-range forecast on the site. Nothing unusual there, everyone does it sooner or later, right? This little article is more about the subject of what can happen rather than what will happen. In other words, this is a discussion of persistence vs pattern change, and (to quote Arnold) things of that nature. And a note of warning, don't start reading this if you have important things to do, because this can wait for a rainy day, so to speak. I go from this rather mundane topic to the brave new world of introducing what my research is all about. Everything in its own time, though. A full explanation would take about 500 times the material in this posting. And I plan to go as slowly as necessary over a long period of time, if people are even interested. If it turns out otherwise, then so be it, but I hope you are as intellectually curious as most of you seem to be. My experience in LRF is almost all on the North American side of the "pond," and over here, we actually have weather that moves (shock and horror). By this, I mean we are used to seeing large departures from normal from one month to the next, and not all of them positive either. Global warming as it is commonly known seems to have set in for parts of North America, in particular, the Canadian arctic where it is undeniably milder now than it was 40 to 70 years ago. For large parts of the southern half of Canada and much of the USA, there has not really been substantial warming. As recently as the winter of 2003-04 there were fairly large negative anomalies in the order of 3-5 Celsius degrees all over the map. Here on the west coast, though, we seem to be in the same boat as the British Isles -- a growing absence of obvious cold months. It all points a finger at ocean currents and SSTs as a prime element of this warming, whether you see it as greenhouse or natural (I see it as partly one and partly the other). When I say the patterns move, I'm referring to the phenomenon that quite often, one month will be well above normal while the next one might be well below. On the whole, persistence still works about 62% of the time (for Toronto, which has a very long period of record, 1840-present) but that's probably a lower frequency than in the CET even before this modern period of almost constant warmth. Some months seem to have a better chance than others of flip-flopping -- February, May, September and December seem to have the habit of bringing pattern reversal. Your typical North American anomaly map will take one of about four basic forms. The first is widespread warmth that emanates from a strong ridge over the Rockies and then tapers down to something closer to normal on the east coast, with colder than normal in the subarctic. This is due to a strong zonal flow. Then, there's either the cold west and warm east, or vice versa, for two more typical patterns. A strong trough is often present at either 100 or 80 degrees W and this determines which of the two is likely to show up. Then the fourth pattern is somewhat analogous to your European blocking. This will be a very mild pattern over Labrador and the eastern arctic, a cool regime over the Great Lakes, and something close to normal or above in the western and southern states. From my admittedly short experience with European patterns (although I have studied them historically), the persistence of North American patterns is usually much shorter. There are times when the patterns reverse two or three times in a two-month period. In my research, which I am hoping to share with you in very small doses so as not to lose the thread totally, perhaps over a year or two, I have been working on the idea that the earth's atmosphere is a continuation from above as well as a response to the conditions below. In fact, I think the forcing from above is probably much greater than is generally accepted in the science as of 2005, in large part because nobody has published very much acceptable material to prove otherwise. My material is sadly in such an extensive series of files and procedures that it is something like trying to teach the inhabitants of one country the entire history and culture of another country in a one-hour TV special. Michael Palin was (is) pretty good at that, and evidently, I'm not. In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I am by training a climatologist and not a meteorologist (such weighty terms for airheads in general) and here in Canada, unless I have a persecution complex, it seems fair to conclude that I have become the Darth Vader of the atmospheric science community. I think there are probably paroled murderers who would stand a better chance of getting a research grant in Canada than yours truly. And if I was an unpleasnt sort of chap, which frankly I'm not, things would no doubt be even more confrontational. If you're familiar with the long-running controversies that attended ice age theory development and continental drift, then you'll have some idea of what the past 25 years has been like for me. But it comes with the territory (no man's land? probably). The thing I really like about interacting with the weather folks in the UK and Ireland is that there are so many of you who have extensive historical knowledge as well as basic meteorology. This is not so much the case in my homeland or the USA, although I have had some fairly sympathetic hearings from time to time as well as the "depart from this domain" encounters. At this stage, I count it as a "sympathetic hearing" if I am not openly insulted or chased from the building by the high priests of the discipline. But I am a very patient person (just like everyone from the Midlands, right? ha ha). Some of the points I was thinking of making in this little ramble would include the following (later on I will perhaps start a separate thread on the theory that I have, and it is mine, Anne Elk, etc etc): (1) I am very skeptical about any claims that global warming has erased the potential for the atmosphere to bring cold and snow to Britain or western Europe. I know it has been a while since you've had this in any great concentration, but I believe that the same could be said for long periods in the past, in fact, 1717 to 1739 was one such period that would have seemed like a lifetime, so imagine the surprise when 1740 rolled around and brought a winter as cold as 1684 had been. Part of the reason for my skepticism is what I recall from Ontario in 1994. We had gone through a number of very mild winters where you might get a couple of weeks of cold and snow but long periods without any snow on the ground which is highly unusual there. December 1993 was quite mild for the most part, and there was no real sign of cold air. Then suddenly, the pattern totally reversed and January 1994 was as cold a month as eastern Canada has ever had, including way back in the 19th century. We had one day with temperatures that were an astounding 28 degrees below normal night and day. So this climatic regime seems to be one of potential extremes as much as overwhelming warmth. I have the feeling that this winter will prove this same point in western Europe. Once the right circulation develops, and snow cover expands to the right areas, the physics of radiational cooling will overcome the lingering persistence of ongoing warmth. And I think this will happen after mid-January this winter. (2) Pattern change, even in Europe, can occur very rapidly. As you know very well, what you need to get a cold spell started is a shift in the storm track to the south of 50N and a build-up of strong high pressure over Scandinavia or Germany. But quite often when this does happen, it's because a large cut-off high in the upper atmosphere detaches from the westerlies and becomes stationary or even retrograde in the higher latitudes. This is completely different from the process in North America, where you need a deep trough and below normal heights. So actually, a regime where heights are above normal is not necessarily a bad sign for later in the season. I have become aware of some processes in the atmosphere that seem to have a predictable cycle, although there are so many that we don't notice them very easily because they are all interacting with one another. To give you some idea of the complexity I am trying to follow, there are at least 84 elements to the research model I am studying, and that's after 25 years of work based mainly on North American patterns. I am fully expecting to learn about more complexity in this proposed 5-year study of European patterns. I have done some less detailed work already on all global regions, but as you can imagine, combining this work with the lifestyle of a political dissident (more or less) makes for a challenging work environment. Also, I am not exactly immune from the aging process. Here again, finding that there are young as well as enthusiastic weather fanatics is encouraging to me. This was the land of Newton and Maxwell, after all, so I'm rather excited by the idea that if I stumble and fall some time in the next decade or so, maybe the work could continue (warning -- don't expect a very grand career to fall into your lap, in fact, if you read the Gulag Archipelago that will be a good start). To return to a more useful point, the research gives me a fairly confident result for high-latitude blocking and retrograde motion which indicates one minor attempt to set up blocking in December and a much more promising window of opportunity after mid-January. Therefore, I think the chances are good that a pattern reversal could take place at just that right moment in time when the Sun is least able to fight back by melting the snow as it managed to do several times in the later blocking episode last winter. And that's the whole key, really, getting the first snow cover to persist long enough to reinforce the second one, and so on. That's the other side of the system that I would need to have much more computer capacity to model, the feedback from the earth's surface into the lower portions of the atmosphere. (3) I began this whole long research process by investigating lunar cycles, and that was because somebody I worked with in 1980 said, "you know, every time there's a full moon or a new moon, there's a big storm on the east coast (of the United States)." I went from there to discover any number of interesting cause and effect possibilities that are not covered in the literature. I see other people in the UK are working on some of these concepts too. As it happens, I reached a certain limiting point with this work in 1985, then discovered that the earth's Moon was actually part of a much larger system of cause and effect that had many other components much further afield in the solar system. Essentially, we are adrift in a sea of magnetic waves that surround the Sun, but which have something of a predictable nature due to the motion of the larger planets. This is not entirely my own exclusive research, but as far as I know, it is not very widely accepted in modern meteorology, which may all change in a few years' time because I think a lot of things can be predicted on this basis. Some time down the road, I will explain some of this new thinking, then try to find a safe place to hide from what is bound to be a barrage of questions, if not outright rejection, but it's worth having a go, because what this science needs is a theory of cause and effect. By that I mean, why is the weather the way it is on this date in 2005, when it was completely different on this date in any other given year (perhaps with one or two exceptions). The Sun is not the most likely source for those variations, because even the largest solar cycle involves only a 1% variation in solar energy output. Believe it or not, I think I can answer that although at the same time, the answers would be just a foundation for another generation of research. In any case, good readers, I promise to lay out some of this material at your feet as time goes on. I will try to organize this so that anyone who's interested and reasonably well informed as to basic astronomy and meteorology can easily follow. There is nothing very complex about any of this if you already have that foundation, no e equals mc squared sort of stuff. In fact, I think our distant ancestors may have known some of this material and I wonder if before the scientific age even began, perhaps we lost parts of this knowledge somewhere. Both in Britain and in the southwestern states, ancient monuments seem to ascribe a cultural significance to the declination of the Moon, which is not exactly a hot topic in today's world. As you may know, the Moon is currently approaching its maximum declination of almost 29 degrees, a fact which you will observe at the next few full moons, especially the one in mid-December. You can't see it now because of the Sun, but the declination is very low with the winter new moons -- on Dec 31, if the Sun went dark, you would discover the Moon 5 degrees below the Sun's disk rather than close to it or over top of it. With this I shall begin my introduction to the research, and I hope when the time comes you will enjoy exploring some of these new ideas. For now, I'll leave you with this very basic overview. The new theory is known as "astro-climatology" which is not meant to endorse astrology in any way, it's a word with the same kind of significance as "astro-physics." By this frame of reference, I do not mean to imply that there is anything wrong with conventional meteorology. You will observe that conventional meteorology is an empirical science which seeks to explain processes in the atmosphere. This theory adds the dimension of a cause and effect framework, a time-sensitive set of "hypotheses" which seek to predict the nature of atmospheric patterns on all time scales, although the very long time scales are actually already well understood (Milankovich cycles etc). The basic theory states that the earth's atmosphere functions as an extension of the magnetic field, which itself is a reflection of changing conditions in the solar system's magnetic field. The earth's Moon creates an interference pattern in this structure which, to simplify considerably, involves the creation of nine recognizable waves in the mid-latitude westerlies (in both hemispheres). The source of these waves appears to be gravitational interference when the Moon moves between the earth and one of several significant objects such as the Sun, large planets, galactic equator, or massive stars near the ecliptic plane. These nine wave systems are constantly moving and re-organizing. But there are other major components of the system, the Moon's influence is only one of several key components. The others include the structure of "fields" within the solar system magnetic field. These account for both progressive and retrograde motion at various latitudes. And within these fields, there are internal variations which can be linked to the planetary systems. Not surprisingly, the J-fields and S-fields (systems of field sectors linked to Jupiter and Saturn) have a prominent role. The inner planets are also prominent and account for much of the retrograde blocking patterns. Field sectors linked to Mars are fairly weak but persistent due to the relatively slow speeds at which the earth overtakes Mars. I'll explain in a subsequent posting one day how persistent patterns over western Europe can be linked to some of the above. Every one of these factors, isolated in the research, shows a fairly weak signal in the order of 0.5 to 1.5 C degrees, but with so many factors at different time scales, all sorts of combinations are possible. The basic theoretical research was done around 1988-93 using the 150 years of daily temperature and precip data for Toronto. Somebody else might one day investigate all of these cycles using the longer British data set, but I've already done samples to position my research variables over this region. My current research focus is to bring this rather rudimentary portion of the research up to the same level of reliability as I find for my work over North America. It's too early to even speculate where things stand in this regard, but I'm encouraged by the summer forecast I made in May and so far by what I was thinking about October and the first glimpse we have of November. But I know there will be bumps in the road, this is by no means a finished work. I could see this taking another 25-50 years even if a hundred people get on the case with some real funding and support. Tropcial weather patterms have a relation to this theory that is based mainly on the motion of the inner planets through other field sectors. This is apparently why so many hurricanes follow similar paths, although the exact dynamics change from one case to another. I think you can see where this would be fairly easy to visualize in the general, and fairly complicated in the real world of the earth's atmosphere. But keep this in mind -- our science is way, way behind almost all the other sciences. Astronomy can predict the eclipses of the Sun and Moon to precision that would make meteorologists dizzy. Nuclear and atomic science, even genetics, are far more advanced than meteorology. Organic chemistry is similarly much more advanced and precise. In fact, if we built bridges and airplanes the way we make weather forecasts, a lot of people would refuse to get on a plane or drive a car. I think of meteorology as being like a typical early 18th century science, all empirical and practical knowledge in a general absence of proven theory. We like to think that we are far advanced over the mid-20th century, but in reality, while the models are better nowadays, the actual understanding of the earth's atmosphere is only moderately advanced. You'd be surprised how little forecasting skill from reasonable prog charts has actually advanced. I have results from operational forecasting in 1977 that show the same day to day skill level as today's forecasts (such as, average 24-hour point temperature error, 1 C degree). And there is no accepted cause and effect theory in meteorology. Say what you wish, at least I have one to place on trial. Let the inquisition begin!! May I suggest that people who are interested in this at all, simply absorb this new perspective for now, and await a series of more detailed postings on this theory down the road, perhaps one every week. Then I'm sure you'll have comments, questions, etc. I'd rather not get into a really intense discussion of this right away, just because I know from previous experience that people need more structure before any really sensible exchange of views would be possible. I can guarantee you, there are any number of huge surprises in store if you're patient, and if I don't become a patient! Any suggestions from the "powers that be" about further structure for this project would be welcome. Just PM me as to where you think this discussion should go, and how much you think people might want to see per week. I would think one topic every seven days, accompanied by real-time examples. Within a year, you'll see the method to my madness, or the madness to my method. Who knows which it will be? (3)

This account is most appreciated. Bear in mind that this storm was during the time of the Julian calendar (the Gregorian was adopted in Britain in 1752). Therefore this storm occurred around Dec 7 in terms of how we think about the seasons and months. If you're not sure about this, I checked the lunar calendar and this proves that the account is in OS dates. The new moon would have been around Dec 7, 1703 in modern time. I like the look of Professor Manley's map, but I wonder if the low wasn't a little deeper, perhaps 948-950 mb, from the force of the wind. Anyway, they probably blamed the storm on global warming. The CET series shows that 1703 was in the midst of a long-term period of natural warming.

Based on my research into long-range atmospheric trends, and sparing you the technical basis since much of it is either already present in other forecasts where similar, or unpublished research material where applicable, this is my seasonal forecast for the UK November included, but December to February for the winter "seasonal" period. NOVEMBER is likely to continue very mild with frequent wind and rain events as a succession of strong lows will follow a strong jet stream oriented WSW to ENE and at times SSW to NNE across the UK. While there are bound to be one or two minor breakdowns of this pattern, the strong lows will continue to form and will strike on the average of two every week. Two of the stormier periods (after Oct 31-Nov 1 which may involve the remnants of Wilma) will occur around the 16th to 20th and near the end of the month. Brief wintry episodes would be most likely around the 10th and 25th. Temperature anomaly values will average 2 degrees above normal, and rainfall will be generally 125 to 175% of normal. DECEMBER may see a more variable stormy pattern with the possibility of a deeper trough developing near 10-20W. There could be one or two extremely strong storm events in this month, around the 15th and 30th of the month in particular. If there is any minor easterly blocking, it would be likely to occur around the first two weeks, but I think this may be more of a radiational cooling fog-out kind of cold spell than a true easterly, with the Russian high staying east of Moscow for the most part. Temperatures for the month may be barely above average because of some spells of cooler stagnant high pressure, but a few days around those stormy periods will probably be near record warmth. Temps to average 0.5 to 1.3 C above normal and rainfall and/or snowfall near normal values for the most part, trending to 200% in NI and Scotland which could see some very heavy rains at times. JANUARY will see a highly variable regime setting up because of the first stages of what I expect will be major high-latitude blocking over Sweden and Finland. This will not be much in evidence in early January, which will be stormy and not far from normal temperatures most of the time. Some particularly strong storms around the 13th-15th of the month will bring some heavy snows to some areas, with heavy rains in the southwest. After this, the pattern will begin to shift as a massive high begins to develop over Scandinavia. I would expect a period of much colder weather with several snowfalls in late January. The overall monthly temperature anomaly will be a little below normal as the regime shifts mid-month. Precip will be variable and snowfall above normal although mostly later in the month. FEBRUARY could turn out to be one of the colder months you have seen in recent years, as I expect this northern European block to remain in place most of the month. Snowfalls will be frequent for the UK because of this easterly flow interacting with a still active Atlantic storm track that by this point will be running mainly across extreme southern England, France and Belgium into southern Germany. We'll have to see, if this develops, how much influence global warming can have on such a pattern. Without that factor I would be expecting some fairly large negative monthly temperature anomalies in the range of 3-4 degrees below normal, and fairly light precip values that are above normal for snow and below for rainfall except in the southwest. That's my forecast as of now, if I see changes in patterns that require an update, I will issue those on this thread.

I'm watching live TV coverage from the southwest coast of FL ... Naples is being buffetted by 80 mph ENE winds, not much visible damage (although it's dark, of course). At Marco Island south of Naples, the reporters are standing outside on the beach, nothing is happening since they are in the eye (1030z). They report breaks in the overcast and a light east wind, the exact centre of the eye is just south of them. From radar, would estimate the worst winds now are 125-130 mph across the unpopulated Everglades, but Everglades City where no reporters are located for safety reasons, probably being subjected to 110 mph winds at present. If this cat-3 hurricane had to come ashore anywhere, this is probably the best place as far as minimizing damage. Key West reporting significant flooding but wind damage minor and the storm already subsiding. Very strong winds now approaching the Miami-Dade area (call Horatio) and the east coast is about to be hit by cat-1 winds. Opinions seem to vary about how quickly Wilma will subside in intensity during this brief land traverse. Since the forward speed has picked up to almost 40 mph in the past hour and the eye is contracting, I think there may be a brief period with 90-110 mph winds around Miami in about an hour, but conditions won't be worse than that further north closer to the track because the storm will then weaken to high-end cat-1 by 15z with the exit point being between Palm Beach and Vero Beach. So, all points north of Miami to Vero Beach will likely see about the same intensity of winds later this morning (local time).