The Power of a Lunar Eclipse

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

This is a Philosophical concept integrated with Weather.

The Lunar Eclipse is a powerful event. Throughout ancient texts there are many writings and legends referring to these as "power days". People could supposedly develop psychic abilities and such when a full moon Lunar Eclipse was present in the sky (they happen about once every 6 months). Theoretically, if the Moon is radiating a special kind of energy to the Earth on this day like the legends say, along with plants and animals, the Earth's vibration should be at a higher rate on these days. The cool this is, through weather this idea can be tested and possibly verified with science. We actually have a way to measure the Earth's vibrational rate in weather through Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar Cell circulation. If these cells are in a state of expansion, the Earth is vibrating at a higher rate. If there is a state of contraction, the opposite is occurring. Expansion is higher pressure at the center, Lower at the top. Shown below is a map of average global pressure in December:

These High/Low pressure areas reflect where the Polar Cells (Low pressure in centers) and Hadley Cells (High pressure in the centers) are most reflected. If the pattern for Lunar Eclipse years matches an amplified version of this, the theory is correct. That is, on a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse, the moon is actually sending a "power charge" toward the Earth.

A Lunar Eclipse is coming up on December 10th... a few days from now. The current reality is that the pattern which will be present on this day is a great fit with what we would expect to see in a state of global cell expansion. Reflected by the pattern (500mb), all of the major High/Low pressure centers are amplified well beyond their mean. And this occurs everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

What's incredible is that when you compare all Lunar Eclipse's in the past with what you would expect to find on that date in these terms, the same pattern repeats again and again. This is a constant in weather showing that the Moon can play more of a role in the state of things than we probably give it credit for! And for those who know what I'm talking about..... The next Lunar Eclipse is June 4, so enjoy these next few days while you can!

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

This pattern usually lasts a few weeks after the Eclipse, leading to an overall warmer than average look in the mid-latitudes. So for applicable weather value: This shows a strengthening or persistence of the +AO/RNA pattern through most of December. Since 1948, 84% of Winter Eclipses featured this.

In most cases the strengthened Hadley/Polar Cell pattern snaps back hard in the other direction 3-5 weeks later, but this could depend on a few other things, as the further out you go the less accurate these methods become.

[Ginx snewx]

This pattern usually lasts a few weeks after the Eclipse, leading to an overall warmer than average look in the mid-latitudes. So for applicable weather value: This shows a strengthening or persistence of the +AO/RNA pattern through most of December. Since 1948, 84% of Winter Eclipses featured this.

In most cases the strengthened Hadley/Polar Cell pattern snaps back hard in the other direction 3-5 weeks later, but this could depend on a few other things, as the further out you go the less accurate these methods become.

If you remember Chuck I have been touting the moons influence for years. It is amazing the number of historical storms that have occurred with a day or two of the new and full moons.

[WxUSAF]

What is the physical mechanism that allows lunar eclipses to influence weather systems?

[donsutherland1]

I respectfully disagree with the conclusion. Lunar eclipses have coincided with amplified patterns and also de-amplified ones. Some recent de-amplified ones were associated with the March 14, 2006 and February 9, 2009 lunar eclipses. The above dates concern December-March lunar eclipses, but the same holds true for other ones, too. For example, a de-amplified pattern was present during the August 6, 2009 lunar eclipse.

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

If you remember Chuck I have been touting the moons influence for years. It is amazing the number of historical storms that have occurred with a day or two of the new and full moons.

This makes sense, as expanded Cell's result in a tighter wedge where they meet (Example: Winter Hadley/Polar Cell interaction ~40N).. and this would theoretically be the cause of stronger storm systems at these locations. The exact horizontal location of this can't really be pinpointed through the method, but it's a very good general guideline. If the globe is in an amplified state, stronger storm systems should result in interaction zones.

What is the physical mechanism that allows lunar eclipses to influence weather systems?

What is the physical mechanism for anything that occurs weather? We can explain pretty well how effects produce other effects, which result in other effects, etc.. and it's easy to get lost in this... but what is the underlining cause?

An example is El Nino/La Nina. The mechanisms behind what a certain state produces in terms of tangible weather is known, but what is causing the Nino/Nina events to occur? There are many theories, but nothing I've seen can exactly pinpoint a source. The same is true with gravity waves and anomalous AAM periods (Earth's rotation moving faster-slower). These things influence everything else in the globe down the line, but what influences these things?

Off hand I can name several possible variables... planetary magnetic field interference, gravitational impacts of a close/far proximity of celestial bodies, or possible blockage of various space energies. A case can be made for any one of these, but our conventional science is currently not advanced enough to speak in absolute terms about any of this stuff simply from a lack of knowledge. That's the beauty of formulating new theories.. these issues don't have clear cut answers because they've never been given serious thought. But the data fits.

I respectfully disagree with the conclusion. Lunar eclipses have coincided with amplified patterns and also de-amplified ones. Some recent de-amplified ones were associated with the March 14, 2006 and February 9, 2009 lunar eclipses. The above dates concern December-March lunar eclipses, but the same holds true for other ones, too. For example, a de-amplified pattern was present during the August 6, 2009 lunar eclipse.

Hey Don... Different times of the year produce different results, and this probably has a lot to do with the tilt of the Earth at a given time. I used Winter months for this but included all dates from the Fall to Spring Equinox (Earth tilt >0 degrees) in the overall comparison for the research. Obviously, being 2 weeks from the Winter equinox causes the effect to be very amplified now. More so than, say, during October or March.

For the purpose of this thread I'm showing the direct effects of a Lunar Eclipse on that exact day, since this is the only range at which models are accurate enough to paint picture right now, but it was said that the effects are felt from the day of the Eclipse to ~3 weeks after. And this time lag makes sense, as energized Hadley/Polar Cells in the upper latitudes would take time to full sink and impact the surface. Shown below are the 11 Lunar Eclipses that have occurred in December since 1948, and the resulting look when the pattern manifests strongest (+ ~10-20 days):

+10D

+20D

Because the Globe is in a constant state of circulation, the same anomaly areas won't be present in the same places every time: but a general rule certainly applies... that is, the mid latitudes see Higher than normal pressure, the upper latitudes see Lower than normal pressure during these times.

Furthermore... The exact timing of strongest expanded Cell effects varies from 0 days to +3 weeks, and this doesn't necessarily mean that the same pattern is present through the entire period, because many other factors are also at work with regard to planetary alignment. This is just one thing of many, but a good signal considering..

[AfewUniversesBelowNormal]

When you look at the effect of each lunar eclipse that happened around the Winter solstice plus Time (+0-3 wks), the smoothed pattern comes out to be something like this:

Obviously, major variations occur with more specific data pinpointed around one or two dates, but in the general terms of Earth Cell amplification, the signal is a good one.

[PhineasC]

Looks like Chuck has joined the crazy moon weather camp.

[okie333]

When you look at the effect of each lunar eclipse that happened around the Winter solstice plus Time (+0-3 wks), the smoothed pattern comes out to be something like this:

Obviously, major variations occur with more specific data pinpointed around one or two dates, but in the general terms of Earth Cell amplification, the signal is a good one.

Am I the only one who sees a giant eyeball?

[WxUSAF]

What is the physical mechanism for anything that occurs weather? We can explain pretty well how effects produce other effects, which result in other effects, etc.. and it's easy to get lost in this... but what is the underlining cause?

An example is El Nino/La Nina. The mechanisms behind what a certain state produces in terms of tangible weather is known, but what is causing the Nino/Nina events to occur? There are many theories, but nothing I've seen can exactly pinpoint a source. The same is true with gravity waves and anomalous AAM periods (Earth's rotation moving faster-slower). These things influence everything else in the globe down the line, but what influences these things?

Off hand I can name several possible variables... planetary magnetic field interference, gravitational impacts of a close/far proximity of celestial bodies, or possible blockage of various space energies. A case can be made for any one of these, but our conventional science is currently not advanced enough to speak in absolute terms about any of this stuff simply from a lack of knowledge. That's the beauty of formulating new theories.. these issues don't have clear cut answers because they've never been given serious thought. But the data fits.

Correlation, which apparently is pretty weak in this case anyway, is NOT evidence of causation. There are obvious physical mechanisms for much/most of weather. We have mathematical equations that clearly govern atmospheric motion and respond through forcing mechanisms like solar heating or topographic lift. You've really gone off the deep end here. "Blockage of various space energies"? That's gibberish.

[donsutherland1]

Chuck,

As a lunar eclipse is caused when the moon passes through the earth's shadow/earth blocks the sun from the moon, even as the moon could be at varying distances from the earth (leading to eclipses have varying durations), I'm having difficulty understanding why the moon would exert, for lack of a better term, a "special" influence that does not occur in the absence of a lunar eclipse.

P.S. I hope all is going well for you in your Met. studies.

[usedtobe]

Chuck,

As a lunar eclipse is caused when the moon passes through the earth's shadow/earth blocks the sun from the moon, even as the moon could be at varying distances from the earth (leading to eclipses have varying durations), I'm having difficulty understanding why the moon would exert, for lack of a better term, a "special" influence that does not occur in the absence of a lunar eclipse.

P.S. I hope all is going well for you in your Met. studies.

Don, I'm with you. I also don't see why it would and also hope all is goig well with Chuck and am glad to see him posting again.

[turtlehurricane]

Chuck,

As a lunar eclipse is caused when the moon passes through the earth's shadow/earth blocks the sun from the moon, even as the moon could be at varying distances from the earth (leading to eclipses have varying durations), I'm having difficulty understanding why the moon would exert, for lack of a better term, a "special" influence that does not occur in the absence of a lunar eclipse.

P.S. I hope all is going well for you in your Met. studies.

I second this as well, Chuck's statement about a power charge towards Earth during an eclipse is unphysical.

Also, this stuff about Earth's vibrational energy doesn't make any sense. Sounds like a homemade kook theory.

[Lee]

I second this as well, Chuck's statement about a power charge towards Earth during an eclipse is unphysical.

Also, this stuff about Earth's vibrational energy doesn't make any sense. Sounds like a homemade kook theory.

Didn't that society on that movie "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" believe in that?

[NorEaster27]

Chuck what happened?

[Stebo]

The power of the what...?

[Vandy]

That's the beauty of formulating new theories.. these issues don't have clear cut answers because they've never been given serious thought. But the data fits.

Absolutely. And it's always fun to discover a new correlation that you feel is significant. But without at least a hypothesis as to the suspected cause of the correlation, you don't really have a theory.

I have to agree with the prevailing opinion... the only tangible effect the lunar eclipse has on our climate system is the temporary reduction of global irradiance.

[phlwx]

When you look at the effect of each lunar eclipse that happened around the Winter solstice plus Time (+0-3 wks), the smoothed pattern comes out to be something like this:

Obviously, major variations occur with more specific data pinpointed around one or two dates, but in the general terms of Earth Cell amplification, the signal is a good one.

Am I the only one who sees a giant eyeball?

The first thought I had when I saw that was "This is CBS."

[isohume]

That's the beauty of formulating new theories.. these issues don't have clear cut answers because they've never been given serious thought. But the data fits.

Can I see your data, methodology and statistical analysis? Specifically, your correlation/comparison statistics?

[wxmx]

Absolutely. And it's always fun to discover a new correlation that you feel is significant. But without at least a hypothesis as to the suspected cause of the correlation, you don't really have a theory.

I have to agree with the prevailing opinion... the only tangible effect the lunar eclipse has on our climate system is the temporary reduction of global irradiance.

Reduction on solar irradiance over the moon's surface, not the Earth's... you are confusing it with a solar eclipse.

[Vandy]

Reduction on solar irradiance over the moon's surface, not the Earth's... you are confusing it with a solar eclipse.

Oops! Though to be fair, moonglow is a measurable component in Earth's energy balance.

[Mallow]

When you look at the effect of each lunar eclipse that happened around the Winter solstice plus Time (+0-3 wks), the smoothed pattern comes out to be something like this:

Obviously, major variations occur with more specific data pinpointed around one or two dates, but in the general terms of Earth Cell amplification, the signal is a good one.

Not sure you can draw any real conclusions with such a small sample size.

(The date file is attached, FYI)

loony.txt

[Roger Smith]

I think I can shed some light on this (ha ha, the moon is currently coming out of eclipse).

People may remember that I posted some material on lunar-atmospheric signals and other related research. In that research, I analyzed temperatures at both Toronto (1841-present) and more recently the Central England set (1772-present). There are small signals at winter full and new moons. I was not able to detect significantly stronger signals (as subsets) when the Moon was aligned for eclipse, although there was some slight tendency to a stronger peak. But when I say "stronger peak" this would be about 2 F deg or 1 C deg at late December full or new moons. There is also a cycle with lunar declination, which overlaps in late December but is on a shorter period than the "synodic" by 2.3 days. This means that full or new moons and the declination cycle decouple at a rate of about 1.3 days per half-month. This leads to a situation where you see flat-topped double peaks in the temperature signals at some distance in time on either side of the ideal (perfectly overlapping) lunar events, until you get two separate peaks showing up. Going forward in time, the January full moons in later part of the month tend to have a much stronger temperature peak with the northern declination max that occurs (by then) 2-3 days ahead of full moon. Going back into November, it is more of a double peak (with the northern max being the later of the two).

The main point I would wish to make, however, is not that there's a signal in general, but that the research suggests strongly that there is a much larger signal that is restricted in areal extent, and that this often misses any given "collection point" in a data analysis, either to the north or to the south in a grid that for research purposes is necessarily oriented to the magnetic rather than terrestrial poles (so actually in time the energy centres miss either to northwest or southeast). This would be true of any point selected. My conclusion is that the lunar energy peaks created in the atmosphere are on the order of 500 kms in diameter and you can get a better sense of how strong they are by dividing data into similar circulation patterns, then finding cases where your data target point happens to be in the firing line for storm development. The real signal strength is probably about 8-10 F deg or approximately 5 C deg, it shows up weaker in a number crunch of all data because it's entirely missing from at least two thirds of the cases, so really you're seeing it at less than one-third of its actual strength.

One indication of how strong the signal may be is that for the Irish data from Malin Head (northern tip of Ireland) where a storm track is often nearby, there is a 15-mb pressure drop at December and January full and new moons (from the daily data there 1973-present). This is a pretty large signal for something supposed to be a figment of the imagination.

Also I would mention my study of storm dates for significant northeast U.S. winter storms and also Great Lakes storms. There are clusters around the full and new moons as well as the declination maxima especially in late January and February, showing a non-random distribution. This was extensively discussed on the forum (in part going back to Eastern days) and is not an observation limited to myself by any means.

Now, Chuck has introduced this topic more in terms of large-scale patterns for the hemisphere. I've viewed it more on the scale of an interference pattern of events that are constrained to fall into a pattern created by some other set of forcings or drivers. I think there are lunar-atmospheric interactions going on but the position of large-scale features may have a lot more to do with interactions between the atmosphere and the solar system magnetic field sectors that are modulated not by the Moon but by planetary positions, notably of course Jupiter and Saturn, but with some contributions from Mars, Venus and Mercury notable. These can be demonstrated by temperature profiles in the synodic years (the periods between oppositions or conjunctions) of these solar system members. I have these ready for display and discussion for both of my data sets, but have been really busy on other things and not quite ready to rumble with them. But there are some rather significant looking signals in these periods (for example, the Jupiter synodic year of 398.9 days) indicating that the long waves in the atmosphere may be modulated by earth's passage through field sectors. To over-simplify, we get an extra shot of solar energy when we get in between the Sun and Jupiter, for example, and also on the far side of that alignment suggesting that the Sun's energy output is modulated also with the same sort of tidal effects that we see in our oceans from the Moon (near and far side bulges).

These are not huge signals taken alone, but given that there are quite a few of them acting independently, they have the potential to interact in a way that begins to resemble the range of temperatures normally encountered in our atmosphere. Then the place of the lunar energy in all of this is like the place of passengers on a roller coaster, they are basically along for the ride. This theory is of course applicable to long-range forecasting and is basically the foundation for my comments in my LRF that we can expect a gradual trend down in temperature anomaly through the period Dec-Feb with the major cyclogenesis coming near new and full moons as well as the declination peaks when we get into later winter and the time separation starts to matter. We also have a third major energy peak in play with the Moon aligning simultaneously with Jupiter and Saturn at times that are generally 4-5 days before the declination peaks. These energy peaks are also discernible in the temperature data. They happen to be overlapping although April-May 2011 was the actual date of precise overlap of the two sets. Now of course, the weather in April-May 2011 was fairly bland other than the odd F-5 tornado.

Anyway, I'm glad to see somebody else is looking at these sorts of factors in weather research, and I believe it's a matter of time before some acceptance takes place. My own task is to try to bring some order to a mass of research data that is already showing significant peaks and helping to produce LRFs that are probably no worse than any other technique at this point (not sure if that's a ringing endorsement, but there you have it).

[WidreMann]

If you remember Chuck I have been touting the moons influence for years. It is amazing the number of historical storms that have occurred with a day or two of the new and full moons.

Which is not surprising given that new and full moons occur 24+ times a year and if you include the four days on either side, plus the day itself, that's 10 days out of every 28 day lunar cycle that something interesting could happen. Chances are that a not insignificant number of storms are going to happen near a new or full moon. If, say, 80% of good storms happened around a new or full moon, then we might have something to talk about. My guess is that it's not anywhere near 80%.

[WidreMann]

Looks like Chuck has joined the crazy moon weather camp.

Or he has realized this forum is trash and has become a troll extraordinaire.

[Ginx snewx]

Which is not surprising given that new and full moons occur 24+ times a year and if you include the four days on either side, plus the day itself, that's 10 days out of every 28 day lunar cycle that something interesting could happen. Chances are that a not insignificant number of storms are going to happen near a new or full moon. If, say, 80% of good storms happened around a new or full moon, then we might have something to talk about. My guess is that it's not anywhere near 80%.

Check out this , particularly the data sets provided by Nine Inch Nails. Add Irene, Snowoctober, and a bunch of others since this post. The historic storms which correlate well is interesting.

http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?/topic/107348-moon-phases-and-extreme-events/page__hl__moon

[isohume]

Looks like yesterday didn't pan out too well...in fact, mostly zonal or low amp ridging conus-wide. We'll have to see how well this theory does next year I suppose.

Btw...why would the moon be CONUS-centric anyway?

[#NoPoles]

i enjoy the fact that some people can still think outside the box and aren't stifled by closemindedness...good to know our mathematical forecasting models are 100% accurate...

thank goodness for pioneers like Galileo...

[wxlady]

I think it's best to not rule out anything. It's food for thought.

[AtticaFanatica]

i enjoy the fact that some people can still think outside the box and aren't stifled by closemindedness...good to know our mathematical forecasting models are 100% accurate...

pretty bad strawman