Winter 2009-10 - The next tidal peak is Jan 30, 2010, which is a full moon that is VERY CLOSE to the earth. While the full moon before that is not AS CLOSE as that one, it will occur on Dec 31, and the perigee (the moon's monthly close approach to the earth) will occur Januranus 1th. It won't be The Big Tide, but we are getting closer. The Dec 31 FM is also a lunar eclipse.
The tides peak at 2 in the image above, and there is usually a precursor event at the position marked 1, two weeks before 2, but this year, the storms we are seeing the first week of January 2010 are occurring two weeks early, as I had forecasted. If you read the section below on 1980 and the Tides, you will see me mention that Fergus Wood discovered that storms tend to peak in intensity two or three months after the peak (the second and third anomalistic months after the peak tide); these are marked 3 and 4 above.
In relationship to this, you will note that Mt St Helen's was awaken with earthquakes in March 1980 when the tides peaked then, but it didn't erupt until the new moons in May and June, 2 and 3 months later than the peak. SO, if we were to see activity at a volcano near the tidal peak, we could look two and three months into the future for possible eruption dates. This year the tides peak near Feb 1, so that would mean April 1 and May 1
In general, you can expect a precursor event, an event at the peak, followed by four wet months and climactic events 8 and 12 weeks later. That will be April 1 and May 1 in 2010. April can be snow or tornadoes, or both.
Feb 28 Full Moon, sun conjoins Jupiter
While it is true that storms have historically gotten larger at months two and three after the peak, I don't want to downplay the importance of the second peak this year. If you look at the perigee table you will see that the perigee of Feb 27th preceds the full moon of Feb 28th by just 18 hours. Looking at the planets for Feb 28, we see that the sun cojoins Jupiter at the full moon. Late on March first, the moon conjoins Saturn and opposes both Venus and Uranus. The moon/Saturn conjunction indicates earthquakes. (Notice that Mercury is near Neptune and Venus is approaching Uranus and catches it on March 3rd.)
***Flooding Events***
The next thing that should concern people is the fact that in the US, Europe and Asia there is record snow cover on the ground which will melt and need a place to go when the temperature warms up. This will be bad enough in itself, but then you add the fact that we still have more wet weather ahead of us, and you have a REAL MESS. If the snow melts slowly, things will go more smoothly, but if we have a rapid warm up, or if the snow all of a sudden turns to rain, on top of the snow melt, we could see bad river flooding.
***Sept 2010 Hurricane, March 2011 Blizzard***
Note especially that just as storms peak at the second and third anomalistic months after the peak in a given year, they do the same thing from year to year. If we imagine the graph to be depicting years instead of months, you can see that we would expect storms in years that follow the actual peak. This time, those years are 2010 and 2011. In March of 2011, the perigee is the same hour as the full moon on March 19th, very close to an equinox.
Below you can see part of a table that shows close approaches of the moon to the earth. The list runs from 1985 to 2012 and was generated in 1980. What is being indicated is that the Dec 2, 1990 perigee was the closest of that period. See
Southern California Storm Damage - January 10, 2005, and Mitch: The Deadliest Atlantic
Hurricane Since 1780 (Oct 26 - Nov 4, 1998).
In terms of the graph we are now at 7, but you can see what I mean about the progression from year to year, and March of 2011!!. One thing to remember about late March storms in the US - that can mean either snow or tornadoes. Before March 2011, the tides will peak on Sept 8th, in the heart of the 2010 hurricane season.
Look for a moment at 1992 and 3 on the chart above and notice that the tides peaked then on Aug 27 and March 8, while in 2010 and 11 these dates are Sept 8 and March 19. If you do a search, you will find that
Hurricane Andrew happened in 1992, and that '
The Storm of the Century' happened in March of 1993, both near the time of the peak tides. Notice where it reads "Official blizzard warnings were issued two days before the storm arrived, as shorter-range models began to confirm the predictions". I had written about the storm long before that.
** In 2010, the tides peak the second time on Sept 8th, the same time when hurricanes peak statistically. I am suggesting a repeat of 92 and 3 with a hurricane this fall and a Major Blizzard in March. As we have seen this January, don't ever count out tornadoes.
OK, I am not sure when the blizzard will be next year, I just said March because that is when the tides peak. But I invite you to look at a chart that I generated in the 1980's by comparing a table of monthly lunar perigee distances and a table of new and full moon times. The chart shows
times when the perigee coincides with the syzygy (new or full moon). It was generated with the same 1980's 64KB Commodore technology as the tidal chart above, so you will want to check the dates against an online source for that info.
In the chart, you can see that I am highlighting tidal peaks that occur near Jan 3 when the earth is also closest to the sun. This causes the tides to be even higher. The highest tides would theoretically occur on a new moon on Jan 3. See Jan 4, 1912 in the top row of the chart, and note the progression of the dates on the top row. In addition to that I am highlighting years with tidal peaks similar to 2010.
Here is a page entitled The Digital Snow Museum that you can use to compare to the dates on the chart. Note especially that when the tides peak in late January early in the year, they also peak in the middle of Atlantic Hurricane season later in the year. You can also check the times on the chart against those.
Please go to the perigee calculator above and look at 1979. You will see that the tides peaked Jan 28 and Sept 6th. If you look at the perigee-syzygy chart, you will see that 1979 most closely matches 2010, as to dates of the tidal peaks. 1917 is also close, as is 1948. You can see that 1992-3 is similar to 1988-9. See Feb 1979 in the Snow Museum.
The perigee-syzygy chart covers 108 years and has 25 northern hemisphere winter tidal peaks marked. It is 18 years and 11 days between the dates at the top of the chart. Take a look at an article about
1979 then one about 1993, and notice that the 1979 article points to 1917-18 and 1949, while the 1993 article points to 1989. Here is another article that is also about the 1993 storm. My point is that articles about big storms are pointing to past storms that turn out to occur at the same place in the tidal peak cycle.
Here is a copy of a page from a 1986 Farmer's Almanac that is the second page of an article entitled 'America's Ten Greatest Snow Storms'. It mentions 1895, 1899, 1940 and 1978, all of which saw tidal peaks in winter months in the northern hemisphere (when the earth was close to the sun). That accounts for 8 of the 25 peaks on the chart.
You may not recall 1979, but that year Hurricane David raked the east coast of the US before Hurricane Fredrick made a dead hit on Mobile Bay. We went there the next year to help build the cities back. See a picture in the 1980 Tides section above from June 1980.
Above you see 1899 noted as a blizzard year, and if you know hurricane history, you know that the Galveston Hurricane occurred in 1900. Look at the tide peak dates for 2010 and compare them to 1899 and 1900. The perigee was 7 hours away from the full moon in October and 13 hours away in September, when the Galveston storm happened. In 1900 there was a solar eclipse in May, this year there is a lunar eclipse in June, so we are one year off on the eclipse cycle from 1900. You will find that Jupiter conjoined Uranus near the 1900 hurricane AND the 1928 Lake Okechobee Hurricane AND again this year.