Moon phase makes things predictable and predictable things can ease our minds. A full moon can amplify a storm. A new moon will make a storm turn north, as it just did with Hurricane Harvey. A hurricane moving in a particular direction will turn north when the new moon crosses the equator. The weather guys never factor that in for us to ease our minds. It doesn’t matter unless the system stalls and delays a few days. Then anything is possible. The day the moon crosses the equator heading north, it has maximum thrust carrying systems northwards, which means the storms will stop heading west and head north. The storms to watch will be two weeks afterward at full moon. That’s this Wednesday. Remember, it’s a cycle. A cycle is a good thang. Don’t be afraid, be alert, be mindful and be prepared. This too shall pass.
Full moon …. New moon 2017
Sept 6 ……….. Sept 20
Oct 5 ………… Oct 19
Nov 4 ………… Nov 18
Dec 3 …………. Dec 18
After analyzing Atlantic hurricanes that occurred between 1950 and 2007, University of New Orleans professor Peter Yaukey recently concluded that hurricanes form and intensify more often following a new moon than during other phases of the lunar cycle. That’s good to know.
It’s also good to know that when the moon crosses the equator heading north, it means the storms will stop their westward motion and head north. If you remember this is a cycle, you’ll have less anxiety when you listen to the weather reports.
Hurricanes and the Full Moon Effect
During a full moon, the sun, Earth and the moon are arrayed in a straight line, intensifying their gravitational effects on the planet.
At that time, both the sun and moon are tugging on Earth. This pull can cause a bulge in the ocean that makes high tides a little higher than at other times of month. These tides are known as “spring” tides, so-called because high tides spring up higher than usual.
A full moon will not directly affect the weather, but when the tides and weather are working hand in hand, the situation can be exacerbated and cause problems on shore. If you have winds that are blowing the water on to the coast, then those are situations which bring the worst marine environment, including coastal flooding and higher than normal surf.
When the highest tides are occurring, you can get higher-than-normal water levels caused by the wind hitting the coast in a certain direction. Tidal forces might influence the intensity of storm systems, and there have been some correlations between storms occurring and being stronger during a full or new moon.
From The Standard London, England Sept. 16, 1869, a letter from Lt. Stephen Saxby, Royal Navy: I discovered some years since that neither the moon nor the sun ever crosses the earth’s equator without causing atmospheric disturbance, and especially in the winter months. The disturbance is greatly intensified when the new moon in perigee happens at such periods. Now, the new moon was in perigee (that is to say, the moon was at the part of her orbit nearest to the earth and is a direct line with the sun), on the <date of storm>, thus combining three powers of attraction of the two bodies. About 30 hours afterwards the moon crossed the equator, and hence arose the continuation of atmospheric disturbance (as it always does in similar cases) which often takes so long to subsided. The consequences of this disturbance are interchanges of air currents, to the disturbance of temperature, inducing condensation of vapor, resulting in partial vacuums, which the rushing in of air tends to equilibrate; hence we have in and from these, gales and showers of a strength and quantity perfectly inestimable, except from comparisons.
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