Land of the long white cloud ...... pfffft!

Volcanoes in elevated states of unrest ... torrential rain and flooding in Australia and in Mozambique ... extreme cold and snow in the UK .... power outages in South Africa

 .... and what are we having here in Aux?

Glorious summer weather!

Land of the long white cloud ..... pffft ..... they don’t know WHAT they’re talking about! 

Blue skies, sunshine and a full moon are the order of the day!

Auckland Anniversary Day, which was celebrated yesterday, was NO exception. It was magnificent. Half of Auckland moved out to their baches and the other half of New Zealand moved in! I participated in a huge market in Mission Bay .... got to see all my craft market buddies AND an air show AND ate Churros and French Crepes! 

Yum!

The gorgeous photos I’ve been getting of the full moon bought to mind an interesting individual called  "The Moon Man”, aka Ken Ring who gets himself a lot of media attention. He’s a self-proclaimed weather guru who uses the Lunar Cycle to predict the weather .... and earthquakes ..... a YEAR in advance!

Some say his science is bogus but plenty of people swear by it.

Every year since 1999 he’s published an Almanac predicting on a day to day basis what the weather is going to do here in NZ.  He added an Australian Almanac in 2006 and an Almanac for Ireland in 2010.  His methods are NOT supported by mainstream science and often stir up controversy.

Despite all this, his New Zealand Almanac is amongst the Top Ten Selling Non-Fiction books most years.  Hmmmm ...... does that mean New Zealanders are more gullible than most, or that Ken Ring’s weather forecasts are pretty accurate?

He also predicts earthquakes based on the position of the moon. On his website he says that when the moon (in particular the new moon) is at perigee (closest to the earth) it may affect the Earth's mantle and alter the magnetic field. On 3 September 2010, on a weekly radio show he hosts, he stated on air that there would be floods, winds, snow and an earthquake in South Island sometime during the following week. 

Early morning sun-rise

That very next morning a 7.1 earthquake hit Christchurch. It was my first experience of a major earthquake hitting the country.  As fate would have it, it was also the first weekend my middle lemming was visiting Christchurch with her boyfriend.

I can remember posting a status on FB that the middle lemming had experienced two life events that I hadn’t .... she’d flown in a hot-air balloon over the Serengeti (a wish that’s STILL on my Bucket List) AND she’d lived through an earthquake.  I still don’t think I’ll add that experience to my Bucket List.

Interestingly enough Ken Ring also predicted the next deadly earthquake. He’d stated on his website that South Island would once again be susceptible to a large quake. The moon would be in it’s closest fly-past to earth for 2011 in March of that year.  On 14 February he tweeted "Potential earthquake time for the planet between 15th–25th, especially 18th for Christchurch, +/- about 3 days."

A deadly 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck Christchurch on 22 February.

I’m intrigued.  Despite the accuracy of some of his predictions Ken Ring is NOT taken seriously by any scientist, geologist or seismologist.  His predictions are considered to be imprecise, inconsistent and vaguely worded, and his methods blatantly unscientific.

Killing the reindeer!

And yet ..... so many people still buy his Almanac! 

Go figure.