Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Declination
left bank line is the Moon’s Major Standstill and the right
one is the Minor Standstill.
In ancient Egypt,‘New’ may have originally meant
‘nine’. 9 is halfway between 18. The word newn was used
to indicate both the rising of the Sun in the east and the
first appearance of the New Moon. At the 9 year mark we
get the Moon’s Minimum Declination. So was the New
Moon originally known as the ‘Nine’ Moon? Then there’s
the word ‘climate’. The Greek word was klima, meaning
slope of the heavens. The word came to mean the climb of
Earth latitudinally from the equator. Climate then came to
mean weather patterns occurring specific to a latitude. Related
words today are climb and climax. Could it once have
referred to the movements of the Moon?
Where are we at now? The Moon, in 2003 has reached
the 26° declination angle north and south of the equator
each month. Around December 2003 it will reach 27° for
the first time since April 1990. The perigees have been in
the Southern Hemisphere since November 2002 and will
remain so till November 2006 . The Moon is on the way up
to the highpoint of the 18.6-year cycle, which will be
reached on the 22nd March 2006. The most recent low
point (18°) was on 16/3/97.
There are other cycles too, of the Earth, that cause
changes in the whole picture, because Earth’s cycles also
affect what the Moon does. One such is the Angle of Precession,
the 42,000 year oscillation in which Earth’s tilt
varies from side to side 21.4° to 24.9°. At the moment we
are 23.5deg and increasing our tilt, but our seasons will
not get more extreme until a few thousand years time.
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