Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Journey
for two years. As an umbrella manufacturer, he had needed
to know what the weather was going to be in the weeks
following so he wasn’t wasting money on advertising if the
week was going to be rain-free. And so he had embarked on
a personal quest for weather knowledge, discovering, like
myself, by trial and error. When he rang me he had mostly
retired from his version of forecasting. Before he rang me,
he had written to the same newspaper, a letter he later
showed me
Dear Sir,
Your article on Ken Ring(Jan 18) and his reference to the
moon influencing the weather is correct. It would also seem
that depressions will predominate near the dates he mentions,
when the Moon is at perigee and also close up to the
Full Moon, up to November anyway. The depressions will
all be either over New Zealand or about the south of the
country. To expect meteorologists to support him is optimistic,
they would only finish up with egg on their face.
Yours faithfully
H.F.Alcock
Meeting Harry and his wife Dulcie was, I think, mutually
inspirational. He was elderly and in poor health, and so
I visited every fortnight, more often if I could get there,
and we collaborated constantly during the final four years
of his life. He showed me how to read an ephemeris properly,
for up till then I had only scanned one for what I required,
and I introduced him to stone circles, ancient civilisations
and the computer, and we often felt like small children
rediscovering ancient knowledge that had remained
hidden for so long. To this day I remain very grateful to the
Alcocks for their open generosity, hospitality and support.
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