Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Madness and the Moon
is as predictable as clockwork. After 133 years, or 7 cycles
of 19 years, the moon loses about 19 minutes, or 10
seconds per year. A watch with that degree of accuracy
would indeed be valued..
But we cannot easily see slow movements. Try watching
a child or a flower grow, or the big hand of a clock
move. Because we do not see slow changes unless we write
them down, we easily miss the variations in the way the
Moon moves and appears to change, invisible to the naked
eye even within just two days.
Little wonder then that memories of some changes of
movement over longer periods, like certain cycles encompassing
8 years, 18.6 years, 133 years, 679 years and more,
go unnoticed by most people. When we experience a flood
or a tornado and tell each other that this has been the worst
in living memory, we could be easily misleading themselves.
Living memory is a concept seized on by the media to
create headlines. This sells newspapers. But in reality living
memory does not go very far. Test this on a friend and
you may find that more often than not, they may not be
able to remember what the weather was doing or what they
happened to be wearing Monday or Tuesday of last week.
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