It's only one claim to credibility, but for us in the Hunter The Moon Man's prediction a year earlier of the 2007 Pasha Bulker storm is one helluva claim. There was no bob each way. In his weather almanac written in 2006 Ken Ring wrote that on June 8, 9 and 10 Newcastle would be swamped by heavy rain and extreme weather, and a truer prediction has never been made.
So when I read in The Herald yesterday that Weatherzone's meteorologists were warning that the ingredients for a huge storm like the one that grounded the Pasha Bulker were gathering off our coast I phoned The Moon Man. And so I'm pleased to tell you that his message is to relax. The Moon Man (www.predictweather.com) says we're going to have a wet weekend with, because of king tides, a risk of localised flooding, but no mention of tempest or even the Pasha Bulker.
Mr Ring, who lives in New Zealand, matches a region's weather history with lunar cycles as his primary tool, while meteorologists measure air pressure, temperatures of everything, humidity everywhere, wind at different levels of atmosphere, and take into account a host of other factors to arrive at their forecast.
In my column in The Herald today I give both Mr Ring's and Weatherzone's forecast for the rest of this year, and they're different. One difference of more than passing interest is that Weatherzone (www.weatherzone.com.au) says December, like all bar one of the months from the end of June, will have above-normal but not well-above-normal rain, while Mr Ring says our December will be a washout.
It is science versus The Moon Man.
What is your source for weather forecasts and how much store do you put in it? Do you, like me, make your own forecasts?
Email a friend