Seasonal Variations: Severe Winters & Wet Summers

An assessment of 62 severe winters from 1700 to 1990 in the British Isles using the Sidereal Zodiac (Fagan) and the Sun Ingress into Capricorn (Capsolar).

I gathered this data from an article in "Weather" Magazine Vol.46 No.2, "An apparent relationship between the timing of Lunar Phase and Severe Winters" (Graham) who used the Central England Temperature [CET] index, which is the longest kept temperature record in the world.

The eventual severe winter total was 62, which I then divided into 3 sections; the 6 most severest with the 3 month mean winter season (January, February and March) temperature below 1° celsius; 21 severe winters between 1°c and 2°c, and 25 severe winters between 2°c and 3°c, those below 3 degrees were left out but included in the overall total. I then proceeded to analyse these in the sidereal capsolar or the Sun's ingress into Capricorn.

I will go through each section in turn using the traditional astrological methods, first, the table below shows the Element totals:

Table 1
ELEMENT

Planet	Fire	Earth	Air	Water
Moon	11	23	15	13
Mars	13	15	16	18
Jupiter	16	20	16	10
Saturn	15	15	13	19
Uranus	16	17	11	18
Neptune	20	18	13	11
Total:	91	108	84	89

(Element average mean 15/total average mean 93)

(Obviously the planets Sun, Mercury and Venus would show a bias for the earth/fire element so these were excluded from the data)

The average count for each element is 15 and we can see that the Moon has the highest score of 23 in earth with earth itself showing the highest element score of 108 where the average should be 93.
Nothing too dramatic in that but the tendency for planets to be in an earth sign is indicated, also note that the air element is 10 below the average.

In astrometerology the earth and air elements are associated with cold/cool conditions but one can see that air has the lowest overall score so perhaps we shouldn't lay to much emphasis on elemental balances, anyway air is much more conducive to air circulation or windspeed, but the Moon in earth hints at something positive.

We now need to look at the individual scores for each planet in the sidereal signs these are laid out below:

Table 2
Planets in Signs (Sidereal) - 62 winters mean temperature range 3.0° C to – 0.4° C., winters which include the months Dec/Jan/Feb

	Ari	Tau	Gem	Can	Leo	Vir	Lib	Sco	Sag	Cap	Aqu	Pis
Moon	3	2	6	5	5	12	3	4	3	9	6	4
Mars	5	2	1	2	0	4	4	10	8	9	11	6
Jupiter	6	6	5	3	7	5	6	4	3	9	5	3
Saturn	4	4	4	7	4	5	3	6	7	6	6	6
Uranus	6	7	3	3	6	6	4	10	4	4	4	5
Neptune	6	4	4	3	6	11	7	6	8	3	2	2
Pluto	4	8	2	7	4	4	5	3	4	6	8	7
N. Node	4	6	6	6	5	3	4	5	5	6	4	8
Total:	38	39	31	36	37	50	36	48	42	52	46	41

(Sign average mean 5 - total average mean 31)

Now we can see in more detail the planetary sorting in each sign. Astrometeorology classifies the coldest signs as Capricorn (earth), Aquarius (air) and to a lesser extent Virgo (earth) equally the warmest signs are Aries, Leo and to a lesser extent Sagittarius these are all fire signs, the water signs, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces could simply be correlated as moisture indicators and therefore may be seen as neutral indicators, but care must be taken in not connecting to literally the element correlation to actual weather, but as we shall see in the rainfall section, waters signs do indeed have a connection to wetter conditions.

Table two shows that Capricorn and Virgo (cold/earth signs) have the highest totals with the Moon having the highest individual planetary score. Another factor worth noting is that Mars (Heat) has 11 in Aquarius and 0 (zero) in Leo, this is rather interesting as Leo is defined as being a heat giving sign whilst Aquarius is the opposite, a cooling influence. Mars placement in Aquarius may in fact reduce the heat by being deposited by Uranus or Saturn.

Coldest signs
Capricorn/Aquarius/Virgo total=117

Warmest signs
Aries/Leo/Sagittarius total=91

Cold signs Hot signs
Capricorn/Earth = Saturn Aries/Fire = Mars
Aquarius/Air = Uranus/Saturn Leo/Fire = Sun
Virgo/Earth = Mercury Sagittarius/Fire = Jupiter

Now if we select our temperature data and divide the results into two main temperature ranges we get two more tables (table 3 and 4), one showing 21 severe winters where the winter mean is between 2.0°c. and 1.0°c. and the other showing 25 slightly less severe winters with a mean between 2.0°c and 3.0° c..

Table 3
Planets in Signs (Sidereal) - 21 winters mean temperature range 2.0° c to 1.0° c.

	Ari	Tau	Gem	Can	Leo	Vir	Lib	Sco	Sag	Cap	Aqu	Pis
Moon	0	1	0	2	3	2	2	2	0	4	3	2
Mars	2	1	1	1	0	1	0	5	1	6	2	1
Jupiter	2	2	2	2	1	0	3	1	1	4	1	2
Saturn	2	2	1	3	2	0	1	2	3	2	2	1
Uranus	2	2	2	0	1	0	3	1	2	2	2	4
Neptune	1	3	0	1	2	5	0	1	3	3	2	0
Pluto	2	2	2	2	1	2	0	0	1	3	0	6
N. Node	1	4	0	0	2	0	2	1	1	3	3	4
Total:	12	17	8	11	12	10	11	13	12	27	15	20

(Sign average mean 2 - total average mean 10.5)

Table 4
Planets in Signs (Sidereal) - 25 winters mean temperature range 3.0° c to 2.0° c.

	Ari	Tau	Gem	Can	Leo	Vir	Lib	Sco	Sag	Cap	Aqu	Pis
Moon	2	0	5	2	1	5	1	1	3	2	1	2
Mars	3	1	0	0	0	3	1	3	5	2	6	1
Jupiter	3	3	2	1	5	1	3	1	1	2	2	1
Saturn	2	0	1	3	2	4	2	2	2	2	2	3
Uranus	2	4	1	3	2	4	1	4	0	1	2	1
Neptune	3	1	1	2	2	5	5	2	2	0	0	2
Pluto	2	3	0	3	1	1	2	3	2	3	5	0
N. Node	2	2	4	1	3	2	0	4	3	1	1	2
Total:	19	14	14	15	16	25	15	20	18	13	19	12

0
(Sign average mean 2 - total average mean 12.5)

Table 3 (2.0°c to 1.0°c) shows that Capricorn has the highest total, which we have defined as being the coldest sign in astrometeorology.

Table 4 (3.0°c to 2.0°c) shows a clear Virgo total, which is a cold sign but not as cold as Capricorn or Aquarius, Aquarius does not figure in our severe winters!.

So we are seeing that the colder the winters the more likely the coldest signs will figure into the planetary distribution, that is, the more planets there are in Capricorn or Virgo the colder things become. Of course we are only showing the overall result via signs (sidereal) which in themselves do not prove much at all, except perhaps a general feel towards some sort of sign exceptance. By the way, the ascendant and meridian sign placements do not show any signifcant bias to any particular sign.

The next step to take is the planetary house placements. Table 5 shows a summary of each planet in modal distribution.

Table 5

MODE
	Ang.	Suc.	Cad.
Moon	24	19	19
Sun	20	23	19
Mercury	19	29	14
Venus	19	19	24
Mars	21	19	22
Jupiter	23	21	18
Saturn	24	20	18
Uranus	21	27	14
Neptune	32	7	23
Pluto	24	26	12
N. Node	21	17	24
Total:	248	227	207

Mode average mean: 21 (Total Average: 207)

The angular totals (1st, 4th, 7th and 10th houses) show a clear above average reading, 20 points above, with the cadent (3rd, 6th, 9th and 12th) houses 24 points below average.

Table 5 above shows the Mode (Cardinal/Succedent/Cadent) of each planetary body in relation to the houses, which in this analysis uses the Placidus house system, experimenting with other house systems show similiar and sometimes better results towards cardinality. Analysing the same data in the Tropical Zodiac did not produce any clear cut results in fact I found nothing at all to deter me from the sidereal approach. In Vedic astrology they use the full house method in which the ascendant (Lagna in Vedic) is seen as the cusp of the 1st house e.g., Leo 12° would in turn become 0° of the ascendant with the second house having 0° Virgo and so forth. I found that using the Lahari Ayanamsha (the official Ayanamsha of India) incorporated with the Vedic house method did not produce such statisticaly strong evidence in temperature values, this does not of course devalue the ancient vedic traditional methods of weather prediction as more research is surely needed in this intermingling of eastern and western systems.

The full house positional table is shown below:

Table 6

HOUSES
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th	10th	11th	12th
Moon	4	5	4	6	7	6	4	5	5	10	2	4
Sun	5	8	7	6	8	7	4	3	1	5	4	4
Mercury	6	7	9	5	10	2	4	4	1	4	8	2
Venus	6	5	4	7	8	5	3	3	6	3	3	9
Mars	5	6	10	5	6	4	3	4	6	8	3	2
Jupiter	6	7	5	9	3	4	4	7	3	4	4	6
Saturn	6	6	5	5	6	2	3	4	5	10	4	6
Uranus	8	5	4	6	7	2	5	7	6	2	8	2
Neptune	11	0	5	7	2	6	5	2	5	9	3	7
Pluto	6	8	2	5	8	3	6	4	2	7	6	5
N. Node	2	5	8	5	2	5	6	7	6	8	3	5
Total:	65	62	63	66	67	46	47	50	46	70	48	52

(Individual house average mean=5 Total mean=52)

As one can see the Moon and Saturn figure strongly in the 10th house sector, Saturn is always associated with long periods of cold and dry weather, which are intimately linked with blocking anticyclones which in winter can produce extremely cold conditions which can last for several weeks. Neptune is also very strongly emphasised in the cardinal houses which is interesting, as Neptune the cool still planet, also has an association with anticyclonic weather and what is referred to as "anticyclonic gloom", this in the winter season produces gloomy sometimes foggy (another Neptunian trait) weather in the British Isles, therefore, it seems that both these outer slower moving planets give the needed ingredients for long cold winters. This is, to a certain extent, borne out when we come to look at the planetary cycles of these two planets.

One may ask why the importance of cardinal/angularity, well the angles are critically important as sensitive points, any planet aspecting or in the angular section of a chart inserts its influence more strongly than in any other portion of the horoscope, or one could say, the angles trigger the particular planet it comes into contact with.

Hemispheric distribution

Sun = 41 North 21 South
Moon = 32 North 30 South
Mars = 36 North 26 South
Jupiter = 34 North 28 South
Saturn = 30 North 32 South
Uranus = 32 North 30 South
Neptune = 31 North 31 South
Pluto = 32 North 30 South
-------
Total = 268 North 228 South

The hemispheric pattern shows that the Sun has a 66% distribution in the northern hemisphere (below the horizon) nearly two thirds more than in the southern hemisphere, but this also true of exceptionally warm winters which also show the Sun having a northern hemispheric bias, therefore hemispheric distribution should not be used in seasonal, in this case winter, forcasting.

Aspects

I will deal briefly with the aspects since these are global in extent so therefore can only give a general emphasis on conditions, except when thay contact the angles. Looking at the aspects for the 62 winters and using an orb of 4° in the 8th harmonic series we find:

Moon/Saturn=17
Sun/Jupiter=17
Sun/Saturn=17
Venus/MC=18

Both Sun and Moon have contacts to Saturn (Capricorn) which is the coldest planet in astrometerology, this contact denotes a lowering of temperature for the season ahead. Venus with the MC is more importants as it touches an angle, astrometeorogically Venus is a cool planet.
The so-called "soft" aspects (sextile and trine) show no positive results.

64th Harmonic

When using the 64th harmonic (which can be seen as a pure physical aspect [8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8=64] sometimes refered to as the "I Ching" aspect, and connected with the 64 hexagrams used in chinese divination), in the whole 62 severe winters the contacts are as follows, using an orb of 1°:

Moon=Saturn 27
Moon=Neptune 29
Venus=MC 29
Saturn=MC 27
Uranus=AS 28
Neptune= 28 to 10° Leo connected to UK 1801 chart.
Pluto=MC 27

Saturn, Uranus and Venus are all cold or cool with each having some interaction with the capsolar angles.

Severest Winters on record

We will now move onto the 6 severest winters on record which range from 0.8°c to -0.4°c on the Central England Temperature index.

Here are the 6 severest winters on our Central England Temperature (CET) index with the positions of the Moon and Uranus.

Year (Dec)	Temp	deg.	Moon	deg.	N. Node	deg.	Uranus
1715	0.8	4	Leo	17	Libra	5	Virgo
1739	-0.4	7	Gemini	2	Cancer	20	Sagittarius
1794	0.5	17	Virgo	16	Cancer	10	Leo
1813	0.4	24	Virgo	9	Cancer	9	Scorpio
1878	0.7	5	Virgo	11	Capricorn	10	Leo
1962	-0.3	0	Virgo	5	Cancer	10	Leo

We can see that the Moon predominates in Virgo (a cold sign) and Uranus is especially interesting as we can see a cycle of 84 years from the winter of 1794, this corresponds to exactly with Uranus' own 84 year cycle.

1794 to 1878 (84 years) 1878 to 1962 (84 years).

The intervening severe winter of 1813 closely matches half the Uranus cycle of 42 years. After computing these various cycles pertaining to the Uranus synop I am of the opinion that there is something working here but not all 42, 21 or the lesser cycle of 11 years click into place in regards to severe winters though some do. It seems that other harmonic resonance's (planetary cycles) are working in conjunction with this Uranus cycle, which add to an overall complex rhythmic pattern.

Further notes regarding the 6 severest winters:

Cardinality.
Uranus in Cardinal houses = total 3
Neptune in Cardinal houses = total 5
Jupiter in Cardinal houses = total 4

Bias in the Cardinal mode is towards the 4th and 10th axis.

The Saturn - Neptune cycle of 36 years

I came across an interesting letter in Weather magazine (December Vol. 52) which mentioned (briefly) "Winters with at least one month with an average temperature 34 F (1.1 c) to occur approximately 12 and 18 year intervals…combining to produce a more reliable incidence about every 36 years".
36 is a very important number as it is a vital number on the Platonic year which Plato expressed as 36,000, there a various ways of expressing this number but 36 has been found to correlate with many cycles occurring at intervals of 3.5 years (36 divided by 10), 9 years (36 divided by 4) or 18 years (39 divided by 2). These cycles measured by the Foundation for the Study of Cycles in America range from cotton prices to lynx abundance to Presbyterian Church membership.

Taking our fixed date for 1963 one of the severest winters on record we find the 36 year sequence as follows:

36 [18] year sequence equals actual severe winters. Brackets equal number of years from actual 36/18 year sequence, the -90- includes the Saturn - Neptune relationship:

1963 Base	(0)1963 -90-
[1945]	(2)1947
1927	(2)1929
[1909]	(2)1907
1891 ***	(0) 1891 -90-
[1873]	(2)1871
1855 ***	(0)1855 -90-
[1837]	(1)1838
1819	(1)1820 -90-
[1801]	(1)1800 -90-
1783	(1)1784 -90-
[1765]	(1)1766 -90-
1747	(1)1746 -90-
[1729] ***	(0)1729
1711	(2)1709

Aspects between Saturn and Neptune are within 8d orb. and we find that there are 8 severe winters which fall with the planetary cycle itself.

So for instance, the 1819 winter in our sequence falls 1 year (1) from the severe winter of 1820 which coincides with the Saturn and Neptune square. We can see that the sequence parallels the severe winters, not perfectly, but never more than 2 years difference.

Wet Summers since 1697 in the UK

I investigated wet summers where the average rainfall exceeded 140%, the years of wet summers are shown below (after Lamb).

18th c.19th c.20th c.
1715 1817 1912
1729 1828 1917
1758 1829 1927
1763 1839 1931
1768 1848 1946
1775 1852 1956
1797 1860 1958
1872 1879 1882

The total of 24 wet summers were subjected to the last sidereal cardinal ingress, this is the Cansolar (Cancer) ingress which corresponds to the summer season.

Planetary distribution - Cardinal - Placidus house system

Planet	1st	7th	10th	4th	Total
Sun	4	3	1	4	12
Moon	3	3	0	2	8
Mercury	3	3	2	0	8
Venus	4	1	1	1	7
Mars	3	3	2	1	9
Jupiter	2	2	2	2	8
Saturn	2	1	2	3	8
Uranus	3	2	1	1	7
Neptune	5	1	8	3	17
Pluto	2	1	2	0	5
Cardinal Total	31	20	21	17

We can see that Neptune is way above the other planets in the cardinal house distribution. Looking at other house systems yields even better results for Neptune, in fact using the Meridian and Morinus we find that Neptune is in the cardinal sector (or angular) in all of our 24 summers a 100% per total.
Neptune is the moisture giving planet, not particularily wet as in Venus and Jupiter, but being a slow mover the overall conditions are for prolonged periods of wet weather. Neptune also featured strongly in our severe winter study (above) which hints at anticyclonic "blocking" but this time the blocking situation brings in, and allows, the predominance of westerly winds with its string of weather systems (depressions) in from the Atlantic which as we know leads to unsettled weather, of course Neptune doesn't work by itself and needs the cooperation of other planetary bodies. we need therefore to see the other planetary connections via their aspects.

Aspects

Analysing the aspects between the planets and also the midpoint structures, I found that Mars and the Moon (both wet planets) had 9 contacts to each other in the 8th harmonic series of aspects (orb 4°), whilst in the midpoints there were 7 SU/NE (water)=AS contacts using an orb of 2 degrees. In the 4th harmonic series (0/90/180) and using a wider orb of 8 degrees we find that Venus/Saturn have a total of 10 contacts. Both vedic and western astrometeorology indicate that these two planets, Venus and Saturn, when in a hard combination denote heavy precipitation, which with the Neptunian (block) influence, lead to unbroken patterns of westerlies and rain.

In the 64th harmonic distribution of our 24 wet summers we find:

Moon and Neptune = 15 totals

Therefore we have Neptune productive on the angles working with the Moon, plus the other wet planet Mars working again with the Moon and not forgetting the Venus/Saturn contribution, what a wonderful ingredient for producing some of the wettest summers on record.

© Carl A Matthews 1998