By Resti H. Santiago
Predicting natural calamities is no joke. The task requires years of study and some form of fortitude to continue working on a controversial topic that one believes can be helpful to more people.
I started my systematic study of the weather using astrology in 2010, a year after Typhoon Ondoy. I inadvertently forecasted the effect of that powerful typhoon that gripped the whole of Luzon, such as the economic devastation that followed, but not the typhoon itself. I was intrigued and challenged as to why I did not or could not predict one at the time.
What made the matter more personal was that it was the first flood that I had experienced in my adult years. The ground floor of our house was flooded. I lost several boxes of astrology books. What followed was more research into the field of mundane astrology and astro-meteorology.
Two years later, I was already predicting rains. But these were not just simple rains, I re-discovered how to predict typhoons. With several accurate hits and some terrible misses, the percentage has been encouraging as I keep getting more hits than misses.
I was heavily trolled and criticized when a typhoon forecast in September 2012 did not materialize. So I dug deeper. I experimented with a combination of several factors, the most difficult of which is the use of lunar mansions (which there are several versions of–and I tried each version from different historical eras).
Eventually, I came to more astrological patterns and have identified a set of factors to look for as they take place year after year.
Astro Friend Walter Ang at one point challenged me to think in terms of meteorological factors such as water vapor, temperature and wind strength. Though I believe that this is not the realm of an astrologer, I did manage to come up with general astrological indicators for those variables. I can now say for example, which month is going to be rainy, in general. Though others may point out that the rains are naturally to be expected in certain months, with the advent of climate change, this is no longer the case.
If just for the purpose of bringing one’s umbrella for the day, my astro-meteorological forecasts are certainly useful. Regular readers of my annual set of ebooks, the Filipino Astrologer Auspicious Timing Guides, swear that they find it useful to check my weather forecasts to schedule trips and outdoor activities.
For the current typhoon season (July to December 2018) the number of hits have still been more than the number of the misses so far.
Typhoon Forecast Dates
July 22 = Correct – Henry / Inday
August 11 = Correct – Karding
September 13 = Correct – Neneng/Paeng
October 11 = Wrong – but on the exact date when the powerful Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida, USA
October 24 = to be determined
October 26 = to be determined
November 27 = to be determined
- Each factor has an orb of influence of 5-7 days.
For more on astro-meteorology please check this article:
https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/9122-astrologizing-the-weather