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Mr Ken Ring claims he can use the moon to forecast the weather months, even years, in advance. In his weather almanac he publishes daily weather maps for an entire year at a time - revolutionary stuff, until you realise that the maps are simply the same sequence that occurred 18 years and 10 days ago.

Given that information, the crux of his lunar method for forecasting relies on the fact that long term weather sequences repeat over time - which they don't.

This page contains a collection of comments and links by other people on his forecasting methods and results.

 

For scientific comment on the method from an astronomical point of view, BILL KEIR has provided a series of articles for the Auckland Astronomical Society with a critique of Ken Ring's 'ideas'.

"Why do people listen to a man who is so sloppy and manipulative with the facts?"

"Nothing in his writings constitutes evidence that Moon positions are a useful weather forecasting tool, or that they are related to weather at all. Much of his writing is little more than fanciful pseudoscience."

Read part one, two and three at the Auckland Astronomical Society website...
(via the Internet Archive: Wayback Machine since they're not on astronomy.org.nz anymore)

 

ERICK BRENSTRUM, a senior forecaster at the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, writes a weather column for the NZ Geographic magazine. In the #79 May-June 2006 edition he comments on using the moon for long range weather forecasting, and includes some brief verifications of forecasts produced by Ken Ring using his lunar method.

"If long-range forecasting were as easy as following the same sequence of weather as occurred 18 years and 10 days ago, the veracity of the method would have been clearly established a long time ago and everyone would be using it to great financial advantage. But the method doesn't work very well, as the dismal success rate for forecasting severe-weather events shows."

The short article was titled "Moon dance" and is well worth a read.

Following that article, Ken Ring replied via a letter which was published in the #81 September-October 2006 edition, which also carried a "rejoinder" from Erick Brenstrum and comments from the editor Warren Judd. All are worth reading, but probably the best comments to include here are those of the editor,

"A couple of points in Ring's letter provoke me to comment. He writes that, "One man's view is just that, and can be cancelled out by the opposite view of just one other." Nonsense! Where knowledge is involved - and where isn't it required today? - the voice of the trained expert counts for a lot more than that of the less informed.
Mr Ring also claims that while Brenstrum is entitled to discuss weather systems, it is unfair of him to name Ring! Indeed, he alleges this is bullying! I can't agree. Ken Ring is so strongly identified with long-range lunar forecasts, that to discuss them without mentioning him by name would be as meaningless as talking about Vulcans without reference to Mr Spock. And once you publish a book, you're fair game for public scrutiny of its content and your own competence!"

 

The website "Silly Beliefs" (formerly "I SEE DUMB PEOPLE") "seeks to examine and expose dubious claims made in New Zealand". There you'll find a detailed discussion on Ken Ring's methods and forecasts, including the following comments,

"Mr Ring's weather predictions fail. When and if he is forced to explain his failures he mischievously reinterprets forecasts, suppresses negative forecasts and simply invents forecasts that were never made, all in such a way as to make it appear that his apparent failure was actually a success."

"Unfortunately the public seldom hear of these failures and when they do they believe they are rare occurrences rather than the norm."

And the final conclusion?

"This is dishonest. This is fraudulent. This is a scam."

Read more at: Silly Beliefs - Ken Ring Weather Forecasting by the Moon

 

Te-Software, an IT-Services company based in Coromandel Peninsula, also publish the
GREEN BLOG on their website - "a monthly column on 'Green' issues which also will appear in the Coromandel Town Chronicle". The June 2006 entry by THOMAS EVERTH contains brief comments on some of Ken Rings claims.

Click though to: The Court and its Jester - The motley bunch of the 'Climate Science Coalition'

 

The blog "THE SECOND SITE - Rebalancing, realigning, detoxifying and maintaining the skeptical worldview" is another website containing comments on Ken Ring and his forecasts. Click through to the page titled "A True Lunatic" for a read.

 

And finally, the blog "ON THE FARM - Truffles & Stuff" is well worth a regular visit for comments and occasional comparisons of Ring's forecasts with reality. Click through to visit the topic titled "Ringworld" where you'll find a collection of posts that make for interesting reading.

One post in particular is worth highlighting which presents the work of JIM RENWICK, one of NIWA's senior scientists who "for his own interest (and in his own time) looked at the maps in Ken's almanac for 2005 and compared them with reality"...

"Since I have all the maps for the last 40 years in electronic form, it was easy for me to score his daily weather maps against reality for all of last year. His scores were slightly worse than those obtained by picking maps at random."

"You can see that the Moon forecasts have a median score about 85 (useless). About two thirds of the moon forecasts score over 80, in the "useless" category, and about 1% are in the less than 30 "perfect" category. The random forecasts do about the same - identically in a statistical sense."

"The best by far are the Met Service two-day forecasts (and one-day ones are better again, of course), where only two of the 365 forecasts are "useless" (about 1%) and about two thirds are "perfect", the reverse of the moon forecast situation."

The full post, All By Yourself In The Moonlight, includes a forecast skill graph, analysis and comments by Jim Renwick.