The picture below represents the planets found across the USA as represented by the change of the season, the Winter Solstice; the software name is SolarMaps. Each planet line identifies a certain weather condition that will be evident or above normal/avg in that region for this particular season.

Starting at the left, the first line on the USA map is Mercury (wind) (purple line) over the Rocky Mountains. This is an indication of more wind than normal for this region. The next line is the Moon (moisture) (light purple) and the Moon represents moisture showing there will be more moisture in this region than average. This is a marvelous indication that some of the drought will be alleviated in the tinder dry forests - much more rain/snow is needed, however.

Moving along to the great lakes area you will see a turquoise color line that belongs to the planet Neptune (moisture). Neptune is an indicator of moisture - anything from fog to floods, with much in between. It is logical to think that the moisture from the mid part of the country will move to the east in most cases, but Neptune adds that extra measure of description to the forecast.

The next planet line is Jupiter (dry) (blue). This is a planet normally associated with dry and fair conditions, a boon to farmers in most of the seasons. Spreading the fair weather days across the northeast is welcomed of course but it would not help to have a dry winter in the northeast either. Looking ahead to the next two planets that look to be offshore on the east coast - they would be Mars (dry) (red) and Venus (moist) (green). These two planets are representative of unstable weather conditions because each represents (symbolically) a warm and dry (Mars) and a moist and mild (Venus) weather combination of fronts. When these fronts are present, we usually have precipitation and it will be tending to be milder or even warm. With these planets positioned over the Atlantic, they will influence the weather in general for many weeks into the season. Cold fronts from the north will meet with the warmer air and create those disturbances identified in the weekly summaries for the Northeast USA. This SolarMap graphic is a tool used along with a horoscope wheel and a declination graph needed to produce a seasonal forecast. All questions and comments are welcome: write to carolyn@weathersage.com
by Carolyn Egan November 1, 2002 ©