Once in 400 years rains predicted to occur on July 29th by Arcot Panchangam?

The following picture is doing rounds among people raising fears and skepticism as well.

This is a newspaper clipping that has quoted a prediction from a popular Tamil Panchangam called Arcot Panchangam. The prediction is that there will be thunder showers on the evening of July 29th (14th day of Aadi) due to Rohini joining that day. I think this alone was the prediction part of it. The information added before and after this in the news report was picked out from general predictions in the Panchang / yearly prediction  and does not pertain to that particular date. Those who have Arcot Panchangam may check and let me know what is exactly written.

The news report had inadvertently combined 2 features that any Panchangam for this year could have written and made it a kind of sensational news.

One feature is the presence of Mars for a long time in the same sign / house. The news report wrongly says that Mars is going to be in the same sign throughout the year. Mars will be in Scorpio for little more than 6 months and not for the whole year. Another feature is the possibility of heavy rainfall that occurs once in 400 years. The report also says that all the rivers will be brimming with water.

In between these two features it has inserted the date July 29th (Aadi 14th) when Rohini is will be the star transited by Moon and makes it appear as though there will be heavy rains of the scale of once in 4 centuries on that date which will be aided by the 'year long presence of Mars in a single sign.

In my opinion a misreading of different features in the Panchangam has happened.

First of all let me take up the date July 29th.

This date is indeed an important date in the month of Aadi known as Aadi KuRi.

 Readers may recall my blog written on January 2nd about this date. It is reproduced below.

(Full text here)

The above date pertains to the 'thithi' of the Aadi-k-kuRi. 4 combinations of thithi are there. All these 4 indicate good rains in certain times of the year. At the most 3 can occur in any year. But this year only one combination is occurring.

If we know the 4 combinations, we will know what I mean by this. All these 4 are to be noticed in the Tamil month of Aadi (solar month of Cancer).

(1) Sukla Navami + Swati (9th day of waxing moon occurring in Swati) = Rainfall in first part of the year predicted by this

(2) Sukla Dasami + Vishaka (10th day of waxing moon occurring in Vishaka) = Rainfall in middle part of the year predicted.

(3) Sukla Ekadashi + Anusham (11th day of waxing moon occurring in Anusham / Anuradha) = Rainfall in the last part of the year predicted.

All these 3 occur in successive days  which means the Aadi-k-kuRi if at all it catches with this combination, it indicates rains throughout the year.

But this year these 3 are not occurring. Instead the 4th combination is occurring.
The 4th combination is
(4) Krishna Dasami + Rohini (10th day of waning moon occurring in Rohini)
or
Krishna Ekadashi + Rohini (10th day of waning moon occurring in Rohini)

This combination also ensures rainfall throughout the season.

This combination being present at evening twilight (according to one school of thought) or thunder clouds being present on this date (another school of thought) ensures rainfall throughout the rainy season that follows.

On 29th July, the day of Aadi-k-kuRi this year, waning Ekadashi is present with Rohini at the evening. This combination itself is an enough indicator for good rainfall throughout the year even if thunder clouds are not present at that time.

This information on the date of aadi-k-kuRi will be noted in the page of Aadi in all Tamil Panchangas. Based on the combination, the rainfall position will be given in the Panchangas.
That is how Arcot Panchangam would have given  a prediction of good rainfall and brimming rivers throughout the year.

The relevance of Mars comes this year in Arudra Pravesha prediction and in Navanayaka prediction. I wrote the following on 25th December 2015 as follows:

(Read the full text here)

On 2 main counts Mars comes to wield influence on rainfall this year as explained above. The rainfall will be accompanied with thunder storms and cyclones and will be destructive. So far we have seen this trend only since Chithrai month started.

The Aadi-k-kuRi combination is conducive for rainfall throughout the season.

Perhaps this has been interpreted as once in 4 centuries rainfall.

The Garbottam feature for 29th July does show good rains on that date in and around Chennai. Please check my blog written on Feb 3, 2016 (Read here).

The Garbottam chart shows that Chennai will be wet throughout July. The presence of more number of wet days in July in Chennai could perhaps increase the chances of inundation and flooding. But at that time, the planetary combination for very heavy rainfall as we witnessed in December last is not going to be present (in July).

This period corresponded to the 3rd day of Solar Garbottam that occurred on 2nd January 2016. Further cross checking was done in my blog posted on 21st January 2016 that showed that there will be good rains on 29th and 30th July - (29th was the date mentioned in Arcot Panchangam). It was tabulated as above.

Reproduced from that article based on the observation on 19th January:-

By all means, wet July can be expected in Chennai. South West Monsoon will be active at that time. By August the planetary combinations are too conducive for very good rainfall which I wrote as follows on January 2nd 2016.

The period of SW monsoon starting from 16th August is indicative of floods. From my blog posted on 4th January 2016

The location of  the places likely to suffer floods will be posted in Rainfall check series. 

The present time (first fortnight of June) is the garbottam checking time for the last fortnight of December when NE Monsoon would be at its end period. Soon I will be posting the garbottam observation and corresponding rainfall chances for NE Monsoon period for November and December. 

Coming to the main topic of this blog, the relevance of Mars is there in some other form (as Meghadhipathi and day of Arudra Pravesha) that indicates rain fall from thunder showers and cyclones. This rainfall will be lopsided, raining in places where there used to be drought and avoiding places which used to get good rainfall usually.

Aadi-k-kuRi shows good rain from both the Monsoon systems. 

This is what rainfall astrology shows. This has no scope for the sensational element in the news report. Moreover I doubt whether we have rainfall data for 4 centuries to say that once in 400 years rainfall would occur.