Rainfall check -5 (For August 2016)

Update added at the end of the article on 30th August 2016

Previous articles:-

Rainfall check - part 1  (Pre-Monsoon showers)

Rainfall check - part 2  (Cyclone Roanu in Bay of Bengal)

Rainfall check - part 3  (Late arrival of SW Monsoon)

Rainfall check - part 4  (For July 2016)

The month of August 2016 comes with some important planetary events that cause widespread and plentiful rainfall. The dates of those important events are listed below.

July 31 – August 1= Venus enters the next sign Leo to join Mercury, Rahu and Jupiter. There will be a spurt in rainfall or a meteorological event on these days that triggers rainfall.

Places benefited by rainfall = Leo is the sign where this conjunction happens and where Venus enters. Leo signifies eastern direction. Countries in the eastern part of India including the places in the east coast of Peninsular India.

Venus enters Magha star which indicates South Eastern sections of India. According to Brihad samhita, this includes the countries of Kosala, Kalinga, Vanga, Upavanga, Jatharanga, SUlika, Vidabhas, Vatsa, Andra, Chedi, Urdhvakantha, the islands of Vrisha, of Nalikera and if Carma, the countries of Vidarbharaga and other countries in the Vindhya mountains, of Tripuri, Shmasrudharas, Hemakudya, Vyalagriva, Mahagriva, Kishkindha, Kantakasthala, Nishada, Purika, Dasharna, Nagna, Parna and Shabara.

In a nutshell these regions are in and around the Vindhya mountain ranges. The eastern coast of India upto Andhra also is included in the list. Middle parts of Peninsular India also is included.

I have tried to locate some of the regions that can be identified from this list in the following map of India

These regions will experience a spurt in rainfall.

  

August 9 = Mercury crosses Rahu. Whenever Mercury and Venus cross Rahu or Ketu there is a spurt in rainfall or a meteorological event. Thereafter, Mercury is close behind Jupiter with no planet in between. This is a fine ativrishti yoga that causes heavy rainfall.

Mercury crosses Rahu in Purva Phalguni (Pooram). This covers the same places that were benefited by plentiful rainfall in July when Jupiter was crossing Purva phalguni. This includes the places benefited by transit of Venus to Leo on August 1.

Places benefited by rainfall = (Same as above in the map) Kosala, Kalinga (Oddisha), Vanga, Upavanga, Jatharanga, Vidharba, Vatsa, Andhra, Chedi, countries in and around the Vindhya mountains, Kishkindha, Nishada, Sabara etc will receive good rains.

August 16 = 3 important meteorologically important planetary events happen on this date. (1) Sun enters Leo to join Venus, Mercury, Rahu and Jupiter. (2) On this date, Venus crosses Rahu (3) Jupiter enters Virgo.

Sun followed by all planets cause flood like situation.

Venus crossing Rahu causes a spurt / trigger to rainfall by means of a meteorological event. Both these events are associated with heavy rains and floods. Quoting from my article on the 5th day of Solar Garbottam that was posted on 4^th January 2016, there is likely to be a repeat of 2011 floods after 16^th August.

From the same article, another observation on conjunction of Mercury / Venus with Rahu / Ketu is reproduced below.

The line-up of all planets behind the Sun from 16^th August and conjunction of Venus and Rahu happening on the same date are indicative of spurt in rainfall and floods in the following regions indicate by Magha, Purva phalguni and sign Leo.

The places are the same as written above – both north and south of Vindhyas (Madhyapradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh ),  central Peninsular India, south east coast of Peninsular India that include Oddhisha, Andhra, Bengal, countries of Kosala, Tripura, Vidhabha, Hemakuta, Kishkindha, Mahanadhi etc. These regions are vulnerable for floods. The rivers in this region (shown in the map above) are likely to overflow. The elongated circle shows the regions vulnerable for heavy flooding. As Vindhya region gets repeated in all these planetary combinations, Narmada river can be expected to be in spate.

August 20 = Mercury enters Virgo to be with Jupiter. Mercury – Jupiter closeness with no planet in between is a good ativrishti yoga.

Places benefited by rainfall = Virgo stands for South. Uttra Phalguni in which Mercury – Jupiter closeness happens indicates south India as a whole including Karnataka, Kerala and Tamilnadu. In the terms of Brihad samhita, regions of Kaveri river, Vena river (Pennai) Ruhyamukha parvada, Malya parvada, Mahendra parvada, Konkan, Nasik, Chitrakuta, Avanti are indicated by Uttar Phalguni.

 August 25 = Venus enters Virgo. This triggers a meteorological event. The places as mentioned above in the South are benefited by plenty of rainfall.

Rainfall scenario for Chennai.

The solar Garbottam observed on 2^nd and 3^rd January 2016 is indicative of rainfall in the first fortnight and the 2^nd fortnight of August respectively. Those 2 days (4th day Garbottam and 5th day Garbottam) showed less or nil features of positive Garbottam for Chennai though the planetary combinations are good for rainfall from SW Monsoon.

However the day-to-day observation of Garbottam in January- February  showed hope for rainfall in the second half of August for Chennai. The chart showing the August prospects is produced below.

Inference:-

·   

    August begins with mild rainfall or cloudiness.

·       From the middle of August wet days begin.

·       22^nd August is the day of AavaNi Muzhakkam (6^th day of Aavani). Thunderbolts must be heard on that day if the remaining season is to experience plentiful rainfall.  The Garbottam chart shows dry weather on that day.

·       Yet another school of Thought says that AavaNi muzhakkam must be observed on 8^th day of Aavani. This is 24^th August. On that day there must be heavy thunderbolts if the ensuing rainfall season (NEM) has to be bountiful. Garbottam chart shows that there will be rains on that day thereby enhancing the chances of presence of cloud formation / thunderbolts on that day.

·       Keeping up with tradition, there will be rains on the night of Gokulashtami this year. Gokulashtami is on 24^th August. Vaikanasa Sri Jayanthi is on 25th and Pancharatra Sri Jayanthi is on 26^th August. On these days there is likely to be rains at night as per Garbottam chart.

Particularly the day that corresponds to 25^th August showed good cloud formation hiding the sun. Writing on that I produced some photos of clouds as on 15^th February 2016 which is related to rainfall prospects on 25^th August.

Sun at Noon on 15^th February 2016.

 This was seen at noon time of 15-02-2016.  Surging layers of dark clouds were coming from the southern sky.

If this materialises into rainfall on 25^th August, there must be rainfall at midnight of 25^th and the rainfall must come from northern direction.  Let me wait and watch.

A word of caution after observing July rainfall based on related Garbottam.

Rains had materialised if the Garbottam day had good winds, dark clouds hiding the sun and drizzles for at least half an hour. When only the first 2 were noticed for 10 to 15 minutes (less than half an hour), the realisation day experienced cloudy weather but rains eluded. Overall, it was observed that Garbottam had kept its date by showing atleast cloudy weather and mild drizzles on the rain- realisation dates of July. One can check it with July Rainfall check blog.  

UPDATE on 13th August 2016.

On August 9th Mercury crossed Rahu. As earlier said in the article, Venus, Mercury or Jupiter crossing Rahu or Ketu cause a spurt in the rains or trigger to the rains or trigger a meteorological event. The following was reported in www. chennairains.com on 10th August 2016.

Season's first monsoon Depression was triggered on 9th August and was located in the regions signified by Purva Phalguni in which Mercury crossed Rahu on 9th August. The regions as written above in the article are 

// Kosala, Kalinga (Oddisha), Vanga, Upavanga, Jatharanga, Vidharba, Vatsa, Andhra, Chedi, countries in and around the Vindhya mountains, Kishkindha, Nishada, Sabara etc will receive good rains.//

The eye of the depression is in Kalinga (Oddisha), vanga(Bengal) etc which can be made out from the map.

The next meteorological event is expected to be triggered on 16th August which can bring devastating floods as per the line-up of all the planets happening behind the Sun with Sun entering Leo on 16th August. 

The notification released by the IMD at 10 PM today says that a low pressure area is likely to develop in North West Bay around 16th August. 

UPDATE on 15th August 2016. 

The rainfall triggered by August 9th planetary combination had gone well with the places related to it, namely Madhya Pradesh (Vindhya regions) and Vanga (Bengal / Kolkatta)

The report on rainfall scenario in Madhya Pradesh posted today (15th August) can be read here. The salient feature of that report is reproduced below.

The Kolkatta scenario can be read in this link posted by Skymet today (15th August).

The bottom line of these scenario is that SWM had benefited the places which are not usually benefited. In the first article in this series written on December 25, 2015, I had written that the upcoming year (2016) of Durmukhi varusham will see mixed trend of rains owing to Neela Megha and thunder storm related rains owing to Mars becoming the Meghadhipathi and also the ruling planet of Arudra Pravesha. The trend so far is on these lines only. Reproduced below is that part of the article posted on 25th December 2015. (Next year mentioned there refers to 2016 Monsoon season)

  

The insights gained until now on Garbottam - realization theories:

So far it has been observed that planetary combinations play a greater role in influencing rainfall. I am waiting for tomorrow (16th August) for the kind of meteorological developments related to the ones I have written in the above article. I consider it as the ultimate check point which must be followed by me in writing down the rainfall situation for the rest of the months, particularly NE Monsoon. It is because planetary combinations are conducive  for about a month between October and November for very good rainfall from NE Monsoon, but local garbottam observation for Chennai is bleak and shows sparing rainfall for Chennai in particular. It may not be so for South Tamilnadu. Just waiting to cross check with the developments in the coming week.

UPDATE on 16th August 2016.

System forming in West Bay of Bengal that is likely to influence rainfall in east India in the coming days. Source- Skymet weather

Another system developing in the North Bay which will manifest on 20th August. Note the dates tallying with planetary combinations. The following is from IMD.

UPDATE on 30th August 2016.

Planets have kept their date with rainfall! On 25th August, Venus entered Virgo to join with Mercury and Jupiter. This could trigger rainfall in Southern regions, I had written in the article above. The rains started on that day in Chennai and coastal Tamilnadu and Andhra. At the same time Parts of Kerala and Cauvery catchment regions in Karnataka also started receiving rainfall. 

More interestingly, the direction of rainfall for coastal regions of Tamilnadu particularly Chennai was from NE as though this is NEM season. But in my post written on February 6th 2016 I wrote about peculiar hot and cold conditions witnessed on that date with movement of wind from SW to NE. This means the rainfall days after 6 and a half months, the direction of rains / winds would be from NE which can happen only if there is Depression of Low Pressure in the Bay of Bengal in August. Normally Bay Depressions / Low Pressures are rare in August. In that post I had a discussion with Mr Srikanth of Chennairains.com on the probability of having Bay Depression in August.

But now it has turned out to be a Low Pressure in the Bay off Vijayawada which is giving current rains to Chennai, though coastal Andhra is greatly getting benefited by this now. 

The dates tallied with movement of Venus into Virgo. 

Two more events happened in this period on 30th August. 

(1) Mercury started retrogression while being within 1 degree in front of Jupiter. It is going to cross Jupiter tomorrow (31st August) This has given rise to widespread rains to Chennai now with daily Garbottam also favouring it.

(2) Sun entered the next star, i.e., Purva Phalguni today (30th August). The rainfall rule is that if it rains on the day Sun enters a star, it would rain throughout the 14 day period of Sun crossing over that star. The Daily Garbottam chart for September (which will be posted on 1st September) shows that this period would be wet! 

This feature also means that the same period next year (when Sun re-enters Purva Phalguni in 2017) there wont be rains for the duration of 14 days that Sun crosses over. 

Another observation was that Ganges overflowed and caused floods affecting 30K people in the period after August 16th. Many places in Central India are experienced flood during the same period. 

29th July 2016 – watch out this day to predict NE monsoon.

Update added at the end of the article on prediction of NE Monsoon based on this day. 

Tomorrow the 29^th of July is important on 2 counts for rainfall prediction. One is that it is ‘Rohini Yoga’ day – a day that is watched intensely throughout the period of moon crossing Rohini star. This day is watched to predict rainfall in the next 4 months that include NE monsoon season for Tamilnadu.

This day occurs every year, but what is additionally occurring this year is that this day coincides with the waning phase of Dasami and Ekasdasi. This combination is called “Aadi-thithi-k-kuri” This is a rare occurrence which was pinpointed in Arcot Panchangam and interpreted to indicate once in 400 years rains.

On this day if thunder showers are experienced at twilight, there will be good rains in the next 4 months. Even the presence of thunder clouds on this day is said to favour good rainfall in the next 4 months. So anyone from anywhere in India can watch for thunder showers or cloudy weather on this day in their location to know whether there will be rains in their place of observation.

As far as Chennai is concerned, the corresponding day for 3rd day of Solar Garbottam that started from the evening of 31^st December 2015 till the evening of 1^st January 2016 was favourable for rainfall between 19^th July 2016 and 2^nd August 2016. The direction of rainfall would be from South and south west during this period. So far we have witnessed wet days during this period. For Chennai 29^th and 30^th July must have good rainfall if we go by the daily Garbottam in the corresponding dates of January 19^th and 20^th of 2016.

(For details of this chart read Garbottam chart for July  posted on 6^th Feb 2016)

If the Garbottam keeps up its promise of rainfall tomorrow, then the NE season will be good for Chennai. Details Garbottam charts for NE season will be posted soon.

Coming to the first feature called “Rohini Yoga” this concept was first communicated by Narada to Brihaspati from whom it was transferred to Garga, Parasara, Kashyapa and Maya.

Rohini yoga starts when Moon enters Rohini at 6-45 AM tomorrow (on 29^th July) and exits Rohini at 5-13 AM on 30^th July.

This period of roughly 22 and a half hours must be divided into 8 equal parts which comes to roughly 2 hours 50 minutes each. Each part relates to one fortnight each starting from the month of Aavani and ending in Karthigai. According to Rishi Garga, the observation is enough for the day time of Rohini. This day time must be divided into 4 parts with each part relating to the months from Aavani onwards. We can check both, but for commoners like us the day time observation only is possible.

Watch the wind.

During each part of the Rohini day one must watch the nature of wind and its direction. Winds must be breezy and not wild. Winds coming from North and north east favour good rainfall later. If the winds blow from a fixed direction, there will be rains in that direction benefiting the lands in that direction. In olden days a white cloth was tied on top of the poles to see the nature and direction of the wind.

Watch the cloud.

·       Formation of huge clouds, black in certain parts and white in certain parts and appearing to be twisted together.

·       Sky filled with black clouds everywhere with lightening

·       Clouds appearing like huge elephants and dark in colour.

·       Immediately before sun rise and after sun set, clouds must “appear in the colour of  blue lotus and with lightning, resemble the dark Vishnu in cloth of gold.” (Brihad samhita 24-18).

The part of the day when these features of wind and cloud are present will indicate good rainfall in the corresponding part of the next 4 months.

At night moon must be seen on the north east of Rohini star. This ensures good rainfall in the upcoming months. (Moon will be seen after mid night tomorrow at 2-20 AM).

Combination of the 2 features.

While Rohini Yoga does not foresee rainfall tomorrow but only cloudy weather accompanied with lightening and thunder, the Aadi-thithi-k-kuri of Rohini joining Dasami and Ekadasi comes with thunder showers at twilight, particularly evening twilight. It also comes with cloudy weather for 3 days – from the preceding to the succeeding day. The Solar Garbottam shows rainfall on Rohini day and the day after. Let us wait and watch.

PS: Behind all this, a lurking question in my mind is why the rainfall for the current period of Mercury – Venus closeness is not as expected to be abundant. The one feature that seems to mar rainfall for the whole of India is the transit of Saturn in Anusha (Anuradha) star. It is called Vayu nadi that shows windiness but no rains. In fact the winds will carry away the clouds resulting in failure of rainfall. Barring Saturn, other planets are not in afflicting positions. This feature of Saturn also must be borne in mind while predicting rainfall.

1	Vayu Nadi	Kri, Vishaka,  Anusha, Bharani	Saturn	Windy, No rains
2	Vayu Nadi	Ro, Swati, Jyesh, Aswini	Sun	Windy, Rains
3	Dahana Nadi	Mri, Chith, Moola, Revathy	Mars	Heat, Dry weather
4	Sowmya Nadi	Aru,  Hastha, P-dhada, U-Bhadra	Mercury	Windy, Less rains
5	Nirjala Nadi	Punar,  U.Phal, U-shada, P-Bhadra	Venus	Cloudy, But no rains
6	Jala Nadi	Pushya, P.Phal, Abhijit, Shatabhishak	Jupiter	Plentiful rainfall
7	Amirtha Nadi	Aslesha, Magha, Sravana, Dhanishta	Moon	Excessive rainfall

UPDATE after watching the day:-

Going by Rishi Garga's rule of watching the day time of Rohini into 4 parts, the first part was cool, cloudy, breezy and even accompanied with drizzles. Therefore rains can be expected in AavaNi. The Garbottam chart for AavaNi for Chennai also shows rains in AavaNi (Aug - Sep) 

The 2nd part of the day was hot and the air was still but towards the end it became breezy, cool with clouds covering the sun. This can be interpreted to mean that the last week of Purattasi would see rains. This also tallies with Solar Garbottam for that part of the year.

The 3rd part of the day was hot with no winds. However the end of the 3rd part of the day and the beginning of the 4 part of the day saw good formation of the clouds in south and east and some breezy weather. Towards sunset all clouds faded away and it was reported that it rained in the sea after nightfall. A few places in chennai received drizzles or mild showers at night. No thunderbolts were heard in my place of observation.

This can be interpreted to mean that there will be rains in the 2nd half of Aippasi and the 1st half of Karthigai. (November). The lesser intensity of clouds and breeze show that 2015 like disastrous rains can not be expected this year.