Rainfall check -1 (March 2017)

UPDATE added on 13th March 2017 at the end of the article.

Previous articles:-

Rainfall 2017 – Level 1(Panchanga-based)

Rainfall 2017 – Level 2 (Planetary combinations)

Rainfall 2017 – Level 3 (Margazhi / Solar Garbottam).

Margazhi Garbottam 2016-17 in a nutshell.

Rainfall 2017 - Level 4 (Daily Garbottam)

Rainfall Check for March 2017 may look too early or out of place, but this year (2017) it is necessary as 2 important rainfall yogas are happening in March.

They are

(1) Mercury- Venus closeness happens between 7^th March and 25^th March 2017. This happens in the western sky which is supposed to be an additional positive feature for rainfall.

(2) The three planets namely Sun, Mars and Saturn are going to be in alternating signs from 2^nd March to 13^th / 14^th March 2017. This is an important rainfall yoga that was found to give flood causing rains in the past or rainfall of over 20 cm in a day. But this year this happens for a very short period of 11 days.

Even within this period, Moon’s position is important to give rainfall from this yoga. When Moon is in trines with these planets there would be rain on those days. This can be shown as follows for this year’s dates in March.

So the probable dates of rainfall from this yoga are 2^nd and 3^rd and few hours on 4^th, night time of 10^th, 11^th and 12^th March and a few hours on 13^th. This is subject to rainfall spoiling yogas on these dates.

The following are the rainfall spoiling yogas found in the month of March and during the period of the above rainfall yoga in particular.

(1) Mars ahead of all planets and particularly Venus scorches the earth.

(2) Venus and Jupiter in opposite signs reduce any precipitation.

Apart from these the general outlook of all the planets is such that none of them are in rainfall spoiling starts in the Sapta Nadi Chakra (Sapta Nadi chakra can be seen here )

Overall scenario based on planetary combinations for March 2017 was earlier given in my article written on 27^th December 2016. It is reproduced below.

Detailed scenario for March 2017.

There is a contradictory yoga present during the month of March. It is that Venus and Jupiter are in opposition which is a severe rainfall spoiling yoga and mentioned in the last column in the table given below. However the same opposition would also mean that when one of them is rising, the other is setting in the sky. This is a rainfall supportive yoga. The resultant of this tug of war can be known from the ground reality of whether it rains or not on the specified dates. If it rains it must be ascertained that the presence of other rainfall yogas over weigh the negative effect of opposition of Venus and Jupiter.

Date	Astrological feature	Event	Place	Rainfall spoilers if any
2nd March	Mars enters Aries thereby coming in alternate signs with Sun and Saturn. Moon conjuncts Mars in Aries and is in 5th sign from Saturn	Rainfall	NE India, Brahmaputra catchment area, Kashmir.	Jup- Venus opposition.
3rd March	Moon conjuncts Mars and is in 5th sign from Saturn	Same as above	Same as above	Same as above.
4th March	Venus turns retrograde.	Some rainfall trigger	Same as above + North west section of India	”
7th March	Mercury and Sun in deep conjunction. + Mercury – Venus closeness begins.	Rainfall	West and North west parts of India.	”
9th and 10th March	Mercury enters Pisces to join Venus. Moon in Amirtha Nadi (Aslesha)	Rainfall trigger.	Spurt in rainfall in North, NW and western parts of India	”
11th & 12th March	Moon in Leo conjunct with Rahu. Sat, Sun and Mars are in 5th, 7th and 9th from Moon	Good rainfall	Spurt in rainfall in eastern sections and east and SE coast of India.	On 12th Mercury enters Uttra Bhadrapada which causes dry winds and less moisture.
14th March	Sun enters Pisces thereby ending the yoga formed with Mars and Saturn.	End of rainfall period of the above trend.
18th March	Venus and Mercury cross each other from opposite directions.	Dry and Hot winds.
20th March	Mars enters Bharani star	Temperature rises.
20th March	Mercury comes out of combustion.	Sudden flash floods or hail storms.	North, North west India including Pakistan.	Jupiter in opposition to Sun, Mercury and Venus
After 20th March		Rise in temperature.

Inference from the above table:-

Any realisation of rainfall can be between 2^nd March and 11^th / 12^th March aided by the powerful yoga of Mars, Saturn and Sun in alternate signs. Regions indicated for rainfall during this period are likely to get heavy downpour sometimes exceeding 20 cm. During this period another important rainfall yoga (closeness of Mercury and Venus)  is present while 2 spoiler yogas (mentioned in the beginning of this article) continue throughout the month.

After 12^th March, dry and hot climate is indicated.  Particularly after 20^th March, hotter conditions would increase as Mars enters Bharani in the fiery sign. Only consolation after that comes at the time of Mercury emerging from combustion. But its impact could be felt in far away NW India or in Pakistan.

Rainfall scenario for Chennai and Tamilnadu.

The above chart does not show rainfall for Chennai or Tamilnadu, though Moon in Leo (11^th and 12^th March) shows eastern direction (east coast of India) and the stars it transits show South and south eastern coast of India.

The probable dates of rainfall aided by Sun- Mars- Sat yoga are 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, 10^th, 11^th and 12^th march. The realisation of rainfall on these dates for Chennai and TN can be ascertained only from daily Garbottam. The following are the daily Garbottam dates.

Expected rainfall date	Thithi	Garbottam date 6-1/2 months ago	Thithi on those dates.
2nd to 4th March 2017	Waxing Chathurthi Panchami, Shashti, Saptami in Maasi.	21st, 22nd,  23rd and 24th August 2016.	Waning Chathurthi, Panchami, Shashti and saptami in AavaNi.
11th and 12th March 2017	Waxing Chathurdashi and Pournami in Maasi.	Night of 30th August, 31st August and day of 1st September 2016.	Waning Chathurdashi and Amavasya in AavaNi.

Inference from the above table is that the places in any part of Tamilnadu that received rainfall on 21, 22, 23, 24, 30 & 31^st August and on 1^st September 2016 would not receive rainfall this March on 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 and 12^th . Places that experienced drizzles and cloudy weather on the above mentioned dates in August 2016 are likely to get rainfall on the corresponding dates this March.

The reality check is that many parts Chennai and TN did receive rainfall in the said dates in August. Those places would not receive rainfall now. Where there was no cloudy / Garbottam weather at that time, there also no rains this March.

My place in Chennai received rainfall only from 25^th August 2016. (My earlier article here) There was no Garbottam in the dates prior to that. On 31^st August and 1^st September 2016, some parts of Chennai received rainfall. The corresponding dates are 10th, 11^th and 12^th indicating east and south east part of India. There is a likelihood of rains in those parts at that time. It must be noted that planery combinations indicate east coast or south India (TN) around these dates.

UPDATE added on 13^th March 2017:-

This is a reality check of the prediction of rainfall for March 2017.

As expected when Mars entered Aries to form a rainfall yoga with Sun and Saturn in alternate signs and when Moon joined such Mars on 2^nd March, NE India and Kashmir received rainfall as indicated by astrological pointers. 

According to IMD report,

Arunachal Pradesh received fairly wide spread rainfall while Uttrakhand and Kashmir received widespread rainfall on 2^nd March. Widespread rains continued in Arunachal Pradesh in E / NE India on 3^rd March and it continued in the next few days too.

The next date as per astrological indicators is 4^th March when Venus started retrogression and moved towards Mercury. Generally the date of start of retrogression of Venus or Mercury was seen to have triggered a fresh bout of rainfall. The sign where the retrogression happens is North (Pisces) and the star (Revathy star) in which Venus was regressing indicated North Eastern parts of India.

As per IMD report,

NE India continued to receive isolated rainfall while Arunachal Pradesh received fairly widespread rainfall on 4^th and 5^th.

In the article above, I mentioned NW section of India for this date, based on the reasoning that Sun (which is involved in the rainfall yoga) was in Satabhishak star which indicates NW section. But the fact that NW India did not receive rainfall on this date and the succeeding dates show that we need not take Sun into consideration. The rainfall trigger is obviously related to Venus retrograding. The learning therefore is that only those directions indicated by the planet in activity would get benefited by rainfall.

The next important date is 7^th March when the gap between Mercury and Venus started getting reduced, though the distance was fairly high at 25 degrees. On this date Mercury and Sun were in deep conjunction. Since this conjunction happens in Aquarius indicating west, I expected rainfall in western parts of India. But the reality picture was that eastern parts of India also received isolated rainfall.

As per IMD report,

Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema and interior Karnataka received isolated rainfall on 7^th March. During all these dates, Tamilnadu also received isolated to scattered rainfall. This pattern of rainfall shows that east and west cover both the segments of Peninsular India.  

One prominent feature that I can relate to eastern section is the presence of Saturn (that forms  the rainfall yoga with Mars and Sun) in a sign (Sagittarius) that indicates east. Saturn was in the star Moola which indicates west. On 7^th Saturn was in the 7^th house from Moon. On that date and the next 2 dates Sun also was in connection with Moon by trinal position. The direction of the sun was west. Thus both western and eastern part of India received rainfall on 7^th and the next few dates when Moon was in Gemini.

The next dates were 9^th and 10^th when Mercury entered Pisces to join with Venus. The direction is North and it did rain in parts of India in and around Delhi and north of Delhi. But during this time, interior TN also enjoyed some good spells. The rationale can be drawn from Moon’s position in Aslesha which indicates SE direction.

From Aslesha through Moon’s transit in Leo also indicates SE India which means Tamilnadu. Till 12^th it did rain in eastern and south east sections of Tamilnadu. I must have refrained from using the word coastal region and just written eastern part.  From last year’s observation, we can say that when there are indications for formation of a system in the Bay we can expect rains in coastal regions when the direction indicated is east and south east. But the final outcome depends on local Garbottam.  

From now on, the rainfall yogas get affected.  With Sun entering Pisces on 14^th March to come in opposition to Jupiter, the days would be dry. Added to this is the transit of Mercury in Uttra Bhadrapada which shows dry days ahead. On 18^th Venus crosses Mercury backwards. Since there is a crossing of these two with Mercury moving in front of Venus, dry winds (andhi) can be expected in North India on that day and after that date.

I have given one more date for rainfall – that is on 20^th March when Mercury comes out of combustion.  Let us see how far this is successful despite odds against it. The only supportive feature on 20^th March is that Mercury and Venus are still closer on that date at a distance of 5 degrees.