Solar (Margazhi) Garbottam is the basis for general prediction of monsoon next year.

After 2 years of round-the-year observation of astro-meteorology, I have zeroed in on certain features as most reliable ones. They are three in number.

(1) Solar or Margazhi Garbottam that lasts for nearly13 days. This is the time Sun is moving across Purvashada (Pooradam). Each day of this period corresponds to roughly 13 days of Sun’s transit in a star starting from Arudra which happens in June, that is., Vaikasi.

(2) Daily Garbottam which is to be watched every day from December to July. Every day of this period corresponds to 195^th day later. Presence of Garbottam on a day is indicative of rainfall after 195 days.

(3) Planetary combinations that support or spoil rainfall at the time of rainfall.

All the three are supposed to work in tandem and must work in tandem to ensure good rainfall. In 2016 they were so and we found only less deviation. Whether rainfall is good or bad, these three must indicate the same thing.

The situation is a little different in 2017 as we find non-concurrence within these three. When non-concurrence is there, which one takes the lead is found out in this year’s situation.

This year (2017) there were 2 major planetary combinations - one occurred in SWM and another (others) in NEM season. The former one was a singular event of Venus in eastern sky in the morning transiting stars Magha to Chitra between Sep 15^th and Nov 8^th. This corresponded to Solar Garbottam which was posted on 12th Dec, 2017 The relevant part of the table from that post is reproduced below. It rained during this period till Venus completed this transit on 8^th November.

Day	Date of Garbottam	Observation	Date of Impact (Fortnight)	Prediction
7	3rd - 4th Jan, 2017	Wind- Occasional Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds-Good	13th September to 26thSeptember 2017.	Good rains in the 2nd quarter of the fortnight. Between 18thand 21st Sep 2017.
8	4th – 5th Jan, 2017	Wind- Occasional Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds- Moderate to Good.	27th September to 10th October 2017.	Moderate rainfall in the 2nd quarter of the fortnight. Between 29th Sep and 2ndOctober 2017
9	5th - 6th Jan, 2017	Wind- Good Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds- Good	11th October to 23rd October 2017.	Good rainfall in the middle of the fortnight. Between 14thand 18thOctober 2017.
10	6th - 7th Jan, 2017	Wind- Good. Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds- Good.	24th October to 6th November 2017.	Rainfall in the 1st week of November.
11	7th - 8th Jan, 2017	Wind- Nil Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds- Nil	7th November to 19thNovember 2017.	Dry weather.
12	8th - 9th Jan, 2017	Wind- Nil Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds- Nil.	19th November to 2ndDecember 2017.	Dry conditions.
13	9th - 10th Jan, 2017	Wind- Occasional Drizzles- Nil Lightening- Nil Thunder-Nil Clouds- Good.	2nd December to 15thDecember 2017.	Good rains in the middle of the fortnight. Between 6thand 10thDecember 2017.

One can notice that Solar Garbottam gave dry days from the 2^nd week of November till the end of December with only a few days (6^th to 10^th   Dec) showing rainfall. This means the major part of NEM 2017 is dry.

Coming to the planetary combinations, the last set of planetary combinations for the year in support of rainfall started on 13^th December (Venus- Mercury closeness) while another set started on 16^th December. This happened almost in the fag-end of the NEM season. Both of them continued till December end with the former ending on 9^th January 2018 and the latter on 14^th January 2018.

The reality check shows that the planetary combinations didn’t work in the absence of Solar Garbottam.

The potency of these sets of planetary combinations cannot be doubted as we saw the dates of their occurrence tallying with the directions exactly – but not within the location of NEM. For example, the western section indicated by them pulled cyclone Ockhi to west of India, to Lakshadweep and Mumbai. The North- North east indicator which in normal circumstances should have helped northern limits of NEM regions, dragged it to NE India and Bangladesh. What was South West went beyond India and benefited Arabian Peninsula. What was east rained at Philippines!

Witnessing all these, the inference we can make is that in the absence of Solar or Margazhi Garbottam, the rainfall expected over larger regions under the aid of planetary combinations do not necessarily materialise.  

For Chennai, the local Garbottam also was for a few days in NEM and that is what had happened.

In this NEM (2017) 2/3 features did not support rainfall for Chennai. They are Solar Garbottam and local Garbottam. Even though 3 sets of planetary combinations were present from 13^th December onwards, they could not bring in rainfall.

Since the same trend is found throughout Tamilnadu, I have to assume that solar and local Garbottam were negative for rest of TN also. If more people start watching Garbottam in their respective regions at least during the Solar Garbottam, it will be useful to draw better inferences.

PS.

I am planning to start a blog exclusively for astro-weather prediction. I will start posting the basics of Garbottam and how to predict rainfall through that. Initial post will be intimated in the current blogspot while no more weather posts will appear here. Interested ones are kindly asked to follow that blog (after the announcement is made here). However I will be regularly tweeting my posts of the weather blog.