Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Tulip
[edit]My most recent research project is looking at rain records for Sydney since 1980 to find correlations with planetary cycles. Most interestingly, over this 27 year period, the total rain on the dates ten days before each monthly Moon-Uranus conjunction is three standard deviations above average, and almost three standard deviations below average four days before each Moon-Uranus conjunction.
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I don't know. There's something almost obscene about rain being related to Moon-Uranus conjunctions.
Seriously, what are the units you're using to come up with your average and standard deviation?
Plus, Moon-Uranus conjunctions are not monthly in western calendar terms. They occur about every 27.5 to 29.5 days depending on whether you're using anomalistic months or synodic months.
Then there's the effect of the motion of Uranus in its orbit, which, except for some slight retrograde motion during opposition, contributes to making the aforementioned lunar months a bit longer.
Finally, what parameters are you using to identify a significant increase in rainfall? In Sydney the rainfall pattern is so even it's hard to see any trend month to month let alone day to day.
Remember, when there's a lot of noise in the data, apparent patterns detected in there can quite easily be mistaken for signals. Such things can result in snipe hunts as well as quests for snarks.