RESEARCH: Tornados

[Jim Eshelman]

This post is the first stage of a study of the lunar ingress characteristics surrounding major tornados.

I gathered the dates/locations of "all official rated and authoritatively suggested probable F5 tornadoes ever recorded" (plus EF5) from this Wikipedia tabulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worst_tornados

Phase 1 involves Caplunars. Regardless of when in the Sidereal month the tornado occurred, I have calculated the Caplunar for each of these. I then tabulated planets that were within 5° of the horizon or meridian, 3° of the Z/N/EP/WP, or 1° of square the MC. By pure chance, about 18% of the 50 charts should have a given planet on the angle; that is, about 9.

There are problems with a tornado study. The main problem is that the effect is spread over a wide area. I've used the specific location provided by the rating agency rather than make an independent determination of optimum location. This rating concerns severity of the tornado itself, and not loss of life or property damage; however, loss of life is given in the table.

Conclusion: No planet was prominent a statistically significant number of times. The two most angular planets were 13 occurrences each of Saturn and the Sun. The Sun effect is dubious, because it was padded by a block of discrete tornados (in the same sidereal month, across a large geographic area) where Saturn was on the Descendant of the Caplunar and simultaneously square the Sun. This, of course, put the Sun on the Nadir (lower square to the Ascendant).

The planet least often present was mars, which was only angular 4 times out of 51. Close behind were Mercury and Pluto, 6 times each.

The low Mars is particular interesting because of a secondary characteristic of these charts: Tornados are commonly accompanied by generous precipitation. It isn't surprising, then, to see the rainfall planets (Venus, Jupiter, and the Moon) angular much of the time. Although (ignoring the Sun effect for reasons stated above) Saturn was decisively the most angular planet, the precipitation planets form their own separate pattern.

As time permits, I will examine next the immediate lunar ingress preceding.

[Jim Eshelman]

I've finished compiling the angular planets for the Sidereal Lunar Cardinal ingress immediately before each of these tornados (that is, the week-lunar). The results were disappointing, in that no planet was statistically represented a statistically unusual number of times (unless the low or near absence of angular Moons reached a significant level(.

The most common angular planet in the week-lunars was Venus, appearing 10 times. However, this was not a precipitation factor, since the Moon only appeared twice and Jupiter only 4 times. Venus stood out on her own.

The next highest were Pluto at 9, and Neptune and Saturn at 8. These are the right planets to be in the lead (in theory), but the are exactly at the level that would be expected by chance.

Mars was again low, tying Jupiter for second-worst with 4 occurrences.

The week-lunars were very uneven - almost weird! - in their performance. For example, the Canlunar weeks had an entirely different pattern from the Liblunar weeks. Of the 20 tornadoes on the list that occurred in the week following a Canlunar, there were no planets angular at all in 10 of the charts - half! This is highly unusual. It's also quite different from the Libluar weeks. There were also 20 tornados that occurred in a week following a Liblunar ingress. Only two of those charts had no planets angular, and more than a third of the ingresses had an angular Saturn. (Half had an angular Saturn or Pluto.) In the Liblunar weeks, there were no angular Neptunes, even though Neptune tied Saturn in the overall totals.

I interpret this to mean that all of the week-lunar results are to be treated as statistically ordinary, indicating no anomalous effect. They are distributed more or less as we would expect if there were no such thing as astrology.

[Jim Eshelman]

I have changed my methodology, based on some things learned in the SMA project. Venus is still the champ in weekly lunars, but I want to give the numbers from a different perspective. This is for the weekly lunar ingress.

Rather than a hard cutoff on angularity, I wanted a layered effect. I gave each planet 3 points if close enough to an angle to (by itself) make the chart non-dormant (i.e., as defined elsewhere). For other planets in the foreground, I gave 2 points out to 7°, and 1 point out to 10°. For the27 non-dormant lunar ingresses, the totals were:

Sun 16
Moon 14
Mercury 20
Venus 26
Mars 12
Jupiter 12
Saturn 23
Uranus 24
Neptune 20
Pluto 18

Venus remains the champ, with Uranus right behind. The top three planets are Venus, Uranus, and Saturn. The three lowest are Mars, Jupiter, and Moon.

NARROW THE FOCUS
If we narrow the focus, the picture changes a little. Reduce all scores by 1 (meaning effectively that we drop out angularities past 7° and use a +2, +1 scoring for the categories that previously were +3, +2). Here the numbers for the 27 non-dormant lunar ingresses are:

Sun 9
Moon 7
Mercury 12
Venus 16
Mars 8
Jupiter 6
Saturn 14
Uranus 15
Neptune 13
Pluto 10

The single highest score remains Venus. The three highest remain Venus, Uranus, and Saturn. The three lowest are Moon, Jupiter, and Sun.

NARROW THE FOCUS FURTHER
Finally, we drop everything except the closest category (everything in that category gets 1 point). Here the numbers for the 27 non-dormant lunar ingresses are:

Sun 3
Moon 2
Mercury 4
Venus 7
Mars 4
Jupiter 3
Saturn 6
Uranus 6
Neptune 4
Pluto 4

Venus still remains the highest. The three highest remain Venus, Saturn, and Uranus. The three lowest remain the Moon, the Sun, and Jupiter.

[Jim Eshelman]

I have now recalculated the Caplunars, and will tabulate their results by the layered method. Of the 50 charts, 15 Caplunars are dormant, leaving 35 non-dormant charts. Using the three-layer scoring, we get the following:

Sun 30
Moon 19
Mercury 20
Venus 22
Mars 9
Jupiter 17
Saturn 33
Uranus 29
Neptune 24
Pluto 37

The highest score is Pluto. The three highest are Pluto, Saturn, and the Sun. (One string of nearly simultaneous tornados heavily involved the Sun - government intervention - so this may be atypical.) The three lowest are Mars distantly trailed by Jupiter and the Moon.

NARROWING THE FIELD
Narrowing (by dropping the third category and reducing the points for the first two categories from 3 & 2 to 2 & 1) gives a sharper distinction:

Sun 18
Moon 11
Mercury 11
Venus 13
Mars 6
Jupiter 9
Saturn 30
Uranus 16
Neptune 15
Pluto 21

Saturn is way out in front with 30 points, trailed distantly by Pluto (21) and Sun (18: and see note above). The lowest are Mars and Jupiter.

NARROWING THE FIELD FURTHER
Finally, narrowing further by dropping all but the closest category (1 point for it) loses distinction, but preserves the top dog. Here are the numbers:

Sun 8
Moon 4
Mercury 4
Venus 4
Mars 3
Jupiter 4
Saturn 10
Uranus 7
Neptune 7
Pluto 7

Saturn remains in the lead with the suspicious Sun in second, though third place is a three-way tie. Mars remains the lowest, though second-lowest is a four-way tie.

[Jim Eshelman]

Conclusions?
Any conclusions from this need to be preliminary. However, I think I'm ready to draw some tentative conclusions.

The patterns of the Caplunars and the weekly lunar ingresses are quite different.

For Caplunars, Saturn is the clear dominant factor. Pluto lends support from a distance.

For weekly lunars, Venus is unquestionably the leader, though closely backed by Uranus and Saturn. This is unusual, but seems, from the data, to be absolutely true. I wildly speculate that the quality involved is the childlike "ohh and ahh" - having grown up in tornado country, I recall that, despite the sense of danger, all the preparation was moving-like exciting. It is expecially a Venus-Uranus type of experience in particular. That may not be a general impression, though (hey, I'm weird, right?). In that case, I don't really have an explanation for which form of Venus would be operative here.

For both categories of lunar ingress, Mars and Jupiter are quite infrequent. Mars is a surprise: tornadoes are known for their violence. However, the amount of damage rarely compares to that of hurricanes. (Of these F5 and EF5 tornadoes, the highest loss of life for a single tornado was 116. Out of 50 events, only two had death tolls over 100. The average is 20.) If these examples are representative (as one would expect them to be), tornadoes are unusual among similar types of events for the absence of Mars involvement.

The Moon also appears more rarely, especially for the weekly lunars. The Sun seems involved based on the necessity of government involvement for things like disaster recovery.

[Jim Eshelman]

Conclusions?
I wildly speculate that the quality involved is the childlike "ohh and ahh" - having grown up in tornado country, I recall that, despite the sense of danger, all the preparation was moving-like exciting. It is expecially a Venus-Uranus type of experience in particular. That may not be a general impression, though (hey, I'm weird, right?). In that case, I don't really have an explanation for which form of Venus would be operative here.

I didn't grow up in tornado country, but landed here as an adult. I think the feeling while you are hearing the shingles being torn off your roof, and despite all your efforts, your children and your pets are beyond your ability to protect - if the storm wants them, it will take them - is a very strong Venus theme.

Donald Bradley, writing as Garth Allen in Taking the Kid Gloves off Astrology refers to this as the Liebestod Mystery and I think that's worth examining again in the context of Venus in mundane charts of disasters.

[Jim Eshelman]

My point was that there isn't much loss of life even in these gigantic tornadoes.

Since 1953. Before the predictions the Air Force used to commission to know when to move their very expensive planes were released to the public, there was a lot more loss of life. (The predictions were withheld because they might cause "panic." Unlike the sight of a funnel cloud coming your way with no warning and no chance to run for your storm shelter.) There are lists of "The Worst Tornados" defined as those that caused the loss of over 25 lives before 1953, and over 6, in 1953 and after.

There is, however, a lot of property damage, loss of home, etc. IIRC the Lac-Mégantic explosion had a strong Venus-Pluto and wiped out a town (the buildings, the homes) with about 50 lives (going from memory).

I'm unsatisfied with the answer that loss of property - even a home - would be characterized most often by Venus herself, without consideration of Venus being afflicted.

Bradley said Venus had a lot to do with depression. I've never seen the aftermath of a destructive tornado where every survivor wasn't at least somewhat depressed, even the animals. And even the people who didn't lose their homes. It's not just the loss of a home. It's also the loss of daily life and all cues to it. There are things insurance just doesn't cover. That kind of shock quickly turns into depression.

[Jim Eshelman]

The list I used (for which Venus came up so strong) was all after ~1950, and was measured on the wind speed, not property damage or life loss. When I get back to my computer, I'll post daters sand death toll.

[Jim Eshelman]

Here they are... Two are over 100, the rest are mostly far below.

11-May-53 Waco, Texas ( 114 )
29-May-53 Fort Rice, North Dakota ( 2 )
8-Jun-53 Flint, Michigan ( 116 )
27-Jun-53 Adair, Iowa ( 1 )
5-Dec-53 Vicksburg, Mississippi ( 38 )
25-May-55 Udall, Kansas ( 82 )
25-May-55 Blackwell, Oklahoma ( 20 )
3-Apr-56 Grand Rapids–Hudsonville, Michigan ( 18 )
20-May-57 Spring Hill, Kansas–Ruskin Heights, Missouri ( 44 )
20-Jun-57 Fargo, North Dakota ( 10 )
18-Dec-57 Sunfield, Illinois ( 1 )
4-Jun-58 Colfax, Wisconsin ( 20 )
5-May-60 Prague, Oklahoma ( 5 )
3-Apr-64 Wichita Falls, Texas ( 7 )
5-May-64 Bradshaw, Nebraska ( 4 )
8-May-65 Gregory, South Dakota ( 0 )
3-Mar-66 Jackson, Mississippi ( 57 )
8-Jun-66 Topeka, Kansas ( 16 )
14-Oct-66 Belmond, Iowa ( 16 )
23-Apr-68 Gallipolis, Ohio ( 7 )
15-May-68 Charles City, Iowa ( 13 )
15-May-68 Oelwein–Maynard, Iowa ( 5 )
13-Jun-68 Tracy, Minnesota ( 9 )
11-May-70 Lubbock, Texas ( 26 )
21-Feb-71 Delhi, Louisiana ( 46 )
6-May-73 Valley Mills, Texas ( 0 )
3-Apr-74 Xenia, Ohio ( 32 )
3-Apr-74 Brandenburg, Kentucky ( 31 )
3-Apr-74 Guin, Alabama ( 30 )
3-Apr-74 Mt. Hope–Tanner, Alabama (1st tornado) ( 28 )
3-Apr-74 Tanner (2nd tornado)–Hazel Green, Alabama ( 22 )
3-Apr-74 Depauw–Borden, Indiana ( 6 )
3-Apr-74 Sayler Park, Ohio ( 3 )
26-Mar-76 Spiro, Oklahoma ( 2 )
19-Apr-76 Brownwood, Texas ( 0 )
13-Jun-76 Jordan, Iowa ( 0 )
4-Apr-77 North Birmingham–Tarrant, Alabama ( 22 )
2-Apr-82 Broken Bow, Oklahoma ( 0 )
7-Jun-84 Barneveld, Wisconsin ( 9 )
31-May-85 Niles, Ohio–Wheatland, Pennsylvania ( 18 )
13-Mar-90 Hesston, Kansas ( 1 )
13-Mar-90 Goessel, Kansas ( 1 )
28-Aug-90 Plainfield, Illinois ( 29 )
26-Apr-91 Andover, Kansas ( 17 )
16-Jun-92 Chandler, Minnesota ( 1 )
18-Jul-96 Oakfield, Wisconsin ( 0 )
27-May-97 Jarrell, Texas ( 27 )
8-Apr-98 Jefferson County, Alabama ( 32 )
16-Apr-98 Lawrence County, Tennessee ( 0 )
3-May-99 Moore, Oklahoma ( 36 )

[Jim Eshelman]

I found an interesting site.

The following is a representative list of the most important tornadoes in each state. The criteria for the "worst" in each state is different for each state. In some tornado-prone states, it is strictly based on deaths. In other states, it is based on deaths and injuries. In the states that have never had a tornado death, the selection is made on the basis of damage. Of course, the worst tornado in Nevada is less destructive that even the 500th worst tornado in Texas, Mississippi, or a dozen other states. To give at least some perspective on each state, rather minor events must be included for states where tornadoes are rare. We also change the criteria in 1953. Since that year, forecasting and awareness efforts have drastically reduced the size of single-tornado death tolls in most states. If only the deadliest tornadoes were listed, then few recent events would be included.

For emphasis: "If only the deadliest tornadoes were listed, then few recent events would be included."

http://www.tornadoproject.com/alltorns/worstts.htm

[Jim Eshelman]

Thanks for the link to high death toll tornadoes. I was never satisfied with using the "highest speed" form of "worst," since there was no relationship to death toll or property damage. Your list may prove much more useful, and is larger - which also means it's going to be a long time until I can do anything with it. I've saved the link off for when the time presents itself.

Contrasting my original 50 and your list may be very interesting in one regard: There remains a question of how much these ingresses are showing objective phenomena in nature (earthquake, tornado, rainfall, etc.), and how much they are showing human reaction to the event. The list I used - highest velocity tornadoes - should accurately portray intense natural phenomena. The list you provided is more indicative of human involvement and human impact. The contrast could be fascinating.

[Jim Eshelman]

It will also be interesting to see if these Venus infused tornado charts are mostly post-1953 when the death tolls were reduced so drastically by more and more accurate forecasting.

[Jim Eshelman]

Did you look at the list I posted? 100% of the samples were 1953 or later.

[Jim Eshelman]

Exactly. If Venus is not so much in evidence pre-1953, that will coincide with improved forecasting coming into wide use.
I think that's unlikely, but you never know.