Nutters Claim Huge Full Moon Could Cause Earthquakes, Tidal Waves: L.A. Might Not See it in the Rain, Unfortunately

By Dennis Romero Fri., Mar. 18 2011 at 4:04 PM

David DeHetre

The 'Super Moon' comes to L.A. Or maybe it doesn't.

Biggest moon in nearly 20 years this weekend. So says the U.S. Naval Observatory, which reports tomorrow's 'Super Moon' will be the first since March, 1993. Some nutters predict havoc. We shrug with doubt.

The Observatory states that ...

... this Full Moon will appear about as large as it possibly can as it rises on the evening of the 19th. If you watch Luna rise that night against a distant horizon dotted with trees and houses you may have a particularly good experience of the 'Moon illusion,' where Luna's disc looks enormous when close to the horizon.

Unfortunately for us Angelenos the National Weather Service warns of a "powerful late season winter storm taking aim towards Southern California" tonight through the weekend.

So maybe no Super Moon for us, unless there's a break in the clouds.

Why would Ms. Luna appear so large?

The Observatory stateth that it will be close -- 221,567 miles away, to be exact:

... It occurs within an hour of lunar perigee, and this perigee is the closest one for the entire year.

Of course, there are nutcases out there predicting all kinds of bad stuff, including earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

After what happened in Japan last week, we don't need any more of that.

-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.

Tags:

earthquake, full moon, Los Angeles, rain, storm, Super Moon, tsunami, U.S. Naval Observatory

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Raymond Fisher

To dismiss the moon's gravitational effect on Earth is just plain arrogance from people with no imagination. And to call people nutters shows a very low level of maturity for a so-called scientific expert. Rational debate does involve name-calling. Although the Japan earthquake did not coincide with a full moon, most of the largest earthquakes throughout history have. Evidence - look at the list of the largest earthquakes by magnitude on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.... Then for each one go down the list and look at http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthv... for the earthquake year. You will find the following:-1964 Alaska earthquake (2nd largest) - day before full moon2004 Indian Ocean earthquake (3rd largest) - full moon 1952 Kamchatka earthquakes (4th largest) - 3 days after full moon1833 Sumatra earthquake (6th largest) - 2 days before full moon2010 Chile earthquake (8th largest) - day before full moon

A full moon occurs when the moon and sun are on opposite sides of the Earth and therefore it does not take a great stretch of the imagination to visualise the Earth being 'pulled apart' and perhaps allowing the tectonic plates to slide.

Anon

I must say that watching the daily doings of Dennis from within the Culver City office it is unlikely to see him do anything effectively other than pick his nose. We are being whispered to that redundancy waits for those who eat nose.

Nosecontent

Nose eaters a w a y!

Feralwind

March 26 1993 we had the largest earthquake I can remember. My animals woke me before it hit. It was a real up and down shaker that lasted almost a minute.

Dennis Romero

So the Super Moon was March 8, 1993, so your earthquake would have been a couple weeks after the full moon -- about during its new moon (darked out) phase. So any claimed causal effects the Super or full moon would have been long gone.

WindyButtock

Denis should take up astronomy / prediction outcome specialization where she is likely to enjoy a more respecting peer group ....probably not but can't be any worse than this scribble/hackery we are subjected to..