Simma Sky: Does the Moon Impact Earth's Weather?

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — I was at an event the last week of April, talking all things Florida weather and hurricanes with some Action News Jax viewers. I've decided that people love throwing out random questions for meteorologists to see if they can stump them (because c'mon, let's be honest - who DOESN'T like making someone look foolish??) but one of the viewers asked a great question I didn't know the answer to.

Does the moon impact the weather on the Earth?

I already know your response: "The Moon affects the tides!"

And my response is, you're right...and wrong. The moon is the REASON for the tides, combined with the the forces exerted by the sun (see NOAA Tides & Currents definition). So while the moon does affect the tide in a sense, it's also one of the causes.

Image courtesy oceanservice.noaa.gov

Back to the original question. Does the moon impact the weather?

What do you do when you have a question? GOOGLE! Also not completely a horrible answer, but I suggest you look for ".net" and ".org" websites for reliable information. Weather-wise, you can NEVER go wrong with NOAA. I found two answers to this question.

First: I found an article titled "The Moon and the Weather" by E.G. Hogg in the Journal of the Royal Astonomical Society of Canada, Vol. 29, p.108. Hogg very eloquently quotes a few lines from "Notes and Queries" September 23, 1882:

The moon and the weather

May change together;

But change of the moon

Does not change the weather.

If we'd no moon at all

-And that may seem strange-

We still should have weather

That's subject to change.

You can't make a point based on one side of the story. So let's find the opposing viewpoint.

An article done by the University of Washington in 2016 found that the forces exerted by the moon that create tides also affect the amount of rainfall on Earth. Interesting. Using satellite data and air pressure changes, doctoral students found that lunar forces do affect the amount of rainfall Earth receives - though it's a very slight difference.

Satellite data showing a slight dip in rainfall when the moon is directly overhead. Courtesy the University of Washington.

That slight difference? Only a one-percent difference of the total rainfall variation. As Tsubasa Kohyama put it: "No one should carry an umbrella just because the moon is rising."

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