Astrometeorology (from

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, ''astron'', "constellation, star"; , ''metéōros'', "high in the sky"; and , ''

-logia ''-logy'' is a suffix in the English language, used with words originally adapted from Ancient Greek ending in ('). The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the French '' -logie'', which was in turn inherited from the Latin '' -logi ...

'') or meteorological astrology is a

pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...

that attempts to forecast the weather using

astrology Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Di ...

. It is the belief that the position and motion of celestial objects can be used to predict both seasonal climate and weather. Throughout most of its history astrometeorology was considered a scholarly tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, medicine, and other types of astrology. Meteorological phenomena correlated to planetary configurations were recorded in Babylonia. Classical astrologers of note such as

Claudius Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importa ...

constructed a treatise on forecasting weather via astrological means. Astrometeorology is the oldest type of Hellenistic astrology. Johannes Kepler recorded meteorological observations to support his belief that the

conjunction Conjunction may refer to: * Conjunction (grammar), a part of speech * Logical conjunction, a mathematical operator ** Conjunction introduction, a rule of inference of propositional logic * Conjunction (astronomy), in which two astronomical bodies ...

of Saturn and the Sun would produce cold weather. In 1686 a large volume written in English was devoted to astrometeorology by John Goad in his book ''Astro-Meteorologica'' published in London, England. Astrometeorological societies persisted in Great Britain until the mid-19th century but were not taken seriously by mainstream scientists. Farmers in India during the 21st century have used a form of astrometeorology based on Nakshatra that is not considered a viable practice.

References

See also