I’m not sure why anyone pays attention to the Iowa caucuses anymore, considering its Republican voters have only picked their Party’s eventual presidential nominee twice since the 1960s, and only one of those went on to win the general election. But Iowa is the time-honored kickoff to the quadrennial American presidential passion play regardless, and one must observe the conventions and traditions that make the country what it is.
After a very dry spring in much of the eastern US evoked widespread drought conditions, the climate change worm turned dramatically in late June and early July 2023, deluging these same areas with more rain than they could handle. Vermont quickly became the poster child for Northeast flooding, with new records set for rainfall in the Green Mountain State. Wastewater treatment facilities were among the hardest-hit, with 33 impacted statewide, and the plant in Johnson inundated by eight feet of water, leaving “total destruction” in its wake, with “just the shell of a building” remaining.
After a fairly somnolent summer, the Atlantic hurricane season has been working overtime to make up the deficit, with two powerful storms wreaking havoc up and down the east coast of North America in the last week of September. Hurricane Fiona devastated areas of the Canadian Maritimes on the 24th, while Hurricane Ian pounded central Florida on the 28th with nightmarish winds and massive flooding, traversed the Sunshine State, then refueled in the Atlantic and turned its sights on the Carolinas.
Torrential rains drenching eastern Kentucky in late July led to massive flooding on July 28, 2022, particularly of isolated rural communities in the poorest areas of Appalachia, where rivers and creeks swelled to overflow their banks by as much as 20 feet, filling the hollows and washing away some homes and businesses, inundating others in feet of standing water. Hardest-hit areas received 8-10 inches of rainfall within 48 hours. As of this writing (July 31) 26 are dead and dozens more still missing, while continued rain forecasts imperil search efforts and threaten to exacerbate an already tragic situation. Among the dead are four young siblings from Montgomery, Kentucky: Maddison, Riley, Nevaeh and Chance Noble, aged 2 to 8, torn from their parent’s arms by the current’s grip as the family’s mobile home was swept away.
On Friday evening, 10 December 2010, some 30 tornadoes smashed through six mid-West states, creating havoc and spreading devastation, claiming upwards of 100 lives. The outbreak, apart from being one of the worst recorded, is all the more historic given the unseasonable timing, with most tornadoes occurring in the spring. Normally, cooler temperatures preclude the formation of tornadoes, and this December rampage is yet another sign of increasing weather instability stemming from unchecked climate change globally.
Moving at barely a walking pace of 3 mph, Hurricane Sally made landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category Two storm at 4:45 AM CDT on September 16, 2020. The storm promises to be one of the worst water-dumpers ever, with historic levels of rainfall expected and major flooding likely. Up to 30” of rain is predicted in some locations, a devastating amount of precip as Sally slogs her soggy way across the south-east.
Astrologically, too, Sally promises to be a major event, fitting the pattern of her PNA (Personal-Named Asteroid) in major aspect to the Sun. In this instance, we have asteroid Salli, an alternate spelling, which at 29 Sagittarius is squared the Sun, coming in just under the wire of 24 Virgo, at 23 Virgo 59 for her landfall. A broad T-Square is created by Neptune, planetary ruler of floods, opposed the Sun from 19 Pisces, where it is accompanied by asteroid Achilles at 23 Pisces, a symbol of vulnerability, and asteroid Heracles at 25 Pisces, a symbol of strength and power. In this case, vulnerability (Achilles) from water (Neptune), via a storm that already exceeded expectations for its strength (Heracles) at landfall.
