If you were expecting some kind of sun sign nonsense, forget it. This is real astrology. See the section above. Please note: all forecasts and corresponding results are expressed in terms of Universal Time (UT). Current UT date and time appear at the top of this page. (To update display, use your browser's reload/refresh button.) 

WAKE OF A BLUE MOON

I predicted that the March 31 Blue Moon would remain "in force until April 2," bringing an "up-tick in floods, strong storms and moderate to severe seismic action (volcanic eruptions and Richter 5 or greater quakes)." Most of this action happened in March and is covered in my forecast results for that month. But those freakish spring snowstorms that pounded the northern Plains and turned 100+ mph winds loose in Arizona happened on April 1st. And eight people froze to death in the San Diego Mountains along the California-Mexico border that night, as snow from the same storm system blanketed the area. The wintry weather intensified on the 2nd even as the Plains states were digging out: 4,000 people were without power in North Dakota, where a storm watch remained in effect.

MARS, SATURN & MAYHEM

Noting that "the world remains very much under the aegis of Mars pretty much throughout April," I advised you to "expect the international military conflict and confrontation begun last month to continue and intensify . . . Yugoslavia and Kosova will hardly be the only focus for all this – although the situation there is bound to get much worse in April." That it did. On the night of April 5, NATO conducted its "most intensive" strikes against Yugoslav military targets to date, according to a NATO official. From Novi Sad in the north to Prizren in the south, allied warplanes attacked bridges, fuel depots, communications centers and transport targets – and, tragically, a residential complex that was hit by mistake. (At least six innocent civilians died in that strike.) The next day NATO struck Serb armored columns in Kosova.

If you tuned in to hear my March 26 analysis of the Kosova crisis on Laura Gerking's Astrology Talk online radio show – it's on tape at the TalkSpot RealPlayer archive – you heard me make what at the time must have seemed a startling prediction: "As we look into April, this thing is going to threaten to go nuclear." (That prediction was made about an hour and 25 minutes into the show, five minutes after Laura brought me on. You can fast-forward to that spot using your RealPlayer if you don't have time to listen to the whole show. For more on Astrology Talk, see the OCT 12, 1998 Website Of the Week Award and review.) The threat materialized on April 9, when Gennady Seleznyov, speaker of the Russian Duma, quoted President Boris Yeltsin as saying that he had ordered nuclear missiles to be targeted on NATO countries participating in the bombing of Yugoslavia. While the Kremlin later denied this, Yeltsin nevertheless put NATO on notice that day: "Don't push us towards military action. Otherwise, there will be a European war for sure and possibly world war." And in any event, MSNBC reported on the 9th that a Kremlin spokesman confirmed that the issue of targeting nuclear missiles on NATO countries had been "discussed by President Boris Yeltsin and top political officials." Meanwhile, when pressed by the Russian Interfax news agency whether Yeltsin had told him that he had ordered the nuclear re-targeting, Seleznyov minced no words: "Yes, in the direction of those countries which today are fighting Yugoslavia."

Wondering where this whole Kosova mess is headed? You can hear my predictions at the March 26 Astrology Talk online archive. Here's a hint: "This ends in a ground war, we are going to have American troops on the ground there." And relax about that nuclear war stuff. I said the threat would be raised, but I hastened to add I don't see this turning into an end of the world scenario: "I don't expect there will be an explosion . . . I'm not seeing this as being the end of the world." (God, I hope I'm right on that count - and wrong on the ground war thing, as far as that goes.) On April 25 US Secretary of State Albright and British Foreign Secretary Cook steadfastly maintained they had "no target date to put ground troops" into Kosova. Yet the London Times was reporting that day how the UK Ministry of Defence "has drafted detailed plans to send up to 40,000 British troops to the Balkans . . . Britain and America would each provide 40% of a 100,000-strong land force." Government officials denying in public what they're planning in secret: so what else is new?

While the military conflicts grab the headlines, there's more to this Mars-Saturn opposition that that. I warned that "the strong Mars and Saturn factors at work throughout April – and particularly toward the end of the month – make for a potential rash of horrible accidents, heinous criminality and the like." The headlines are already full of it. An Easter Sunday church holdup in Metairie LA shocked sensibilities everywhere. The robber held the congregation at gunpoint on holy ground, and then made off with $1,200 in cash. On Tuesday, April 6 a former transit worker killed four people and then himself at the main bus depot in Ottawa, Canada. But those incidents paled in comparison to the carnage in Indonesia, where 40 people were slaughtered in Christian-Muslim clashes April 5-6. More than 100 people were injured in the fighting, and over 90 homes were torched. Muslim terrorists were at it again in Algeria on the 11th, killing 18 people in Mascara province.

In the horrible accident category, a powerful explosion killed two workers and injured 50 more at an electric plant near Tampa FL on the 8th. The blast could be heard at least 35 miles away. One of these disaster stories had a happy ending. It happened in Atlanta on Monday April 12, when a raging fire swept through the historic old Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill in Atlanta. A construction worker trapped in a crane atop the building was plucked from the inferno and hauled to safety by fireman Matt Mosely. Mosely made the rescue dangling by cable from a rescue helicopter. Another helicopter incident had no happy ending, however. It happened on the 22nd, when a US Army UH-60 Black Hawk crashed at Fort Campbell KY, killing seven and injuring four others. Other crashes happened much closer to earth on Friday the 23rd: a truck plunged off a steep mountain road in southern Chiapas Mexico, killing 46 people; and a train derailed near Chatham-Kent in Canada, killing two and injuring more than 150.

The pace of murder and mayhem, if anything, got worse as the month wore on. Like I said, that strong Mars-Saturn factor would be "at work throughout April – and particularly toward the end of the month." For example, there was the Korean air freighter that crashed into a migrant workers housing area just after takeoff from the Shanghai airport on April 15. Seven people were killed (including the plane's entire three-member flight crew), at least 37 more were injured – most of them seriously. Massacres were in the news that day as well, from a grenade attack on a fiesta in the Philippines (at least a dozen killed, dozens more injured), to a mass murderer gone on a shooting spree at the Church of Latter Day Saints' Family History Library in Salt Lake City UT (three dead, including the gunman, plus four people wounded). All this came just a day after NATO warplanes mistakenly bombed a civilian convoy in Kosova on the 14th (at least 64 refugees killed). Another mistake bombing happened in Puerto Rico on Monday the 19th, when a pair of USAF F-18s on a training mission were off their aim while attempting to bomb a target on Vieques Island. The bombs instead took out an observation tower where five people were working at the time: one dead, four injured.

The Kosova crisis was not the only focus for military strikes. I mentioned Saddam Hussein as a target this month, and he got his fair share. US and British warplanes attacked anti-aircraft sites in Iraq on the 15th, 17th and 22nd.

Here in the states of course, the massacre that set everyone aghast in April was the Littleton CO Columbine High School cataclysm, in which two students toting shotguns, semi-automatics and pipe bombs murdered a dozen of their classmates and a teacher before killing themselves. It all happened on Tuesday the 20th, within less than 24 hours of the exact Mars-Saturn alignment. (Student riots in Managua, Nicaragua that same day left one demonstrator dead and several others injured when police opened fire with rubber bullets.) The Littleton mass murderers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, were fans of Adolf Hitler and the slaughter was timed to coincide with the Nazi leader's birthday. Like-minded monsters bombed a market in south London on Saturday the 17th, injuring at least 48 people. The Neo-Nazis struck again the following Saturday, injuring seven people in another bomb attack in London's East End.

SUPERMOON STORMS & STUFF

The April 13-19 SuperMoon delivered its usual quotient of "strong storms, flooding and moderate to severe seismic activity (including Richter 5 or greater quakes and volcanic eruptions)," as predicted. On the seismic front, there were an even dozen Richter 5 or greater quakes during this period, as registered by the US Geological Survey (USGS) National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC). Strongest of the lot was a 6.6-magnitude temblor that hit the Fiji Islands region on the 13th. (However an even stronger quake didn't show up in the NEIC catalog: the 6.8 Richter event that jolted Indonesia's Maluku Islands on the 14th.) Alaska was the scene for both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions during this SuperMoon. The 9,373-foot Shishaldin Volcano at the eastern end of the Aleutian Islands began erupting on the 19th. Flights to and in the area of the Aleutians had to be re-routed because the 45,000-foot volcanic ash cloud was deemed a potential aircraft hazard. (I had mentioned Alaska as one of the risk zones for this SuperMoon, you will recall.)

There was plenty of activity on the storm front during this SuperMoon as well. Sydney, Australia got clobbered with hail stones the size of rock melons on Wednesday the 14th, causing dozens of injuries and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. Flights at the Sydney Airport were grounded for 20 minutes at the height of the storm. The southern US got blasted that day too, as killer tornadoes tore up Mississippi and Tennessee. The storms system spread into North Carolina and Georgia Thursday night, killing one man, injuring several dozen, and leaving hundreds homeless. Two Georgia counties were declared disaster areas. In the Argenia region of Colombia that day, more than two dozen people died in mudslides caused by several days of heavy rain. The only good weather news connected with this SuperMoon was the rain that fell in drought-stricken Florida on Saturday the 17th, putting a halt to the wildfires that had burned 63,000 acres and destroyed dozens of homes this year. Well, there was a bit of good news for Slobodan Milosevic: NATO had to cancel Sunday's planned air strikes against Yugoslavia on account of bad weather. Tropical cyclone 33S swirled to life south of Sumatra on the last day of this period.