Coldest Day on Record

According to the current issue of New Scientist Magazine (Jan. 9, 2010 issue, p. 17) the coldest known recorded temperature taken on Earth was taken down at VOSTOK Station in Antartica on July 21, 1983.

That's the middle of Winter down at the South Pole. The thermostat logged a -89.2 C temperature.

I don't know what poor schmuck would have been down there taking the temperature in this climate but apparently the reason for extreme temperature was a "near stationary atmospheric vortex."

The weather sort of froze into a vortex.

This is a great way to understand a Saturn-Pluto conjunction. I suspect that, working together, they rule Time and Stillness and slow motion. I looked at the chart of the physicist a long time ago on this blog who had developed the Atomic Clock, the most precise timing device. If I remember correctly his Sun was in strong aspect with both of these planets so he could truly utilize their gifts.

The Sun in this chart is aspecting the Saturn-Pluto conjunction in an out of sign square.

The Saturn-Pluto conjunction wasn't working alone. There was another big outer planet conjunction of Jupiter to Uranus in Sagittarius. This means that Jupiter was in its own sign and as we've just experienced the extreme nature of this transit (this time it passed over Pluto which caused the big financial crisis). This Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is also in aspect to the Sun through a trine. Again, this is an out-of-sign trine. So there is a very strange working together of energies that are somewhat extreme due to the placement of so many planets at the ends and beginnings of signs.

Interesting that there were so many planets in the fire sign of Sagittarius since Fire is hot. But the other outer planet Neptune was at 28 Sagittarius which would have been close to the Galactic Center. And the Moon was probably close to that spot as well. The Nodal Axis was also along this point at 24 Gemini/Sagittarius with a Gemini North Node. The Sun is also in aspect with Neptune through an inconjunct.

While the Outer Planets were in strong aspect with each other and the Sun and Nodes and possibly the Moon, the other inner planets were sort of isolated.

Venus was a singleton in Earth in Virgo.

Mercury and Mars were both unaspected by major aspect. Mercury was a singleton in Fixed Signs. Mars is lead planet of a bowl formation with the other boundary planet being Neptune (and the Galactic Center). And all the planets are also held with the Nodal Axis.

Isn't this the Summer that they figured out what AIDS was?

Coldest Day on Record for Time and Place
July 21, 1983 Antarctica
Antarctica doesn't have a city so I made the chart for Punta Arenas, Chile which, according to an internet search is the most Southern City on the planet.