Ken Ring is a writer from Auckland, New Zealand, who asserts that he can use lunar cycles to predict weather and earthquakes. He terms his predictions "alternative weather" and has authored books about the weather and climate. Ring publishes almanacs each year for New Zealand, Australia and Ireland in which he provides weather predictions for the entire year. His New Zealand almanac covers 64 towns. Ring's methods have been shown to be unscientific and have been widely confirmed as fake and pseudoscience by many real scientists in the fields of meteorology and geology. Ring says he predicted the 4 September 2010 Christchurch earthquake and the deadly 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. He also said there would probably be an earthquake in Marlborough or north Canterbury "just before noon" on 20 March 2011. This caused some residents to leave Christchurch and led to criticism from scientists and sceptics. Further research into his predictions showed that his forecasting record did not hold up under scrutiny. Mathman Ken Ring has been a mathematics teacher, musician, actor, clown, speech therapist, private tutor to children with learning difficulties, teacher of English as a second language, and part-time teachers' college lecturer. He has used magic to teach children about mathematics, performing under the name "Mathman", and has written books on mathematics, magic, teaching and music. He also co-wrote a book on reading cats' paws, which he says "was a joke". Ken has also claimed in the past to being "University Science Trained", though Ring has never been able to show any qualifications to support that unfounded claim. Predicting weather Ring is known for attempting to predict weather and authors books on "how the moon affects the weather", which include an almanac each year for New Zealand (since 1999), Australia (since 2006) and Ireland (since 2010). He believes that the cycle of weather follows a lunar pattern and can be used to predict weather many years in advance. The supposed lunar cycle that Ring uses is stated to occur every 9 years, though no such lunar cycle actually exists in reality, while the solar cycle repeats at 11-year intervals and by assessing the two Ring believes that the weather recycles through a 355-day cycle, a 19-year cycle, and a 36-year cycle. According to his website it is not an exact science - it has been shown to not follow any scientific methodology. When questioned about the proven