Moon Man just wants chance to help people

Ken Ring has studied patterns. Photo / Jason Dorday

The nation knows him as Moon Man, the predictor of weather - and earthquakes.

Controversial weather forecaster Ken Ring this week sat down with a reporter for the first time since he was forced to flee his Auckland home this year.

It was almost 40 years ago, while living a hippie lifestyle in Opotiki, that Ring looked up at the moon and connected the dots between its position, the tide and stormy skies. Ring said he and his wife, both teachers, had got a house bus and gone rural, home-schooling their children along the way.

"We ended up in Opotiki and we were fishing, camping and hunting. One of the first things I noticed was that a storm occurred at the same time as the highest tides of the month."

After decades of research involving past moon cycles, he turned his hobby into a career, talking to farmers.

"What I'm doing is science. I'm university trained and I've never done a horoscope for anyone in my life, so no one can level the word astrology at me."

But three months ago Ring had to leave his home for several days after receiving threats when he predicted another earthquake on March 20.

Ring said later that his appearance on TV3's Campbell Live, during which John Campbell made him out to be a charlatan, fuelled public outrage.

He stayed with family and friends, and kept his head down.

"The main thing that was upsetting is it hurt my family and grandkids."

But the threats and publicity haven't slowed him down and so the predictions continued this week.

Ring initially said there could be more quake activity this weekend given "extremely low air pressures" in the past few days.

"You get strong earthquakes at that time which is why we had the one on the 21st (June)".

But the next day he said quake activity would more likely happen on July 1.

Ring also predicted there would be no snow on the mountains until August and a wintry blast would hit the country in October.

"Some places like Mt Hutt may not be seeing any snow before the end of July and they are just starting to realise that now."

Ring denied scaremongering and said he continued to use his readings to help others with his predictions.

Although Ring received hate mail he was also flooded with letters of support.

"People say 'oh thank you, you saved my farm' ... I'm just somebody who enjoys helping people."