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Pat Shingleton: "Last Night's Sunset!"

5 years 8 months 1 day ago Friday, July 27 2018 Jul 27, 2018 July 27, 2018 9:00 AM July 27, 2018 in Pat Shingleton Column
By: Pat Shingleton:

Before satellites,  weather radar, and national and local weather coverage, folks would look to the sky, plants and animals for weather predictions. Weather proverbs and folklore advanced over generations, noting some accuracy. You've heard the old adage: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight...Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning." Similar to last night and our sunset at 8:02 PM, the western sky is especially clear, creating beautiful red sunsets. As the sun goes down it bops through the lower atmosphere, hitting scattered particles of dust, smoke and pollution. In this "scattering" process the shorter wavelengths of light, depicted as violets and blues, are eliminated with the longer wavelengths of reds and oranges remaining. Sinking air gathers the contaminants closer to earth, making the sunset even redder. This is caused by high pressure that brings fair weather. If the eastern sky is red in the morning, high pressure has passed, replaced by low pressure, clouds, rain and a warning? Here's another adage,  "Mare's tails and mackerel scales make tall ships take in their sails." This one refers to the sky. Sailors of old could only rely on the sky, wind and wave heights to determine their weather. A mackerel sky means that cirrocumulus clouds are present. These cloud types occur prior to a warm frontal passage. An approaching warm front shifts the winds from northeast to east then southwest and west. This would require the captain or skipper of the ship to reef or take in their sails. "Clear moon, frost soon," indicates that the earth will cool rapidly as daytime heat escapes at night. Without the clouds, there's no blanket to hold the day's heat close to the surface. As the temperature drops and winds subside, the falling temperature will create the frost.

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