We’ve
probably all heard the saying…
Red
sky at night, sailor’s delight
Red sky in morning, sailor’s take warning
But
what the heck does it mean? And by that, I’m asking what the difference
is between a red sky in the evening or the morning that causes
a sailor to sleep easily or prepare for a hideous day.
There
are two places where the story seems to begin… where the weather
takes place and where people live. And by that, we are looking
at two things.
First,
use the equator and begin spanning north and south. The majority
of the world’s population lives in a band essentially based on
the equator. That’s not saying most people live on the equator.
Instead, think of the north and south poles. Fewer people are
calling those inhospitable locations home.
Second,
go figure, those same bands of areas turn out to be where changing
weather patterns exist. North pole… bitterly cold… every day.
The Carolinas… New England… Europe… we can consider them mostly
rainy, or find locations that are tropical. Essentially though,
the forecast for Wednesday does not necessarily follow for every
Wednesday. Snow on Monday does not always mean snow on Friday.
(Unless of course you live in San Diego… slightly cloudy and 82…
every day.)
Effectively
though, we can see that there are some things common to where
people live, and those places normally involve a variety of changing
weather patterns. Yes, sure, winter and spring and summer and
fall are different in Sydney, Australia, than they are in Boston,
Massachusetts, United States. And they are different far beyond
simply being on a different cycle caused by the tilt and rotation
of Earth. But if you live in Sydney, there is an annual cycle.
Same in Boston.
Next
we need to get into clichés a bit.
The
thing that makes a cliché matter is a bit of truth. A bird
in the hand is better than no bird at all, hence a bird in the
hand is better than two in the bush. It’s also just about certainly
better than three, four, five or more in the bush.
That
explanation of clichés becomes important, because as we
explore the Red Sky saying, we need to venture into very early
and rudimentary meteorology. There was no Doppler 57,000 in the
year 1829. Hard to believe, but there was no Ghiorse Factor back
then either. (Little inside joke there. Legendary Rhode Island
weatherman, John Ghiorse. Back to our story…) So even if our weather-related
sayings were going to have an opportunity to be accurate, they
also tended to be a bit simplistic.
The
red sky poem doesn’t just exist for sailors. It has been used
in other areas, one being shepherds.
Back
when the Bible was being written, specifically in the chapter
of Matthew, there is reference to red skies. Shakespeare mentions
sailors and shepherds in Venus and Adonis while discussing
wind direction.
And,
as you might guess if you think about it, there truly is a long,
scientific background involved. It’s the way the sun hits the
clouds, and on what angle, and the presence of moisture. In the
evening, the sun setting in the west and creating red would involve
clearer, dry skies moving from west to east, and look at that…
better weather for the next day. Red skies in the morning would
be the sun rising and hitting more moisture in the air, indicating
the potential for storms.
Now,
obviously, we know that these sayings don’t always hold true,
and that Sydney may need to compensate a bit on the saying because
of weather patterns and jet streams and ocean currents and on
and on. But that’s in part because we have Doppler 63,000 working
for us.
I
suppose we can arrive at the conclusion that as long as people
need to travel or plant crops or do anything outside, there was
a need to be able to predict the weather. And, so what if there
was no Doppler 84,500 two thousand years ago.
Dogs
do amazing things. They can pick up on your slightest habits or
patterns. Travis, our chocolate lab, used to head straight for
the cabinet with the treats when he came in from outside. In fact,
a few times I even caught him faking that he peed, turning and
running back into the house and right over to that cabinet. He
understood the game. If I pee, I get a snack. When Bob goes to
this cabinet, I get a snack. He didn’t have a fancy poem for it…
that I know of… but he understood the pattern.
With
or without satellites and fancy tracking systems and weather stations,
there has basically always been a need to be able to predict the
weather for one reason or another. And, while it may seem silly
to us as we look back on them, little sayings and observations
helped. And, frankly, were stunning in their accuracy. Take the
seagull.
One
research and idea concerning the seagull is that if you see one
on the ground, that’s bad news for the weather. And, duh, of course
it is. A seagull isn’t going to rest on the rough and choppy water
caused by an incredibly windy day and rough seas. A seagull isn’t
going to be happy soaring and gliding over the water, looking
for food or threats down below, on a windy day.
When
I was a kid we used to notice the cows. A cow lying down meant
rain.
If
you search deeply enough you can find all sorts of ways of tracking
the weather, traced to the appearance of the moon, the color of
the leaves, and just about any changing event, especially the
cyclical ones.
Ever
had trouble opening a door or window? That darn humidity, right?
Oh,
those aching knees and backs. (Storm’s coming!)
You
can’t take these things as perfectly true. For instance – The
calm before a storm? Many people will tell you about the calm
after the storm being more likely. A hurricane comes traipsing
through, leaving behind dryer air and warm weather. But calm before
it? Not always. Unless you’re willing to go twenty-four, forty-eight,
seventy-two or more hours in advance of the storm. In fact, head
down to the beach and watch the surf ahead of a hurricane. It’s
hardly calm.
And
what about the eye of the hurricane. That pause in between the
swirling winds. Again, perhaps a calm, but misleading. And yet…
in ancient times, with no ways of telling this was a short break
in the action, perhaps there’s some truth to it.
However,
if you look it up, you’ll find that there aren’t that many weather
related comments on a calm before a storm.
And
so we end where we began. There’s usually a bit of truth in every
cliché, even if the Doppler 92,000 doesn’t agree.
Red
sky at night, sailor’s delight
Red sky in morning, sailor’s take warning