Clouds and Sunsets Be it a shepherd or sailor, one would find this brazen night-nearing sky a harbin

Clouds and SunsetsBe it a shepherd or sailor, one would find this brazen night-nearing sky a harbinger of delightful weather fortune in the midlatitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Foretold through hundreds of years, sunsets as pictured are often said to indicate polite weather situations for outdoor pursuits. These observations, made over time, reflect the linking of light properties with weather systems to produce a predictable outcome. Though the old adage “Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” may be an overgeneralization, given that storm systems don’t move perfectly in a west to east direction, this phrase nevertheless has lasted through years of time when advanced technology was not available to precisely track weather patterns. The sun rises in the east, and sets in the west. In the midlatitudes, a red sky in the morning can indicate a clear sky to the east, as the sun shining through the sky is uninterrupted by cloud systems. However, this may indicate a storm is plausibly approaching from the west (take warning!). A red sky at night indicates the sun is shining over the horizon as its rays pass through varying longitudes over the west, indicating clear skies in that direction, easing apprehension of coming storms (delightful!).The intensity of the color is a combination of the sun’s ray angle, and particulates scattering the light in the air. The most direct rays from the sun occur at 12pm at any given longitude, waxing and waning from sunrise to sunset. The path these light beams follow results in the shorter wavelengths of light reflecting from the particulate matter in the air, making the sky blue to the human eye due to the selective scattering at the size of the air molecules. Easing into morning hours or fading away at night, however, the light travels a longer trajectory as the sun’s rays are either reaching or leaving the furthest point they can extend. This allows the longer wavelengths of light to reflect the color red to the human eye, as the shorter wavelengths of light have previously been scattered through the distance traveling eastward, showing as blue to those residing on longitudes closer to the rays.The presence of clouds with reflecting properties, as pictured, can often accent the colors of the sky if high enough to not affect the incoming rays at the horizon. Most times, these clouds are of the varieties altocumulus or cirrus, as these cloud types reside in the middle to upper layers of the atmosphere.-MHRead more: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/corfidi/sunset/Image source: MH -- source link

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