What makes sky red at night

Sailors used such sayings to predict the weather as they navigated their ships through the seas, and farmers relied on such sayings to predict rainfall and the best time to plant their crops. But what is the reality behind such weather folklore? The color changes that we see in the sky have to do with the wavelengths in the color spectrum. As the rays of sunlight bounce off the water vapor in the atmosphere they pass through, they split into the colors of the spectrum.

Red skies suggest that the clouds are filled with a lot of dust and moisture. If there is a red sky at sunset, it is due to high levels of pressure and stable air conditions that are coming in from the west. Because the west is generally the direction that storms move in from, stable air in that direction usually indicates good weather.

If the sky is red at sunrise it is generally an indication that dust particles from a storm have passed from the west, moving east and a deep red indicates a high water concentration in the clouds that could mean heavy rain. Using the simple image of the sky to predict the weather may seem slightly oversimplified today when we have the use of such modern technology as Doppler radar and satellites, but these sayings are based on logic and truth that helped pre-modern people to understand the complexities of Mother Nature.

Kyla Baxter is a recent graduate of the University of Southern Maine. She received her undergraduate degree in social and behavioral science and will be participating in a work study program in New Zealand in the fall. Writing has been a long time passion of hers and she hopes to pursue a career in professional writing in the future.

I truly believe you can predict the weather just by observing your surroundings. We can only see a tiny part of what's going on. So a butterfly or a reindeer , which can perceive ultraviolet light, might be seeing a different, perhaps more colorful sunset than we do?

The more you look at things, the more you realize how unique your own experience is as a human on this planet, at this particular place and time. All rights reserved. In simple terms, what makes a good sunset happen?

Do dust and air pollution make sunsets more dramatic? Do the seasons affect sunsets? So conversely, could local weather forecasters predict a pretty sunset? Why are sunsets sometimes more dramatic after a major storm? Is it true that by the time we see a sunset, the sun is actually already gone? Sounds like there's a lot of science to sunsets, but it's also a very subjective experience. This interview has been edited and condensed. Follow Amanda Fiegl on Twitter. Share Tweet Email.

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Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. At sunrise and sunset, the light passes through more air and more atmosphere, so there are simply more molecules to scatter the violet and blue away. Sunsets tend to look more chaotic, with large curtains of colour. Sunrises tend to have a cleaner and neater overall look.

The reason? During the warm, busy day, more polluting particles build up in the atmosphere. After the cool night, the air is clearer — the colours are more focused around the sun itself. Major volcanic eruptions scatter particles of gas, dust and ash into the upper atmosphere, which can remain for several years. This means most of the yellow, orange, and red light passes through while a small amount of blue and purple light is scattered and removed from the mix.

The Sun, therefore, looks yellow for us here on Earth. Due to Rayleigh scattering, most of the light of shorter wavelengths — the blue, violet, and green — are scattered away multiple times, leaving only lights of longer wavelength — the red, orange, and yellow — to pass straight through to the observer. This is why a rising and setting Sun tends to take on spectacular hues of red, orange, and yellow.

The quality of the air that sunlight has to pass through also has an effect on the color of sunrises and sunsets. Dust particles and pollutants tend to tone down the colors in the sky as well as impede light from reaching the observer on the ground.