Is this true? Pink sky at night sailors delight; Pink sky in morning, sailors warning!?

Question

My dad used to say that all the time when I was a kid! Is this true? Perhaps this is just superstition, or old maritime way of gauging the weather. I am sorry, I 've spent 10 minutes looking on where to put this question. I'll just put it in boating Thank you! All comments welcome, I promise to read every one!

Answer 1

Yes it is true. Red at night, sailors delight, red in morning, sailors warning. I just happened to hear it with red. But the sky in the early morning is redish if there is water moisture and water vapor in the air, which later on the the day often leads to a rain storm. ---Red at night, (before sunset) means that heavy water is in the air and will rain itself out over night and be clear by morning. By the way, water moisture in the air DOES cause the sky to be red because when the sun shines through atmosphere with water in it--it turns, reddish, or pinkish in early morning, or at sunset.

Answer 2

I believe it to be true because it is a way to predict rain or shine which is VERY important in boating!

Answer 3

my mom has been telling me that since I was born. It has ALWAYS proven true to me. Crazy aint it!? It was cool of you to bring that up.

Answer 4

yeah guy has it right

Answer 5

I always took that to be some  vague colorful slang expression regarding girls in foreign ports........

Nice to share the night sky with, but by daylight, you better be long gone!   ;-)  

(or in other language......, at sunrise.......you better be back on the ship for roll call!!!!)

so first crack of  sunrise........be warned....you're LATE!!!!

Besides, I didn't get to make the calls whether we sailed or not.....so the weather was never any concern of mine!

Red, Pink, Blue, Purple, -----it was all the same to me.  

Back to WORK!!!!   I wasn't an officer.........I WORKED for a living!

Answer 6

The saying is actually RED sky at night sailors delight; RED sky in morning, sailors take warning. My father is retired navy and he says it's an old maritime way of gauging the weather.

Answer 7

Hi Bettany!

Here is another explanation! As the story shows it also was used by shepherds (particularly in the UK) as a guide when to gather their sheep together or even bring them down from the hills!

As a mariner of more years than I care to remember I can fairly well say that the saying is true (at least in the northern hemisphere) for the mariner! Enjoy!

Quote

Red sky at night

Meaning

This is the first part of the weather-lore rhyme:

Red sky at night; shepherds delight,

Red sky in the morning; shepherds warning

Sometimes the phrase involves sailors rather than shepherds - both have a more than usual interest in the weather.

Origin

The saying is very old and quite likely to have been passed on by word of mouth for some time before it was ever written down. There is a written version in Matthew XVI in the Wyclif Bible, from as early as 1395:

"The eeuenynge maad, ye seien, It shal be cleer, for the heuene is lijk to reed; and the morwe, To day tempest, for heuen shyneth heuy, or sorwful."

The Authorised Version gives that in a more familiar form:

"When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and louring."

There are many later citations of the saying in literature, including this from Shakespeare, in Venus & Adonis, 1593:

"Like a red morn, that ever yet betoken'd wreck to the seaman - sorrow to shepherds."

So, that's where it originated but why?

There are many proverbs and stories concerning the weather from mediaeval England. For example, the notion that the weather on St. Swithin's Day (15th July) predicts the weather in England for the next 40 days:

St Swithin's Day, if it does rain

Full forty days, it will remain

St Swithin's Day, if it be fair

For forty days, t'will rain no more

This prediction is nonsense and the weather on that day has no more significance than any other.

When rhymes like that were established England had a primarily rural and maritime economy and weather was consequently of life and death importance. There was no accurate means of forecasting the weather, so the tendency to make the most of what little information they had to go on, and occasionally to put two and two together and make five, is hardly surprising.

The 'red sky at night' rhyme is more than an old wives' tale though and has some meteorological foundation - in England at least.

To explain why we'll need to know why clouds sometimes appear red and how that may be used to predict the weather. Firstly, why do clouds often appear red in the morning and evening?

- Sunlight is broken into the familiar rainbow spectrum of varying-wavelength colours as it passes through the atmosphere.

- The blue/violet end of the spectrum is diverted more than the red/orange.

(This is the same mechanism that causes us to see the sky as blue incidentally, but that's getting rather off our point)

- When the sun is low in the sky, at dawn and dusk, sunlight travels through more atmosphere than at other times of day. The red wavelength is better able to go on a direct course and be reflected back off clouds, whereas the blue light is more scattered before reaching the cloud and is therefore less visible. So, we see the clouds as red as the light that is reaching them is primarily red.

...and how does that help predict the weather?

- The weather in the UK comes from the west, i.e. the wind is primarily westerly.

- The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

- If there is broken cloud in the morning we may look to the west and see red light reflecting back from the cloud, i.e. 'red sky in the morning'. As the clouds are coming towards us there must be a chance of rain, at least an increased chance compared with the cloudless period we had just enjoyed.

- Likewise for 'red sky at night'. If we see red clouds in the evening they will be in the east and have already passed us by, giving a good chance of clear skies and fine weather ahead

Answer 8

Library of Congress reports it's true, if you change pink to Red

Red sky at night, sailors delight.

When we see a red sky at night, this means that the setting sun is sending its light through a high concentration of dust particles. This usually indicates high pressure and stable air coming in from the west. Basically good weather will follow.

Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.

A red sunrise reflects the dust particles of a system that has just passed from the west. This indicates that a storm system may be moving to the east. If the morning sky is a deep fiery red, it means a high water content in the atmosphere. So, rain is on its way.

Back when I was in the Navy,and it wasn't yesterday, we used the red sky at night to indicate the most important thing of all, land the next day.  The dust and moisture described above supposedly only occurred within a day of land.  So ashore we went the next day, every time, for me.  We didn't always see a red sky at night, but when we did, it always meant shore time the next day.  And then, we didn't care what color the sky was the next morning...

Answer 9

yes,that is true,I do believe in it.

Answer 10

When you are boating you do two things...Keep your eye on the sky and the other one on your frys!! Right? Have fun, its a great life lady.