"Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning." AccuWeather experts break down popular weather folklore.
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00:00Welcome to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts, I'm your host Jeff Cornish and here we go
00:16beyond the forecast to give you the how and why on all the cool and interesting things
00:21you've ever wondered about and wanted to ask about in the world of weather, space and science.
00:26Today we're going to tackle some weather folklore, these are tales, sayings, maybe
00:30myths about the prediction of weather and its greater meaning.
00:33The truth is there are endless examples of sayings and writings of clever ways to think
00:38about the weather and joining us to talk about some of these things and how accurate they
00:42may be is expert senior meteorologist Dave Dombek.
00:45Dave, thanks so much for joining us.
00:47Oh, it's my pleasure.
00:49This is a neat topic, like you said, it's a very interesting topic and it goes way back
00:54to the colonial days, you know, when people spent a lot of time outdoors, a lot of people
00:58were farmers and they observed the weather very carefully.
01:02And you and I were talking about this a couple of days ago, it's almost like fuzzy math in
01:06a way where things like some of these phrases that we're going to talk about may not always
01:10be precisely true all the time, but most of the time they generally do work out pretty
01:15well and before we talk about some of these weather folklore examples, we do want to talk
01:19about you, Dave, and your experience over 40 years here at AccuWeather.
01:23So what keeps you coming back for more?
01:26What gets you excited about the weather?
01:28Well, I mean, we'll use the term and Jeff, you're very familiar with it, I'm a weather
01:33weenie.
01:34I love the weather and I have since I was a little kid and that passion is still there
01:40and that's really what keeps me driving every day of my life and I've seen a lot of things
01:47over the years and a lot of technology is certainly way different now than it was back
01:52when I was coming out of Penn State and just starting my career here at AccuWeather.
01:57But yeah, I just love forecasting the weather and tackling the atmosphere and the old adage,
02:04even a perfect forecast, the best you could ever do is tie the atmosphere.
02:07You can never beat it.
02:08You can just get a tie and that's a humbling thought.
02:12That's good.
02:13I like that a lot.
02:14Well, we want to get right to this, Dave.
02:16The first bit of weather folklore that we're going to discuss today is a very classic one,
02:21is the old adage, red sky at night, sailors delight.
02:24Red sky in morning, sailors take warning, true.
02:27Or is this just an old wives' tale?
02:29Yeah, well think about this, Jeff, when this whole like the red sky and the colors in the
02:36sky, oftentimes what's happening there that the light from the sun is going through particles
02:44and in this case, a lot of times it happens to be ice crystals, cirrus clouds, very high
02:49level of moisture.
02:51And as the light goes through it refracts and it goes into the different color patterns
02:56and oftentimes it would be red or oranges or whatever.
02:59And if you see the red sky at night, well where generally is the sun in evening, it's
03:06setting in the western horizon.
03:09And so you see that and it could be a day where maybe it was stormy, it was cloudy,
03:14there was rain, snow, you know, something going on.
03:17And then finally that system is exiting, it's getting out of here and it's getting ready
03:21to clear.
03:23And so as the sun is setting, you may not have seen the sun all day, but right at sunset,
03:27you're starting to get some drier air and break up of the cloud cover and it creates
03:31that nice red sky.
03:32And that means the next day you could actually have dry fair weather.
03:36Kind of the opposite in the mornings, you know, it's coming up, the sun is coming up
03:41in the east and, you know, maybe it was clear all night or partly cloudy, it was a dry quiet
03:49night weather-wise, but you've got the next system, next disturbance, the storm or whatever
03:54coming in from the west and so that as the sun is coming up, it's starting to get that
04:00refraction and the coloration and everything in the morning.
04:03And that's kind of an indication, okay, a heads up, there might be a storm coming, precipitation
04:08could be arriving here sometime today or this evening or whatever, something is on
04:13the way.
04:14So I think that one, there actually is a lot of credence to that saying.
04:18And I often think about cirrus clouds around the fringes of large storms, but if the clouds
04:23are too thick, closer to the horizon line, maybe that's closer to the heart of the storm
04:28system.
04:29Next on our weather folklore list, does a stripe on the back of a woolly caterpillar
04:35indicate the severity of the upcoming winter?
04:37You know, I worked in Toledo and in Erie, and in between those two markets is Cleveland.
04:41Legendary meteorologist Dick Goddard was huge on this for many years, and I think that he
04:46has most of Ohio thinking that this is totally true.
04:49Is that the case, though, Dave?
04:51Boy, I don't know, I think this one is just one of those fables, honestly, I don't know
04:56if there's any meteorological, you know, backup to that one, Jeff.
05:01I know as a kid, I used to get really excited when I did find a woolly bear.
05:06I loved winter weather as a kid, and if I happened to find one that was, like, all black,
05:11I would get really excited that we're going to have a hard winter and lots of snow, but
05:15yeah, I don't think there's a whole lot to that one.
05:18All right, all right, well, this legend has been very popular in many parts of the Midwest
05:23and the New England states as well, and you can read some of these statistics here, or
05:28at least notes on the legend.
05:30The longer the black bands, it was believed that the snowier, the colder, and more severe
05:35the winter might be, but Dave says it may not be a whole lot of credence to this, but
05:39it's a fun one regardless.
05:40This is a good one here, and I think you're going to be on board with this.
05:42When dew is in the grass, rain will never come to pass.
05:46So what say you about this, Dave?
05:49Well, think about what caused the dew to occur in the first place.
05:55Usually you get dew, you get its condensation, water condenses, water vapor condenses on
06:01grass and, you know, whatever outside, sometimes on your car sitting in the driveway, and it
06:06usually occurs, and it seems like the dew is at its peak amount late at night and into
06:13the early morning hours, right up around and just past sunrise, and so for you to get that
06:20dew to form, you had to have had pretty good conditions for the temperature to drop to
06:26the saturation point the night before.
06:29And how does that happen?
06:31Probably the skies were clear, or mostly clear, or no worse than partly cloudy, and that means
06:36that yeah, maybe down the pike some, maybe, you know, tonight, tomorrow, whatever, another
06:42storm, front, whatever could be coming in with precipitation, but probably not right
06:46away because you're just coming off of a mostly clear night that allowed that dew to form.
06:52And maybe even some calm winds too, which might suggest maybe the absence of a big storm
06:56nearby as well.
06:57Good stuff.
06:59Well, our next bit of weather folklore, wind in the west, weather at its best.
07:04What do you have to say about this one, Dave?
07:07Well, you know, I think this is one of those, and I know you and I were talking about this
07:11just the other day, Jeff, that I think this is more of a regional old adage, and I think
07:18it certainly works well in the eastern part of the United States.
07:22It doesn't work well on the west coast where, you know, what's to the west of them, the
07:27Pacific Ocean, and, you know, and storms coming in and things, you know, it's a whole
07:31different situation as you go other parts of the country.
07:33But I think, you know, and again, a lot of these go back to colonial days, so, you know,
07:39the United States really was the 13 original colonies.
07:42It was in the eastern U.S.
07:44And let's say for Philadelphia or New York City or Washington, D.C. or Boston, whatever,
07:49a wind out of the west, that means generally that air is, you know, again, there are exceptions,
07:54but it generally means drier air is coming in, that, you know, a lot of times it could
07:59lead to more sunshine, that the air downslopes and comes downhill, warms up and dries out
08:05coming over the Appalachian Mountains.
08:08And oftentimes it's just a sign of, you know, a storm pulling away, maybe behind a cold
08:12front or behind a departing storm, and the wind goes into some westerly component, and
08:18that generally means dry weather, particularly east of the Appalachian Mountains in the,
08:24let's say, the I-95 corridor.
08:26So, you know, again, for a regional thing, that, I think that one's pretty good, and
08:31I think it works quite well.
08:33That's kind of a fun point there, that the geography of the people who originated this
08:38phrase is very, very important, as people in Seattle, Washington may not say the same
08:43thing as you said in Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York about that one.
08:47Well, let's get to our first viewer question now, and this comes from Jamie in Delaware.
08:52Jamie writes, I remember hearing or seeing folklore about some kind of hurricane calendar.
08:57Have you guys heard of that, and if so, can you share some details about some kind of
09:01a hurricane calendar?
09:03Yeah, and I know that there was a calendar, and I think it came from, might have been
09:10the old Farmer's Almanac.
09:12And again, I think this is a good rule of thumb, certainly for the Atlantic Basin.
09:18You know, obviously, the official hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin is June 1st to
09:24November 30th, so it's in that timeframe that we're looking at, and, you know, it goes to
09:32show you, yeah, you could get exceptions.
09:34There have been tropical storms, there have been, you know, oddball things that have happened,
09:40you know, throughout history, and certainly in recent years, you get named tropical storms
09:44in January or February, whatever, but in general, it's, you know, it's a case where,
09:49as you ramp up, my rule of thumb is, yeah, you could get some storms, some, you know,
09:55some rogue storms, some, you know, an occurrence of one or two early in the season, but really,
10:02once you get to the August, and especially mid-August, let's say August 15th to about
10:08September 30th or maybe October 5th, that's really the meat of hurricane season.
10:13You're going to get most of your named tropical storms and hurricanes during that time, and
10:18it goes, ramps up very quickly, and then it also ramps down quickly after that.
10:24That's great information there, Dave.
10:25So far, we have a lot more to talk about, though, in our next block coming up, so coming
10:30up, we do know the saying, it's raining cats and dogs, but what about fish and frogs?
10:35And in our weather-wise segment, yeah, that really happened.
10:37We're going to let you know how this weird weather event actually did occur, but up next,
10:42the conversation about weather folklore continues.
10:44What causes a halo around the sun?
10:46We're going to answer that and more of your viewer questions when Ask the Experts continues.
10:51♪♪♪
11:05Welcome back to AccuWeather's Ask the Experts.
11:07I'm your host, Jeff Cornish.
11:08We're having a lot of fun today talking about weather folklore with Dave Dombeck, and weather
11:13folklore, some of these writings and sayings that you read or hear about with the weather,
11:18and Dave's a great expert to help us break this down.
11:21He's a senior meteorologist here at AccuWeather, 40-year meteorologist and employee at AccuWeather.
11:26So Dave, we want to get to our next bit of weather folklore, a halo around the sun or
11:31moon means that rain or snow may be coming soon.
11:35So what do you say about halos in general?
11:38Before we really dig into the folklore, what causes a halo around the sun or moon?
11:43Well, it's, and again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier.
11:48It's that refraction, the bending of the light rays, whether it's from the moon or from the
11:53sun, and it's going through, that light is going through ice crystals.
11:59Kind of the same process, whether it's a raindrop or an ice crystal, whatever, you ever get
12:04like in your backyard, you get the hose, you know, on a sunny day, and you can actually
12:08see like a rainbow thing, and it's the same principle.
12:12And you know, of course, it's not getting into the technical details of why that is
12:17and how it happens or whatever, but basically, it's just light being refracted through ice
12:22crystals.
12:23And you think about, you know, when a storm is coming, you've got, let's say you have
12:26a day, it's beautiful sunshine, dry weather, quiet weather, nothing going on, but you know
12:31a storm is coming, and where's the first place when moisture starts to show up?
12:37In general, there are exceptions, but where's the first place where moisture starts to show
12:42up in the atmosphere?
12:43It's way, way up there, way up in the, you know, 30,000 feet or so up at cirrus cloud
12:49level.
12:50And so that's why when you start seeing that moisture coming in at that high altitude,
12:56then you get that halo, you get that refraction of the light and everything.
13:00And so that is actually a very good predictor.
13:02And oftentimes, us meteorologists, we use something called skew-T log-P diagrams, or
13:09soundings as we call them, and it's actually a profile of the atmosphere from top to bottom
13:14of where the moisture is and so forth and temperatures and winds.
13:18But one of the things we look at is the first place you're going to see moisture showing
13:22up is way up top.
13:24And that's an indication of the atmosphere moistening up, and it's just the start of
13:28that process, but it tells you that something is on the way.
13:33So a stamp of approval that in general, that ring around the moon or the sun is typically
13:38an indicator that we do have some kind of a storm heading our way.
13:42Our next bit of weather folklore, a year of snow, crops will grow.
13:45What do you say about this one, Dave?
13:48Well, I think that's pretty, you know, pretty self-explanatory in my opinion, because, I
13:54mean, obviously, snow is, you know, it's frozen precipitation, but if you have, wherever
14:00you are in the country, wherever you are in the world, you've got a situation where you've
14:06had average snowfall, you know, about what you would expect, or maybe even more so, maybe
14:12it was a snowier than average season, that, you know, the ice crystals, the snow eventually
14:20melts and that moisture goes into the ground, it goes into the water table and everything.
14:25So certainly, coming out of the winter and into the spring months, unless you had too
14:29much moisture, that's a whole, that's too much of a good thing.
14:33But in general, it means you've got a good sufficient amount of moisture in the soil
14:39for crops to grow and thrive, certainly early in the season, after planting season in the
14:45spring and into the early summer.
14:47What happens later than that, that's more of a wild card, but I think generally that
14:51one's a pretty good one.
14:52I'm on board.
14:53At least a healthy start to the growing season is a good thing there, if you have a decent
14:57amount of moisture, at least in the soil.
14:59All right, Dave, well, next, you can tell the temperature by counting a cricket's chirps.
15:04What do you say about this one?
15:05I absolutely agree with that, and I could vouch for that when I've been out, you know,
15:11camping and just out in the backyard and spending time outdoors, and you, I mean, you just
15:17observe that on a really warm, muggy night, the temperatures are holding up.
15:21Those crickets, or it could be katydids or other kind of insects that you could hear,
15:26and they're making a sound at night, it really does make a big difference in the frequency
15:34that they're chirping, that they're making their sound.
15:37The warmer it is, the faster they're going.
15:39When it gets cool, you have a kind of a cooler, chilly night, you can still hear them, but
15:44they slow down.
15:45Their pace definitely slows down, and that is absolutely true, and in fact, somebody
15:50even came up with a formula of how, you know, you get so many chirps per minute, and there's
15:56some kind of calculation factor, and you add this or divide by this, whatever it is.
16:01I don't know what it is, but you could probably Google it, but you could actually, it actually
16:06works very well.
16:07I've tried it, and that estimate of the temperature is actually pretty good.
16:12That's pretty amazing.
16:13That's great stuff.
16:14It's nature's thermometer, if you will.
16:16Well, it is time for another viewer question, Dave, and this one comes from Peter in Michigan.
16:21So Peter writes, one weather saying that I heard growing up was, ice in November brings
16:25mud in December, almost as if maybe a cold late fall reverses into a milder December.
16:32So how true is this one?
16:34Well, I think, you know, and again, there are exceptions, but I think more often than
16:39not, Jeff, that works out, because let's face it, you know, in November, the average temperatures
16:45are still, they're dropping quickly, but, you know, it's still fall.
16:49It's not winter yet, and so if you get an unusually cold air mass that just rushes in,
16:55and it's just way, way below what it should be, it's just way colder than it should be
16:59in November, you can't maintain that.
17:01The atmosphere just, you can't maintain that extreme cold, and so if you happen to ice
17:06up your pond or lake or whatever puddles in your backyard, chances are that ice is not
17:12going to last there.
17:14It's a different story if it's happening in December or early January, totally different
17:18situation then, but oftentimes that cold and the things freezing up, it's just too early,
17:24and then inevitably, it's going to warm up, even if it warms up back to average or warmer
17:29than average, that's going to melt, and you're going to have the mud, as it says.
17:34All right, that's good stuff there, Dave.
17:36Well, this is not folklore, but truth.
17:38We have run out of time, so thank you so much for your expertise.
17:41We always enjoy talking to you, Dave.
17:42I love seeing you here on the operations floor, and it's nice to have you on the show, so
17:46thanks again.
17:47Well, coming up next in WeatherWise, we're going to share weird and wild stories, including
17:51how it rained fish and frogs in this segment we're calling Yeah, That Really Happened.
17:55We'll be right back after the break.
17:59Welcome back to AccuWeather's Ask the Expert.
18:07It is time for WeatherWise in a segment that we call Yeah, That Really Happened.
18:11We're going to look at interesting weather events that may seem unbelievable, but they
18:15actually did happen.
18:16And in this Yeah, That Really Happened, we know it does not actually rain cats and dogs,
18:21but have you ever heard of animal rain?
18:23This is a real meteorological phenomenon where flightless animals fall from the sky.
18:29So while it is very rare, there are cases where a strong water spout, essentially a
18:33tornado over water, can pick up fish, frogs, or other creatures, typically small, in a
18:38powerful updraft.
18:39And as the storm moves, they're dropped from the sky along with the rain, sometimes miles
18:44away.
18:45And there are examples in history as far back as 16th century engraving, and also as recently
18:51as in 2021.
18:52Look at that, there are fish all over the street, just, they just fell out of the sky.
19:00So Ted Stone was walking his dog in Texarkana, Texas after a rainstorm and found fish on
19:05his street.
19:07I've heard of this happening, but I've never seen it with my own two eyes, and this is
19:12crazy.
19:14There's one right there.
19:24They're everywhere.
19:26Pretty wild, they were everywhere, and so yeah, this really happened.
19:29It sounds incredible.
19:31Animal rain is no fish story.
19:33Thank you so much for joining us here on AccuWeather's Ask the Experts, I'm Jeff Cornish, and don't
19:38forget, when you have a question about weather, space, or science, you can write us or send
19:42us a video question at asktheexperts at accuweather.com.
19:45You can also call us at 888-566-6606.
19:50Have a great one!