July 18, 2020. “Take warning!” Says the sailor’s ditty about red skies in the morning. This red is so vivid that it wakens me. I throw on a shirt and run outside. The sun hasn’t risen yet, so the green solar light that I hang at the camper door is still glowing. The contrast of that vivid red-pink and the neon green is….well, wow. Just wow. Sometimes the glory of nature offers no words; one must absorb it silently, even reverently.
But is this a warning of something dire to come?
A valid scientific explanation exists for that sailors’ ditty about red skies. The red comes from the scattering of sunlight by small particles. Weather at mid-latitudes moves mainly west to east, and areas of high and low atmospheric pressure tend to follow hard on one another. So if the red skies occur near sunrise, that means a calm high-pressure zone has already passed and a stormy low-pressure system could arrive soon.
It’s become common for many to question science, so I should add that my source is the Library of Congress. It’s become common to question so many things that I was taught in high school and college. It feels like a storm against rational thinking. Then again, if highs and lows follow each other in the atmosphere, I suppose they do the same in society and in life. We seem to be in a low-pressure system right now. The mood is often red. Angry. But doesn’t that mean that a high-pressure system will come? Perhaps it will bring the calm of green. Or maybe they’ll coexist for awhile … just like this red sunrise and my green solar light.
For Many Moons 