Red sky in the morning

 

I was brought up on caravanning holidays with the weather-predicting rhyme "Red sky at night; shepherd's delight. Red sky in the morning; shepherd's warning". I was amazed when I started teaching that none of my classes knew it. This morning the eastern sky was red. It is very stormy now. I understood that it works because frontal systems pass from west to east and take several hours to pass. I looked this morning and did a double take, because surely the clouds lit up red are those in the east. Recourse to this suggests it is because the air in the east is the stiller air that has more scattering dust trapped but that stormier air is coming from the west. This needs pursuing. However I was amazed to find that I had never noticed Jesus quoting the saying in Matthew Chapter 16. This means that the saying is at least 2000 years old and it still works.