Weather Whys; Folklore

This is weather-wise. Over the years, people have handed down a number of weather proverbs. And while many of them may be little more than old wives' tails, some may occasionally be pretty accurate. For instance, there's the one that promises that mackerel skies and maristales make tall ships pull in their sails. Well, maristales are wispy, high-altitude, serous clouds, and mackerel skies are the puffy, rippled, serocumulus clouds, both of which often precede a coming storm system, especially if they're followed by lower, thicker clouds. Generally, the maristales appear about half a day before a storm system arrives. Another useful saying draws a link between changes in wind direction and an approaching storm. It goes like this, a backing wind says storms are nigh, a veering wind will clear the sky. Winds are said to be backing if they shift in a counterclockwise or cyclonic direction, say from west to south.

They're veering if the shift is clockwise, for example from west to north or east to south. That proverb works in many parts of the world where fair weather winds generally come from the west or north, but winds ahead of an approaching storm are often out of the south or east, so a wind shift from west to south is backing and may indicate an approaching storm, but a shift from south to west is veering and points to improving weather. Another possibly useful proverb is when the dew is on the grass, rain will never come to pass. For due to form, the air must cool down to its dew point temperature. It's more likely the air near the surface of the earth will cool down to its dew point temperature on a clear night. That's because clouds trap infrared energy from the air and surface and don't allow the planet to cool down as quickly. And of course, when it's clear there's less chance of rain soon. We can forgive the proverb's hyperbole you've never. But otherwise, I'm Drew Barla.