Red Sky at Night

It's not just sailors that should be delighted today. Last night's red skies were a harbinger of three days of beautiful weather. Sunlight takes its longest path through the atmosphere at sunrise and sunset. If the sky is clear along that long path the green and blue portions of the sun's rays get scattered and absorbed by air molecules, leaving more yellows, oranges and reds. Since our weather generally moves from west to east, a red sunset means clear skies to our west and fair weather approaching. And fair our weather will be!

Today is looking partly cloudy, and much drier with a high in the low-80s. Tomorrow's temperatures may creep up into the mid-80s. Sunday will still be fair, but humidity will be on the increase. An excellent day to take in the National Weather Service Open House at Brookhaven National Lab. Monday will be a Monday –hot and humid with a chance of showers and thundershowers.

Even though the sky will be mostly clear today, you will notice that it isn't very blue. Blame Canada! Forest fires have been burning in Saskatchewan and British Columbia over the past week and a huge plume of smoke from those fires has finally made its way to the East Coast.

Last night's sunset photo from Jen Chung via Flickr