Are red skies at night a shepherd’s delight? An astronomer’s view

Humans have always used simple observations of nature to try to understand our complex environment and even the wider cosmos. One such example is: “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight” and “Red sky at morning, shepherd’s warning”. These sayings – which date back to the Bible (Matthew 16:2b–3) – suggest that a particularly red sunset means clear weather is coming and a particularly red sunrise means it’s going to be bad weather or possibly a stormy day.