Sunrise, Sunset

Our house sits in the midst of a neighborhood with heavy oak cover. It faces east and backs up to Deerpoint Lake to the west. I cannot see the sunrise for all the trees to the east of us and towering over our front yard. But this morning as I left the house about 6:30a.m. I glanced out the back door to the lake and saw a lovely rose-colored hue on the cumulus clouds in the western sky that is our spectacular view. I was a little surprised to see the rose-colored reflectio…n on the clouds in the western sky at sunrise. The old phrase:
“Red sky at morning, sailor take warning”
came to mind and I thought to myself, I’ll probably need my raincoat before the day’s out. With all the rain we’ve had lately that was a reasonable thought, without the rhyme.
It was a busy day and I recall being in a brief sprinkle somewhere today maybe once.
As I drove home about 7:15p.m., coming across the Deerpoint Dam Bridge, driving eastward from Southport, I had a great view of the eastern sky and the sunset was behind me. I was surprised to see a similar sight….cumulus clouds with rose-colored hues and the rest of that phrase came to mind:
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”
In both cases, it was the reflection on clouds on the opposite horizon that I was seeing – western sky in the morning and eastern sky in the evening. I wondered if the sailor’s rhyme took into account the direction one was looking. Is it the morning sky in morning and the evening sky in evening? Or does the same general principle apply when looking at red colors in the reflection of the sunrise and the reflection of the sunset? Any sailors or navigators or meteorologists know the answer to that? Judy Dickey or Jerry Tabatt, are either of you out there?
The picture shown here is not today’s sky, but it is very close to the view I had of the clouds in the west at sunrise and the clouds in the east at sunset. Just curious. And now that I’ve realized how pretty the sunrises can be when reflected on the cumulus clouds in the west out my back door, I’ll be watching for the reflection of sunrises more out the back door and not just the stunning sunsets!