Rickey Blass, age 10, Deerfield, i11., for his question:

Is a red morning really a shepherd's warning?

Most of our weather comes from the west and this is true also in europe where many old, weather sayings were invented. The rising sun tints the clouds near the eastern horizon. When the dawn sky lights up with fiery reds, it means thatr there are clouds, lots of clouds, in the east. Chances are they came from the west and passed overhead during the night, perhaps bringing stormy showers.

The shepherd of old led his sheep from the fold each morning and took them to graze over hills and dales. A red morning sky might warn him to watch out for rock slides

And flooding streams. The warning would not always hold true, for the passing night clouds may have brought no stormy weather. And once in a while, the eastern clouds . may have moved in from the south or farther from the east.