Altocumulus Mackerel Sky
A mackerel sky or buttermilk sky is an indicator of moisture (the cloud) and instability (the cirrus-cumulus form) at intermediate levels (2400–6100 m, 8000-20,000 ft). If the lower atmosphere is stable and no moist air moves in, the weather will most likely remain dry. However, moisture at lower levels combined with surface temperature instability can lead to rainshowers or thunderstorms should the rising moist air reach this layer. In the winter it is often said to precede snowstorms and flurries.
Mackerel skies are spoken of in the popular bywords, "Mackerel in the sky, three days dry," "Mackerel sky, mackerel sky. Never long wet and never long dry," and the nautical weather rhyme, "Mare's tails and mackerel scales / Make tall ships carry low sails." The phrase 'mackerel sky' came from the fact that it looks similar to the markings of an adult king mackerel.
Read more about Altocumulus Mackerel Sky: Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words mackerel and/or sky:
“Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Seas of bright juice suffuse heaven.
The earth by the sky staid with, the daily close of their junction,
The heav’d challenge from the east that moment over my head,
The mocking taunt, See then whether you shall be master!”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)