We get a lot of strange weather effects here in the Salt Lake area, presumably because we live at the bottom of a giant bowl that’s enclosed by mountain ranges to the east and west. Incoming storm fronts usually either squeeze through a narrow aperture between the mountains at the south end of the valley, or they blow in from the northwest, across the Great Salt Lake. Once the storms enter the valley, the prevailing winds tend to drive them into one mountain range or the other, where they pile up and expend their energy as they try to climb over the obstacle. And this in turn often generates some spectacularly weird stuff up there in the sky.
Take Monday evening, for example. I was coming home from work on the train, thinking that it was very dark for only 6.30, and that I must be working too many hours if I hadn’t noticed how short the days were getting since the end of summer. Then I looked out the window to my left and saw what was really going on: a major thunderstorm was swirling over the east side of the valley, completely obscuring the towering ramparts of the Wasatch behind an ominous veil of darkness. Not to mention the entire city of Sandy, Utah.
But then I looked out the window on the right side of the train, and this is where the weird stuff comes in: the storm clouds had broken up toward the west, forming into long reefs and shoals separated by gaps of brilliant blue. The sun was setting, so the westernmost clouds were aglow, and there was a line of what looked like molten metal spread over the ridges of the Oquirrahs. In other words, it was black as night on one side of the valley, and bright and golden on the other side. The overall effect was something like what you saw in the Lord of the Rings movies, with the gathering murk of Mordor in one direction, and the beautiful clear air of Gondor and Rohan in the other. (How’s that for a geeky description?)
Well-intentioned friends occasionally ask me why I stay in Utah, where I often find myself at odds with the conservative culture and the right-wing-dominated political atmosphere. My usual answers are that this is where I grew up, where my roots are, it’s home, my family is here. All of which is true. But I also like the sky…
I enjoyed your description, Jason. What does the title mean?
It’s part of an old saying I picked up somewhere:
“Red skies at morning, sailors take warning; red skies at night, sailor’s delight.”
I was going to work that into the commentary somehow, but it didn’t work out; I kept the title because I liked the sound of it. Sorry to be obscure.
Well, shiver me timbers. I knew you talked like a sailor, Jason, but this is not what I had in mind!
I probably heard it in a Jimmy Buffett song and it got lodged in my sub-conscious!
(Actually, I have long been interested in sailing… I’m going to try it someday.)