Predicting Weather By The Moon - Xavier University Libraries

Weather By The Moon
side in the Northern Hemisphere, and always on your right
hand side if you are in the Southern Hemisphere. This refers
to how the wind in the Northern Hemisphere blows
anticlockwise around a centre of low pressure and clockwise
around a centre of high pressure.
5. LOOK AT CLOUDS
The coldest clouds are found at high altitudes while
warmer clouds are found closer to the earth’s surface.
There are three basic cloud types. The first is cumulus
cloud which looks like cotton wool or ice-cream. It is
like steam, water vapour that sits mainly at an altitude of
2,000 feet - the height at which rising warm air condenses
out in the formation of water vapor. True cumulus form
mainly when the Moon is absent from the sky, in the morning
during 1 st Quarter, at lunchtime during Full Moon, and
in the afternoon during Last Quarter.
The second type is cirrus and its variations. This sits
far higher, anything up to 12 miles up, and is composed of
ice. Cirrus can look like candy floss, or mares’-tails(as it
is sometimes called) or “mackerel sky” because it looks
like closely packed ribs in rows. Mares’ Tails look like long,
well-defined wisps of cirrus clouds, thicker at one end than
the other. If cirrus is in the daytime it is mostly when the
Moon is in the sky, often during New Moon. High clouds
generally indicate that the Moon is above the horizon.
The third is stratus, or straight undefined layers with
no edges. These fill the sky with a misty and blurred look.
Expect a cloud-filled sky 24 hours later but not rain.
Simply speaking, cumulus indicates settled weather,
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