Red sky at night...

Oklahoma sunset June 18 2015

Red sky at night, sailors' delight. Red sky at morning sailors take warning. As the rain storm blew past Oklahoma and into Missouri the sky lit up last night with glows of orange and red. Yes, the saying is old folklore but it does hold some truth and in fact farmers used this to predict rainfall. 

Crickets chirp faster when it's warm and slower when its cold. Is there truth to this old saying?Tradition says that if you count the cricket’s chirps for 14 seconds and then add 40, you will obtain the temperature in Fahrenheit at the cricket’s location.

Sometimes instead of relying on our fancy smart phones to tell us what the weather is going to do, we need to put the phone down and look to the sky and listen around us to tell us what the weather will be like. History shows that mother nature is pretty reliable. Plus we all need a break from whatever device you're reading this on. 

Claude Thompson plants bermuda seed in Chickasha, Ok on the Arnold Obie Farm on June 19, 1949

I wonder what Claude Thompson's (pictured) sky looked like that morning and how fast those crickets where chirping, on this day 66 years ago. The weather for Oklahoma City that day was a high of 85 a low of 64 with wind gust up to 10 knots. So i would say it was a pretty good mid June day for Mr. Thompson. 

Do you have any folklore that has been passed down to you? Let us know on twitter @OkieHistoryPics or comment below.  

Read more weather folklore here.

Tractor photo courtesy of Oklahoma Historical Society.