These altocumulus clouds appeared in the sky yesterday over the city of Chicago and they look remarkably like Georgia O'Keeffe's painting that hangs in the Art Institute.
These clouds are often referred to as a "mackerel sky" that comes from the visual resemblance between these cloud patterns and the scaled skin on the back of an Atlantic mackerel fish.
The name was popularized by early sailors and mariners who relied on observing cloud formations to predict weather at sea.
Sailors created sea rhymes to remember what this cloud formation signaled for incoming weather:
'"Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, never long wet and never long dry."
"Mackerel scales and mare's tails make lofty ships carry low sails."
When a mackerel sky appears alongside wispy "mare's tails" (Cirrus clouds), it typically signals an approaching warm front and lowering air pressure.
- Within 12 to 36 hours, wind speeds generally pick up and steady rain follows—hence the maritime warning to lower high sails before stormy weather arrives!
This monumental painting is Sky Above Clouds IV (1965) by Georgia O'Keeffe
at the Art Institute of Chicago, it is displayed on the large wall overlooking the grand staircase. Painted when O'Keeffe was 77 years old, this oil-on-canvas masterpiece measures an incredible 8 by 24 feet (2.44 × 7.32 meters) and was inspired by the views she witnessed from airplane windows.
The clouds predicted accurately. It was unusually warm for mid October and then we had rain all night.
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