What a stunning view this morning across Metro Atlanta! The sunrise colors ranged from pinks and purples to fiery red and orange.

You may have heard the weather folklore saying “Red skies in the morning, sailors warning.” But is this true?

For the most part, yes!

Low pressure is associated with lousy weather, like rain showers and thunderstorms. Warm, humid air flows ahead of a low pressure system, adding additional water vapor into the sky and generating cloud cover. The image below shows the visible satellite imagery from Thursday morning, with the center of the low illustrated south of Mobile, Alabama.

The additional water vapor and clouds cause the sun’s light to scatter and reflect back the longer wavelengths, like reds and oranges. In addition, the sun’s light is traveling through a longer portion of the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing additional scattering of the sunlight into the different colors.

Red sky in the morning signaling rain, but when will it arrive?

Off and on rain showers will swirl their way through the Southeast --including Georgia -- over the course of this afternoon and into Friday as well. The rain will come to an end late Friday evening, giving way to a beautiful Saturday here in Metro Atlanta.

The animation below shows the hour-by-hour futurecast radar for Georgia.

Heavy downpours and thunderstorms may be embedded within the rain bands, and as much as 1 to 1.5 inches of rainfall is possible in North Georgia over the next 48 hours.

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