[at-l] Did anyone see the sky last night?

[infinity1plus1 at yahoo.com (Robert)]

ask and ye shall receive oh tenacious one...
 
   The colors you saw in the clouds were spectacular, and were due to a
combination of factors that produced such a display. First you need to have
the right kind and right amount of clouds...and mid-level, or altostratus or
altocumulus are the best type for this display. These clouds are composed
mainly of water droplets, but may have some ice crystals in them also. They
usually exist at altitudes between 7,000-15,000 feet above the ground.
Scattered or broken sky conditions are the best, because some open sky is
necessary for the sunlight to shine through.

   Then, you need the right time of day...and around sunrise and sunset are
the best times of day. This is because the sunlight can strike the clouds
from the bottom, rather than their tops. The water drops in the clouds
refract some of the sunlight, much the way a glass prism does, and you see
different colors, depending on the alignment of the sun, and clouds, and
you, the observer.

   A low sun angle, around sunrise and sunset, allows the sunlight to travel
a greater distance through the atmosphere, and this allows certain
wavelengths of the spectrum of the sunlight to be absorbed or reflected by
particles in the air, such as dust, or smoke. This "altered" sunlight
contributes to the colors observed, by filtering out some of the spectrum.

   As the sun rises or sets, the amount of the cloud layer that is
illuminated changes quickly. Lower clouds receive less illumination, and
their color will become a darker shade as the sunlight fades. In the
morning, the opposite effect occurs. As the illumination increases, the
colors become brighter.

ah the wonders of cut and paste... my atmospheric thanks to meteorologist Wendell Bechtold,  Forecaster, National Weather Service, Weather Forecast Office, St. Louis, MO for this marvelous answer...

      Stucky... is it ok if i add a y? it rolls off the tongue better

Shelly Hale <shellydhale@earthlink.net> wrote:
Last night as Blondie and I made a late night excursion to Knoxville for a book and some fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts (but mostly
just for the ride), I noticed that the sky was "glowing". The clouds, usually unseen at night unless surrounding the glow of the
moon were eerily highlighted in red. It was so strange that we pulled over on the side of the road on the way back and sat for a
while watching the planes take off from McGee-Tyson and trying to figure out where the red glow was coming from. Did anyone else
notice this red glowing of the sky last night?



Tenacious Tanasi

(Shelly Hale)





http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hiking_backpacking_events/







No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.6.7 - Release Date: 6/10/2005
_______________________________________________
at-l mailing list
at-l@backcountry.net
http://mailman.hack.net/mailman/listinfo/at-l

		
---------------------------------
Discover Yahoo!
 Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing & more. Check it out!