If you caught the sunset Wednesday evening, you most likely noticed that the sun was a deep orange to almost red color.
This change in the sun’s color is due to smoke that is showing up high in the sky from western wildfires. This smoke has drifted east in the upper air flow and is creating a different look to the sun, and the sky, during sunset. It has also crated a milky haze in the sky through the afternoon.
Is the smoke dangerous to us here in Ohio and Pennsylvania?
The wildfire smoke is very high in the sky and should not impact our region much at all. This smoke is well above the layer of air that we breath every day, and it will drift overhead thousands of feet above the ground.
You can see on the two images below that there is not smoke showing up at 1,000 feet above ground level, but it is showing up around 6,000 feet above ground level. The smoke is high off the ground and will not impact our health here in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The main impact that we will experience is a milky sky. The other impact would be an orange or red sunset that looks a little different than normal.
The smoke will also make the sun look red as it approaches the horizon.
Why does the Sun turn red in a smoky sky?
The smoke will filter/fade out the short wavelengths of light that we see on the horizon. The filtering of the shorter wavelengths leaves the longer wavelengths for our eyes to see. Longer wavelengths are the red and orange colors of the spectrum.
This is why the sunset typically will have more of a orange/red tint to it with smoke in the sky.
The smoke will also lower the brightness of the sun to our eyes as the smoke is scattering the light. It will look dimmer as the red glow shows up late in the evening, or early in the morning.
An orange or red Sun in the early morning or late evening is a sight to behold. The sky takes on these vivid hues due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. Blue light scatters easily in the atmosphere so the daytime sky appears blue.
Red light scatters the least by the molecules present in the air. So at sunrise and sunset, the sunlight travels a longer path through the atmosphere to reach our eyes. The blue light scatters the most and has been mostly removed, leaving the red light remaining which reaches our eyes, hence it appears red.
However, at sunset, light has further to travel through the atmosphere. The shorter wavelength blue light is scattered further, as the sunlight passes over a greater distance, and we see the longer wavelength yellow and red light. These effects are a cause of Rayleigh Scattering.
The atmosphere scatters blue light more strongly than red and yellow light, so at sunset the red becomes more visible to us on Earth. So while a reddish-looking sun can happen at sunrise or sunset, some of the most dramatic red suns are due to wildfires and the associated smoke from those wildfires.
If the morning skies are of an orange-red glow, it signifies a high-pressure air mass with stable air trapping particles, like dust, which scatters the sun's blue light. This high pressure is moving towards the east, and a low-pressure system moves in from the west.
Since blue colour has a shorter wavelength and red colour has a longer wavelength, the red colour is able to reach our eyes after the atmospheric scattering of light. Therefore, the Sun appears reddish early in the morning.
A red sunrise can mean that a high pressure system (good weather) has already passed, thus indicating that a storm system (low pressure) may be moving to the east. A morning sky that is a deep, fiery red can indicate that there is high water content in the atmosphere. So, rain could be on its way.
When the sun looks distorted, it's often due to atmospheric refraction, which is what happens when light travels through various temperatures and air densities. Most people witness this interesting phenomenon when the sun is on the horizon.
Here on Earth, the atmosphere plays a role in the color of the sun. Since shorter wavelength blue light is scattered more efficiently than longer wavelength red light, we lose some of the blue tint of the sun as sunlight passes through the atmosphere.
Weather Why: Does a red sun in the morning always mean storms are approaching? You might have heard the rhyme "Red sun in morning, sailors take warning. Red sun at night, sailors delight," or some other variation.
During sunset and sunrise, the sun is near the horizon, and therefore, the sunlight has to travel larger distance in the atmosphere. Due to this, most of the blue light (shorter wavelength) are scattered away by the particles. The light of longer wavelength (red color) will reach our eye.
That's because, at those times of day, its light has to travel through a lot of the Earth's atmosphere (the layer of swirling air that surrounds our planet). And all the dust and stuff in the atmosphere makes the light scatter and change so it looks less blue and more orangey-red.
During sunrise or sunset, when the Sun is close to the horizon, the light must travel through more of the atmosphere than it does when the Sun is overhead. This results in more scattering of light, including longer wavelengths such as yellow, orange, and red, which creates colorful sunrise and sunset skies.
At sunrise or sunset, the sun looks reddish, because of the scattering of light. Red light is scattered most because the light has to pass through a thick atmosphere.
This is true. Scattering of light causes the blue colour of sky and reddening of the Sun at the times of sunrise and sunset. A clear cloudless day-time sky is blue because molecules in the air scatter blue light from the sun more than they scatter red light.
When particles, such as smoke or dust, fill the atmosphere, the longer wavelengths of light — which look red — scatter more effectively. If the air is cleaner, there are more air molecules, which scatter shorter wavelengths or light, or blue light, more effectively. (Think clear blue sky.)
Introduction: My name is Terrell Hackett, I am a gleaming, brainy, courageous, helpful, healthy, cooperative, graceful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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