ORLANDO, Fl – If you haven’t noticed in the western sky, sunsets look like they have been photoshopped with dramatic and vivid colors to the sky. That’s not the case! There is reason why sunsets like these become more frequent this time of the year – autumn lasting into winter.
As the days slowly become shorter, the sunset glow shows beautiful hues of yellows, reds, oranges, pinks and sometimes purples.
During the autumn and winter seasons, the sun “sits” lower in the sky due to the tilt of the earth.
The sunrays take longer to pass through more atmosphere before reaching the human eye. This allows the light to come into contact with more air molecules such as oxygen and nitrogen.
The first thing to understand is how colors work in the atmosphere? Blue light has a short wavelength, it is scattered more easily than the longer-waved warmer colors. This makes the oranges and reds stand out more, especially when clouds are sweeping by as they serve as a perfect canvas for this vivid show.
During Autumn, the weather patterns becomes less humid and we usually see less rain. Dry, cooler air moves in from the north across the area and more colors of the spectrum are allowed to make through to our eyes without getting scattered by water molecules or other particles in the air.
This allows beautiful, vivid sunsets that can look bright red, orange, yellow, pinks and even sometimes purple.
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