“How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!” Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Have you seen the sky lately?
As I’ve mentioned before, the winter landscape around here can often seem drab—dressed in its browns and grays. I appreciate the scatters of dark green from evergreens like pines, spruces, and hemlocks. And I’m grateful for glimpses of red cardinals and other colorful birds.
Through the years, as I’ve paid more attention to the beauty around us, I’ve noticed that winter sunrises and sunsets are much more colorful and vibrant that at other times of year, and that’s never been truer for me than this year.
When the temperatures fall and the colors on the ground fade, the colors above become more brilliant.
Why is that? According to this LA Times article by Mary Forgione, there are a number of factors:
“the scattering, reflection and refraction of light.”
“low humidity and cleaner air, especially after it rains.”
the earth’s spin. It spins “closer to the sun in winter,” and the “angle the sun takes setting makes sunset colors last a bit longer,” says National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist Stephen Corfidi.”
“the clouds, ‘which reflect the stunning hues back at us. “Clouds make it much more brilliant,” [Stephen] LaDochy [who teaches meteorology and climatology at Cal State Los Angeles] says. “They act like a [viewing] screen.”
[For more info on the science about winter sunrises, see the links at the bottom of this post.]
During the first week of January, when I was feeling dull and depleted from a dizzying December, I was stunned by the morning and evening shows in the sky.
In that week’s winter quiet, the sky was awash with color, a silent symphony of beauty that held me spell-bound.
At breakfast, I would run out into the cold in my thick, plush robe and take as many photos of the vivid swatches above as I could. At dinnertime, when the sun began its descent, the colors pulled me outside again until they faded to charcoal, navy, and black.
Here are a few of the sky-sights I saw that week, beginning the first day of New Year.
***
January 1st, 2024
Sunrise
January 2, 2024
Sunset
January 3, 2024
Sunrise
January 5, 2024
Sunrise
Even with similar colors each day, the beauty still pulled me outside. And although I don't like to be cold, I’d usually watch until the colors softened, blended, and gave way to either the day or the dusk.
Since then, I’ve added “sunrises and sunsets” to my list of winter wonders and I’m keeping my eyes on the sky.
What a beautiful way to begin the New Year.
What’s on your list of winter wonders? I’d love to know. Leave me a comment below.
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For more info on the science behind vivid winter sunsets, check out these articles:
https://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/corfidi/sunset/
https://weather.com/news/news/autumn-sunsets-20121018_immersive
https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/blogs/why-sunrises-are-more-amazing-in-winter