One of the good things about Air Quality Alerts and the trapping of pollutants under areas of high pressure, like the case on Wednesday, is the beautiful colors created by all of the particulates in the atmosphere. Even if we can't breathe very well, at least it's pretty!

Here's what happens. As the sun goes down, the sun's light has to travel through more and more dust and other little particles near the Earth's surface. The smaller wavelengths of light, like blues and purples get scattered away before reaching your eye. The longer wavelengths however make it to your eye. Those longer wavelength light beams are the reds, oranges, and yellows that make up those gorgeous sunsets. Then, when you add a few high wispy clouds to reflect the falling sun, that's just the cherry on top! It just so happens that a lot of those high clouds are actually debris, or leftover clouds from old thunderstorms which died out, sometimes hundreds of miles away.

The beautiful sunsets are created mostly by Mie Scattering, our blue sky is explained through Rayleigh Scattering, just google each term to find out more.

Photo: Viewer submitted to StormTeam Snapshots, "Sunset Over the East End".

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