lolwut08

Hi guys, Just letting you know that this account is being abandoned so won't be logged into again, feel free to delete it. I made it 8 years ago and only posted about 4 times apparently so no big loss. The joys of clearing out old email addresses...

Let me try and show a little better with a picture or two: This was the kind of sunset yesterday presuming my pic is roughly correct. How then does a clear bright blue skied sunset like that turn into something like this.. Is it just the clouds that turn pink? Where would the clouds have to be on the satellite image? What happens to the sunlight, does it bounce off the bottom of clouds directly above and down into your eye or bounce off the side of clouds further east and then back down in the opposite direction and into your eye? How is the sunlight scattered to give the cloud its pink colour? Thanks for replies so far, any more input would be excellent though.

See now this is where i get conflicting statements. From the met office (Official Uk weather company) i get:- "For example, 'Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning' has a valid scientific explanation to support it. It relates to the morning sun (rising in the east) illuminating the clouds of approaching weather fronts on the western horizon (shepherd's warning) and the evening sun (setting in the west) illuminating clearing clouds on the eastern horizon (shepherds delight). As most poor weather approaches the UK from the west and clears towards the east and because sunlight at low levels appears red due to it being scattered by dust, this ancient weather folklore is supported by science." First the statement is saying that its the sunlight highlighting the clouds to the opposite side of the sun (East) and its then its saying its the dust particles but which is it?...or both? I was checking satellite feeds yesterday and there was clear skies to the North, East South and West of me during sunset and although the sun had an orange glow, the skies stayed blue?

I've started learning about the weather and wow theres a massive load of info to pick up lol. My question is, how exactly do pink skies form at sunsets/sunrises? Lets take a Uk sunset for example, from my understanding the pink is caused by the sunlight coming from the west and highlighting clouds to the east but then surely if that was the case only the eastern sky (where the clouds are) would show a pink colour when in reality pretty much everywhere in the sky and every horizon displays a rich pinkness. Would the sunlight come from the west and then bounce off the eastern clouds and return back towards the sun and scatter everywhere rather than just being selectively highlighted? And why pink?..i know this has to do with the visible light spectrum which i have to learn more about but what exactly happens with the light in a standard blue sky sunset and a pink skied one? Apologies in advance if this is one of them stupid repeated questions or anything but any help or info is greatly appreciated, thanks.