Friday, October 12, 2018

Why Florida skies turned purple after Hurricane Michael

a person flying through the air on a cloudy day: Hurricane Michael Slams Into Florida's Panhandle Region

"As sunlight shines down to Earth, most of the colors of the spectrum are able to reach the surface uninterrupted," Rautenkranz said in the video. "But the shorter wavelengths, blue and violet, are scattered in every direction. This light bounces from particle to particle until it eventually reaches your eyes. But the sky doesn't appear violet and blue because of our eyes' limitations."
Normally, she said, our eyes can only detect blue, because violet is the shortest wavelength of the color spectrum. But after the hurricane, the conditions were right for purple to make an appearance. The air was super-saturated, dew points were in the mid- and upper 70s, the sun was setting, and the hurricane's clouds hung low to the ground. 
"This combination allowed our eyes to see (the sky's) true colors, since violet is there to begin with, we just don't usually get to see it," Rautenkrantz said. "The light was scattered around the moisture in the air, causing the magical purple color."

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