OK, I admit my ignorance...are all Arizona/southwest sunsets like this? I spent a week or so traveling through Grand Canyon, Phoenix, Tucson, and every evening was a spectacular play of color that lasted quite a while after the actual sunset. The show continued when we drove through Blyth, CA, and a few days later in my own Central Valley of California, and our valley is not known for colorful sunsets.
So, is this usual? The last time I saw sunsets like these, Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines had pumped cubic miles of ash and aerosols into the stratosphere, and the sky lit up like fireworks. Then again, I spend a lot of time indoors ignoring the sky, and so maybe I have just been missing out. In any case, I appreciated the spectacle!
I'd be flip if I said, yes, all Tucson sunsets are like this. In our 3 years living in the Tucson Mtns, we've found that the sunsets and sunrises are frequently spectacular. The key is having clouds. We have many cloudless days where the skies are mundane. But toss even a few clouds in, and the sky becomes alive.
ReplyDeleteEven in northern Arizona, sunsets like this are pretty common.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, one of the reason I live and work in AZ, get to see this sight very often as the capper to my day, outside in my "office".
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