Saturday, August 27, 2011

Irene's Magical Sunset

Hurricanes are giant heat engines, blowing hot, wet air high into the atmosphere ahead of them.

The upper atmospheric hot air forms a layer of high thin clouds that are essentially smoke coming from the hurricane's chimney. Those clouds often spread out well ahead of an advancing hurricane.

That "smoke" spread high over Vermont today, ahead of Hurricane Irene.

By tomorrow, Hurricane Irene is expected to unleash 60 mph gusts and torrential, flooding rain on Vermont.



Which means I'm not sure the nice sunset was worth it, but it was still a treat anyway, as the photos in this post show.

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