Did you catch Monday night’s stunning sunset over the Denver area? If you did, it’s probably firmly etched into your memory.
A fiery display of wispy, cotton candy-looking clouds perfectly combined with the setting sun to produce a dazzling show over Denver area skies on Monday night. Here’s a look at some of those clouds, in case you missed Mother Nature’s spontaneously awesome show over the Front Range:
Wow!! Holy smokes!! What a cloud over the Mike~High tonight!! Nice job, Denver!!
— Eric English (@EricEnglish777)
Why a beautiful night- I can hear my neighbor’s wind chimes- the sunset- grateful.
— Theresa Marchetta (@TheresaDenverCO)
Tonightap sky 😍.
— Jessica Fey ⛈️ (@JessicaFey7)
Metro State University meteorology professor Dr. Sam Ng offered a brief explainer on Twitter on Monday night, shortly after the sunset display ended.
Just observed a regenerative line of unrealized convective cells that were producing virga. It even had a flanking line. 😂 It looked very cool with the backlit sunlight making it fiery red. h/t:
— Sam Ng (@DocWX)
In short, the setting sun combined with virga, or rain that evaporates before it reaches the ground. While enough instability was present to generate some thunderstorm activity (that’s the reference to “convective cells”, as described by Dr. Ng in the tweet above), it was far too dry at the surface for those storms to form.
Temperatures soared to 88 degrees on Monday, making it the hottest day so far this year. But, that heat came in typical Denver fashion: it was a dry heat. While not exceptionally dry by Denver standards, there wasn’t quite enough moisture at the surface to allow storms to fully develop.
That forced the moisture to evaporate before it reached the ground, creating the wispy look to those clouds. Coupled with a perfectly-timed setting sun, and the result was a brilliant sunset.
Beautiful sunset tonight!
— Ryan Luby (@LubyLive)
