Winners of the Weather Photographer of the Year Contest Celebrate the Beauty of Nature

“Floating Red” by Jiming Zhang (China). Finalist.
“At an altitude of 4,800 meters, Jiming took this beautiful image of Sapu Mountain. It had been hidden in the clouds for three days, but at the end of Jiming's last day, the clouds finally cleared just as the sun set. It is a stunning image with the orange and red hues of the setting sun catching the mountain peaks, all of which is reflected in the lake.
But why are sunsets orange or red? Even though sunlight or visible light may appear white, it is actually made up of a spectrum of colors from red to violet, all of which have a slightly different wavelength. As light travels through our atmosphere, it is scattered by air molecules. This happens more to the shorter wavelengths (blue and violet), which is why we see the sky as blue. When the sun is lower in the sky during sunrise and sunset, the light travels a longer path through our atmosphere. This causes more of the blue portion of the sun’s rays to scatter away from our eyes, leaving relatively more of the longer wavelengths (yellow, orange, and red) for us to see.”