A setting sun in the background as viewed from underneath the base of cumulus altocumulogenitus praecipitatio cloud with the rain shafts clearly visible by the refraction of the setting sun. The red coloration was very dominant not because of the presence of saharan dust but because the blue light was mostly removed by the long passage through the atmosphere leaving the yellow and red colorations behind. For such sunsets to happen, the rain cloud position needed to be perfect that is not too far west to obscure the sun but not too far east that the falling rain is rendered invisible. The first thumbnail shows how the rain shafts became brightly illuminated as the sun at ground level was just below the horizon. The second thumbnail is a rare and dramatic photo of the setting sun taken minutes earlier of when the main photo was taken with the sun still above the horizon. This photo seems to show a Novaya Zemlya sunset that is a sun which is so refracted that it appears to take on other shapes as difference in temperature throughout the atmosphere refract sunlight differently causing distortion in the sun’s shape.

Upon analyzing the weather sounding on the fourth thumbnail to study this photo, it was noticed that indeed the temperature did not fall as altitude increased for the first kilometre (probably due to a cooler sea surface). However, this does not explain this effect as normally such sunset occurs when there is a very deep inversion. My thaught is that falling rain drops had caused this effect as sunlight was refracted differently when passing through falling liquid water droplets. The third thumbnail shows the opposite side of the sky with the setting sun illuminating part of the landscape and the cloud cover appearing reddish grey. The weather sounding indicated upper-level instability with DCAPE of 400J/kg and the photographed clouds probably formed at altitudes between 3.8km and 5.6km. The weather scenario depicted a trough over the Maltese Islands which brought mid-level convection forming mid-level clouds and rain as shown in subsequent thumbnails.