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I've lived here in Utah for 36 years and I don't remember the sun ever looking so red.
Why was the sun so red this morning, Friday, July 28, 2006?
Marji H.
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Marji, I'll give you a hint and it starts with a capital letter P or S depending on which you like better.
Pollution or Smoke, that would be responsible for a red sun. If you were up in the cottonwoods today you can notice the smoke, actually, over most of SLC today there's smoke outside too. We don't have a fire in town at this point but wildfires over Nevada and other pointes west are responsible.
When tiny smoke particles fill our air, they can scatter away the shorter wavelengths of light (blue, yellow and violet) and the longer wavelengths of light like red and orange reach our eyes.
In places where there is a lot of dust or smoke, sometimes the sun can appear red at sunrise or at sunset.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
