Volcanic sunsets

 

 

Some of us  remember 1991 and the spectacular sunsets following the Mt Pinatubo volcanic eruption in the Philippines.

 

 

Well it seems to have happened again, with the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption in Tonga in January of this year. We've been getting extremely colourful sunsets for a while now.

 

Here is a sequence of pictures I took yesterday evening from Alexandra Headland.

 

Normal colourful sunsets occur when there are  clouds in the sky. These ones happen with clear blue skies, and are to do with volcanic dust and gas being high in the stratosphere.

 

More here: recent Guardian article