Day and Night
01-10-2009, 06:28 PM
#8
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Joined APC: May 2006
Position: ATP, CFI etc.
Posts: 6,056
I honestly don't understand why they are so good since I am from the Southeastern US (Georgia), but Kansas has the best sunsets I have ever seen. Every single week there are at least two spectacular sunset or sunrise events, and sometimes both. You do not even have to be Ansel Adams to get a winning photograph although I am sure you think I am Ansel Adams by now.
The theory is:
1) the land is flat and the sunlight crosses hundreds of miles before hitting terrain. It therefore has a low trajectory by the time it forms its final angle with the horizon.
2) Kansas is a mixing ground for the dry, cold northeastern air masses coming from over Canada with the warm, moist air masses coming from over the seas in the Gulf of Mexico. The same mixing phenomenon that produces pretty sunsets and sunrises gives rise to fierce and often violent convection in the spring. This is a secondary effect of the northerly movement of the Jetstream in summer months.
3) Since the land is flat the trees are mostly out of the way, and you tend to notice pretty sunsets far more often than in places where heavy foliage obscures them. So what sunsets there are tend to be more noticeable, and there are more of them as well.
It is possible to have a gratifying hobby here just watching sunsets. My kitchen has a west-facing double glass door and with a Scotch in one hand and camera in the other, I can on most nights of the week tag a picture or two. Kansas is not Paradise Lost but the weather and sunsets are unique.
The theory is:
1) the land is flat and the sunlight crosses hundreds of miles before hitting terrain. It therefore has a low trajectory by the time it forms its final angle with the horizon.
2) Kansas is a mixing ground for the dry, cold northeastern air masses coming from over Canada with the warm, moist air masses coming from over the seas in the Gulf of Mexico. The same mixing phenomenon that produces pretty sunsets and sunrises gives rise to fierce and often violent convection in the spring. This is a secondary effect of the northerly movement of the Jetstream in summer months.
3) Since the land is flat the trees are mostly out of the way, and you tend to notice pretty sunsets far more often than in places where heavy foliage obscures them. So what sunsets there are tend to be more noticeable, and there are more of them as well.
It is possible to have a gratifying hobby here just watching sunsets. My kitchen has a west-facing double glass door and with a Scotch in one hand and camera in the other, I can on most nights of the week tag a picture or two. Kansas is not Paradise Lost but the weather and sunsets are unique.
01-11-2009, 07:14 PM
#9
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2006
Position: XJT CA
Posts: 528
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