Smokey Sky

Smoke over central Iowa, Photo by Craig Johnson

This is the setting Sun on June 2, 2019, visible from north of Ames, Iowa. The solar disk can be seen through a layer of smoke that had been hanging over much of Iowa and the northern United States east of the Rockies. The smoke was coming from fires in Canada.

The red/yellow hue is caused by sunlight passing through the smoke layer. The blue end of the light spectrum is being filtered out leaving red and yellow. While the sky looks cloudy, minus the smoke it would be clear. The smoke creates a smooth eerie look and feel to the sky because no cloud bases are visible - just an endless veil of smoke.