red clouds

[blackeyed]

latey i have noticed the clouds hovering above had alittle reddish pink shade then the usual grey-white.
can anybody possibly know the reason for this?

[boxtops]

I thought it was to do with the angle of the sun's rays catching them?

[blackeyed]

i dont know about taht
but if so, does it mean we would also be having green, yellow, violet , blue and orange clouds?

[gen2]

The atmosphere scatters blue light the most - that is why the sky is blue.
The more atmosphere the sun's rays have to pass through, the more blue gets scattered away leavin the residue far redder.
When the sun is near the horizon (early am, late pm) its rays are passing through the most atmosphere and will be at their reddest. Any clouds illuminated by these direct rays will therefore appear redder than normal.

[heathfield]

I've seen this a few times. It seems to me to be caused by a rainbow effect forming a corona, as it always appears at a roughly fixed angular distance from the sun. The colour of scattered light in clouds is determined by water droplet size and spacing. The higher light spectrum frequencies (violet, blue) are more prone to scattering than the lower end, (red), so the red comes through. Also, reds against a cloud background will be much more noticeable than the other colours, which might well be there, but very difficult to see by comparison..

[BillyBB]

I blame Iceland

[blackeyed]

hmm thanx guys!
i never knew that reflection in stratosphere had anything to do with cloud colors.
but i know now!