The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

High clouds at dawn produce spectacular skies over D.C. region

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Updated February 8, 2024 at 12:34 p.m. EST|Published February 8, 2024 at 11:10 a.m. EST
Sunrise over the Mall on Thursday. (Mattie Wilson/X)
2 min

The adage says “red sky in morning, sailor take warning,” largely because it’s an atmospheric setup that can herald an incoming storm as calm weather is ushered away. But this morning’s vibrant sunrise didn’t really signal anything more than a beautiful start to a mild February day.

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Enough high cloudiness streamed by at just the right time to deliver a top 10 kind of color show as the sun approached the horizon. Peak colors arrived about 10 to 15 minutes before official sunup near 7:07 a.m., but the kaleidoscope of yellows, oranges, reds, purples and blues went on for more than 30 minutes.

A broken deck of clouds provided the backdrop for the stunning display. It was around 20,000 to 25,000 feet high, as reported by local airports. The sharp edge to the clouds that many photographers captured while looking east was close enough to allow the sun to shine brightly into the cloud layer above.

The deck was composed of cirrocumulus and/or altocumulus clouds; they hovered near the height of the best and longest-lasting sunrises and sunsets. The colors really popped as the sun’s rays passed through the ice crystals within the clouds.

An occasional fallstreak hole — also known as a hole punch cloud — appeared in the cloud deck. This phenomenon is caused by planes flying through the cloud and producing localized zones of clearing and sinking air that appear as holes in the cloud deck.

Sometimes, when the weather pattern is relatively stable as it is now, these stunning sky shows can come in pairs. With high clouds slated to stay over the area Thursday afternoon and night, it would be wise to gaze upward again around sunset.

Sunset in the District is now 5:37 p.m., which is a gain of more than 50 minutes since the earliest sunsets of December.

Below, find some more views of the sunrise from our followers on X, formerly known as Twitter: