Beautiful Sunrise Over Texarkana

Did you see the sunrise this morning? It was beautiful! Some folks may still have been asleep and missed it. I saw that many people posted great photos on Facebook and every photo is from a different view, which is great to see but I went one better and took a video for you to enjoy.

I started taking photos then I thought, why not shoot a video and capture more of the clouds?

This video was taken from our parking lot before 6:30 a.m. There were so many different colors reflected in the clouds.

I remember taking a course when I was a kid to distinguish the difference between the clouds but I don't remember anything from it other than it was fun and at the time. I learned a lot. Here is what I found on Weather Wiz Kids:

What are clouds?

A cloud is a large collection of very tiny droplets of water or ice crystals. The droplets are so small and light that they can float in the air. 

How are clouds formed?
All air contains water, but near the ground it is usually in the form of an invisible gas called water vapor. When warm air rises, it expands and cools. Cool air can't hold as much water vapor as warm air, so some of the vapor condenses onto tiny pieces of dust that are floating in the air and forms a tiny droplet around each dust particle. When billions of these droplets come together they become a visible cloud. 

Why are clouds white?
Since light travels as waves of different lengths, each color has its very own unique wavelength. Clouds are white because their water droplets or ice crystals are large enough to scatter the light of the seven wavelengths (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet), which combine to produce white light. 

Why do clouds turn gray?
Clouds are made up of tiny water droplets or ice crystals, usually a mixture of both. The water and ice scatter all light, making clouds appear white. If the clouds get thick enough or high enough all the light above does not make it through, hence the gray or dark look. Also, if there are lots of other clouds around, their shadow can add to the gray or multicolored gray appearance.