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THE GREEN FLASH

 From Worldometer (new deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093     4732        1185        246        82
July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120       572
Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835       130
Sept     9     1208      6222       1136      1168        82
Oct     21    1225     6849          571       703        85
Nov    11     1479    10178         564       550        60
           25     2304    12025       620       518      118
Dec       1     2611     13791       1075       285      497
           30     3880    14748      1224       299      465
Jan       5      3499    13106      1186        265      513 
            6      4100    14581       1266       221      392
           7       4207    14812       1455       234      441
           8       3914    14792      1044        229      616
         12       4259    15711       1109        200      755

Summary: 

  • Wow, the worst ever COVID-19 pandemic day.  Tomorrow should be similar.  Clearly the result of the holiday season.
  • While China reported 55 new cases and no new deaths, Hong Kong, which is part of China, had 60 new cases and one new death.
  • Japan had 5460 new cases and 50 new deaths.
  • However, the USA had 222,121 new cases and 4259 new deaths, an all-time high.
  • I remain hopeful that these high numbers will begin to decline by next week around the time of Joe Biden's inauguration.
  • If not, soon thereafter as those vaccinations begin to take effect.
From the New York Times this morning:

Have you ever seen a  Green Flash?  I've asked this question around the world and very few really ever saw one.  Me?  Several hundred times.  It is very real.  To quote Wikipedia:

The green flash and green ray are meteorological optical phenomena that sometimes occur transiently around the moment of sunset or sunrise. When the conditions are right, a distinct green spot is briefly visible above the upper rim of the Sun's disk; the green appearance usually lasts for no more than two seconds. Rarely, the green flash can resemble a green ray shooting up from the sunset or sunrise point.

The GREEN is pretty much as you see that color here.  It is a kind of chartreuse green.  Or, perhaps closer to Midori.

Science of this phenomenon:

  • Occurs at sunrise and sunset.  I don't know of anyone who has seen a sunrise version.  I certainly haven't.
  • Usually a flash, though sometimes, but rarely, a green ray.
  • The whole sky doesn't turn green, only a blip at the top of the setting sun.
  • What you see is light refracting, like in a rainbow.
  • But in a rainbow, you see all the colors.  Why is the flash always green?  Actually, it is also, but very rarely, blue.
  • The effect is magnified by something scientifically called a mirage.  A mirage as used in literature, for example something imagined in a desert, is virtual. There is such a thing as a real mirage.
  • As the Sun sets, the first color to show is red, but you can't see it because of the sunlight.  Then the color traipses through orange, yellow, green and blue.  Towards the end of the setting, only blue and green are left, but the color blue is somehow scattered out of sight, leaving only green.
  • The green flash lasts a second or two.  However, the Antarctica Richard Byrd party in 1934 reported the green coming and going for 35 minutes. This photo to the right I don't think is a green flash, but it was taken at the South Pole.
  • Usually seen over the ocean on a clear day, but this phenomenon also occurs over cloud and mountain tops.  A particularly good place to see it is as a pilot flying westward at sunset.
Jules Verne, in particular, was fascinated by the Green Flash, as depicted in his 1882 novel, The Green Ray.  He also referred to this peculiarity in his 1905 The Lighthouse at the End of the World.

WebExhibits.com has a nice series of photos:

You can see the Green Flash in the TV 2012 film, Blue Lagoon:  The Awakening, but you'll need to watch the movie.  Rotten Tomatoes reviewers did not bother to rate it.  As you might know, in 1980 Brooke Shields starred in the original version, which was socked with an 8% reviewers' score.  Worse, no Green Flash.

Here are various You Tube videos:

I thought, I've seen greener ones than those.  So on New Year's Day here I made my first attempt at a video.  Unfortunately, I was holding the camera, and there was a lot of jiggle.  But clearly, you can see a green flash. 


So next used a tripod, but there were too many clouds on the horizon, and no Green Flash:


Finally, on Sunday, 10 January 2021, I took this video:


SUCCESS!!!  Note that you can also see some blue.  For all the times I have seen the Green Flash, I tried to photograph it, and never got it once.  But I finally did it by recording this natural phenomenon.  What an accomplishment.  Nice sunset too:


I'm now beginning to think I have special gifts, for I won the NCAA football championship pool Monday night at 15 Craigside.  As I also placed in the previous competition when Hawaii beat Houston in the New Mexico Bowl, I joked that superior intellect was the reason.  

Further, I carried this bragging one step further by insisting that my dominance was due to special powers I have to affect play in the game, which was held in Miami, 4854 miles away.  This was all the more remarkable, for I recorded the event and watched it later.  Even He couldn't do that.  For the record, gambling is legal here because the house did not take a cut.
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