Incredible Twilights
Imaged 18th February by Kevin Boyle at Newchapel Observatory in England

The UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia are experiencing a series of unusually bright and intensely colourful twilights.

Glorious twilights are sometimes caused by volcanic dust ejected into the stratosphere where the small particles scatter the high altitude sunlight.

Europe's cold anticyclonic weather could have caused a build up of tropospheric haze and aerosol that might have enhanced the twilight.

Another and now more likely explanation is light scattering by very high and thin TypeI polar statospheric clouds, PSCs. They require exceptionally low temperatures to form and these conditions have existed over the last day or so.

Image ©Kevin Boyle, shown with permission.