Why are mid-Michigan skies lacking in blue lately?

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — If you’ve looked up at the sky lately, you might have seen a white and brown tint to the sky, with no blue in sight.

Sunrises look a bit different too in mid-Michigan, sporting a bright red color.

All of the color changes to the sky are a result of wildfires that are burning far away from us.

Essentially, we just have the smoke on top of mid-Michigan, coming in from the West Coast side of Canada, where wildfires are burning.

The smoke will be drifting to mid-Michigan for the next few weeks.

While those fires are burning, we get the smoke and that scatters the light from the sun.

Blue and violet wavelengths are much shorter than the orange and red ones, and they’re more easily scattered by the smoke particles in the atmosphere.

That means that they get cut out from the visible light that we see, and we’re left with that red shade, especially near the horizon when you get towards sunrise and sunset.

If you happen to snap some pictures of a sunrise or sunset, you’re going to have a very vibrant sunrise or sunset photo to share.