Whenever there is a red/pink/purple sunset, my Facebook newsfeed gets filled with (pretty bad) pictures exclaiming how beautiful the sunsets are here. Do they really vary that much from place to place and does everyone really think that theirs are the best?
Probably.
But, everyone knows we have the best.
Ricki Lee said so - gotta’ be true, I guess.
I think sunsets are beautiful. All of them are the prettiest to me.
The farther north of the equator I’ve lived, the more dramatic the sunsets. Pacific Northwest (in the summer when it doesn’t rain): knocks your eye out painting the Cascades neon orange and ultramarine blue like a Maxfield Parrish. Hawaii OTOH; drive home from work in afternoon sunshine, change clothes and step out onto the lanai and its pitch dark.
Around here you get pics of sunsets along with the assertion that they are proof of the existence of Yahweh.
We were so excited on our first night on Oahu, ready to watch the sun set from our balcony. It was over in like five minutes. We asked ourselves, “Is that it?” Here in Minnesota sunset lasts over half an hour (at least in the summer).
More or less California does, altho certainly Oregon and Wash are nice also, but CA has more coastline. OTOH, out sunrises are kinda meh. I hear on the East cost they have some fabu ones, though.
I’m partial to Waterloo Sunset myself.
On a more serious note, is gathering on the beach and applauding the sunset just a Florida thing? I haven’t experienced the custom anywhere else in my travels.
Hang around Santa Barbara for a while. In the deepest part of the Summer Solstice the sun rises over the Pacific as see from the most popular beaches, east and west of Stearns Wharf.
Apparently the sky may be bigger in Saskatchewan? Although they do not specifically say bigger or biggest. It is Big Sky Country.
Not a lot in the way of the sky. But so too across much of middle North America.
I feel it is a bit of a lame moniker.
If the sunset is nice, you may also see more of it.
Funny they all boast about sunset. Who wants to get up early on vacation to see the best sunrise.
Eh, I prefer the rare autumn sunrises where Mt. Rainier casts its shadow onto the cloud cover.
I’ve never heard any Texans brag about any sunset here. Not yet…
Funny you should mention that. I must have been born with the “atheist gene” or perhaps lacking the “god gene” that Richard Dawkins postulates, but the closest I ever came to being religious was the result of a really well-written book of homilies that my mother gave me as a kid. It was filled with brief stories/lessons that were quite engaging. One that I remember to this day was about two workers walking home and observing the sunset. One (the religious guy, of course) commented on the lovely, ephemeral, never-to-be-seen-again sunset, and the non-believer shrugged indifferently. Of course the believer had an eloquent response about how the gorgeous sunset proved that god exists, because it was that kind of book.
It didn’t turn me into a believer in god, but it did make me a lifelong believer in luxuriating in the beauty of sunsets, however brief or lengthy they might be.
That was spectacular (and made a dangerous distraction driving on I-5)
Sunrises offer transitory phenomenon that sunsets can’t, like burning off the fog, or when the fog has frozen into a coating of frost on every twig and blade of grass.
The central coast of California has sunsets that show light glowing through waves as they crest. Probably plenty of pics of those online.
John Cheever wrote of a 1930s Manhattan when the low-angle sunlight could reflect off the rivers and into peoples apartments deep in the island. That’s all blocked off by development now.
That really surprises me. I’m in Oklahoma and I hear it All.The.Time. When I lived in the Dallas area, I heard it frequently there as well. Are you new there?
In the US, Montana claims the nickname Big Sky Country.
I’ve never seen it done on South Carolina beaches.
I don’t really hear people saying Arkansas (or the Ozarks) has the prettiest sunsets. I do hear them saying that a particular sunset was very pretty, usually one with clouds and lots of colors.
In fact, I would be interested in finding out how different terrain heights contribute to which colors are seen. That would be the only way I could see to get us as close as we can to an objective answer on the subject.