Cold Front Passage Over Northern Scotland

Provided by: Richard Ogilvy, Institute of Chartered Foresters
Summary authors & editors: Jim Foster, Richard Ogilvy 

This enchanting scene resulted when a cold front swept across the north of Scotland during the early morning hours of October 26, 2007. The landscape is being illuminated by the rising Sun, still below the horizon, shining through the clear air over the North Sea. For several days, a persistent anticyclone positioned over the United Kingdom was holding the cold front in an east/west configuration off the northern coast of Scotland. However, on this day the upper atmospheric blocking ridge weakened sufficiently so that this herald to winter drifted south. The reddened glow of the sky is due to the longer path-length of sunlight when the Sun is near the horizon -- scattering by air molecules has extinguished the shorter blue and green wavelengths of light. Photo taken near the town of Forres on the Moray coast of Scotland.