A few weeks ago at Cannon Beach on the northern Oregon
coast, dozens of us treated ourselves to a very unusual atmospheric phenomenon:
the green flash.
It was a perfect late summer evening at the beach. Not a
cloud in the sky and perfect blue skies down to the calm ocean horizon. We
watched the sun set, its light red color sinking fast into the blue-green
colored water.
The last several seconds, just as it looked like the Sun
would disappear, the last remaining spot of sun turned green. Finally! The
green flash! I had been looking for it off and on for many years. On top of it
all, the last half second turned blue.
This was the even more extremely unusual blue flash. Then,
the tiny speck of Sun was gone, replaced by seagulls in the air flying home to
go to bed.
--- September 1994
Since then, during the 2009 Asian Solar Eclipse, I managed to see the green flash of the rising morning Sun from the cruise boat the morning of the eclipse near Iowa Jima.
Mel Bartels