DENVER — The Front Range kicked off Friday morning in style as a vibrant orange sunrise lit up the sky from Fort Collins to Denver to Colorado Springs.
The stunning glow was made possible by a meteorological phenomenon known as a chinook wind.
As the air from the west hit the Rocky Mountains, it created a ripple or a wave in the wind. That caused midlevel clouds to form in those waves where the air was rising. That is just the right spot to capitalize on the colorful morning rays getting through clearer skies to the east.
The result was the orange- and pink-filtered morning sunlight reflecting off the bellies of those Front Range clouds.
The chinook wind was also responsible for some relatively warm air on Friday morning, which was strange because sunrise is normally the coldest part of the day.
At 1 a.m., it was 48 degrees in Denver, but it warmed 9 degrees overnight, and it was 57 degrees at sunrise.
The initial chinook wave coming over the mountains is the most dramatic because the cold air at about 15,000 to 20,000 feet is the heaviest, having just cooled from rising up the western slope.
That air’s quick descent down the leeside of the mountains caused it to compress and warm due to the pressure change. A process called adiabatic warming.
The air can warm by more than 10 degrees in just a few minutes.
So it’s a warming wind that causes the air temperature to rise at ground level, but the wind still feels cold it hits our bodies because the wind chill factor still applies.
Friday's glorious sunrise
More 9NEWS stories by Cory Reppenhagen:
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Colorado Climate
9NEWS+ has multiple live daily shows including 9NEWS Mornings, Next with Kyle Clark and 9NEWS+ Daily, an original streaming program. 9NEWS+ is where you can watch live breaking news, weather updates, and press conferences. You can also replay recent newscasts and find videos on demand of our top stories, local politics, investigations and Colorado specific features.
To download 9NEWS+ on Roku search for KUSA.
To download 9NEWS+ on Fire TV search for 9NEWS.