I. Anyone who has ever spent any time in southwest Florida standing on the beach looking at the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, knows that there’s this thing called the green flash. It’s a phenomenon wherein a sharp line of emerald green flashes across the ocean horizon the second that the sun disappears.
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II. For the last few weeks, Ohio has experienced sub-zero temps that have made life [shall we say?] interesting. Since the arrival of this arctic weather, there’s been one aspect of it that has charmed me. Almost every night at sunset when I look out the window across our deck through the trees to the neighbor’s houses, I see a beautiful shade of orange on the horizon.
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III. While not as spectacular and dramatic as the Florida green flash, this delightful Ohio-in-winter sunset phenomenon has a quiet magic of its own that is more in keeping with the low-key vibe of this state. And as such, I believe it deserves a name, too.
So it is with the foregoing in mind that I’ve decided to take it upon myself and name this phenomenon. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ohio’s answer to the green flash. Around here, it’s all about the orange smudge.
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 
Love the “orange smudge”!!!
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Becky, thank you. Not quite the same as what you see, is it?
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Knock, knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad you saw the sunset? LOL funny. Beautiful picture and a great name. Were it August I would be fearful of a distant smokeless forest fire.
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Zen-Den, clever one. You might be the first person to ever leave me a knock-knock joke as a comment on my blog! Kudos to you.
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Good for you! You’re always looking for the positive things in life:)
The pinky/orangy sunset is beautiful against the white snow…love it!
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Beth, I rather like seeing the orange smudge each night, BUT will gladly do without it if that means the temps get back to normal.
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It is gorgeous, but looks STINKING COLD there. Brrrrr! I guess the message is that there is beauty everywhere, even in the negative. (temps)
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Exactly Margaret. A little beauty + a little whimsy make the cold days tolerable. 🙂
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Gorgeous photo!
I’ve never seen the green flash, though I remember first hearing about it from my French (ex-)stepfather. So it will always be “le rayon vert” in my head. I guess it happens in other places where there is enough water to the west for the sun to poke through the water when it hits the horizon. Having lived in California, where there is indeed water to the west, I feel a bit cheated at never having seen it.
But we do sometimes have our own spectacularly colrful sunset smudges here in Massachusetts, including sometimes greenish turquoise striping with pink.
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alejna, I’ve seen the green flash once when I was down in FL. It was stunning & everyone on the beach started cheering after it happened. Cool, huh?
While we have pink stripes in our sunsets, I’ve never seen any greenish turquoise in one around here. That’d be beautiful.
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