Resurrection Sunday Sunrise Observations (publ. 2025-04-22)

On Resurrection Sunday (Easter, 2025-04-20) we had a sunrise breakfast at our church. However, here in Fairbanks, Alaska the sun had already risen 3.5 hours earlier, at 5:55 am. I was able to get out for the sunrise as well. It was not an exciting sunrise, but there were some nice colors to see and a few other interesting details. I still do not have a reliable camera, so I have no photos this time.

I stepped outside into the front yard at 5:17am, and the skies were partly cloudy with some wispy clouds off in various directions. Some orange glow was visible behind the trees to the NE which, moving toward my zenith, changed to white, then light blue, the a dull, dark blue. A slightly lighter dark blue was visible to the west.

Birds sounds were very active:

- a rapid trill lasting about 1/2 seconds, repeating about every two seconds

- staccato notes in triplet or more, repeating every second or so

- high pitch, long notes in triplet, repeating about every two seconds

A rare feature that morning was that much of the ground was covered in clumpy pieces of snow, which looked like something in between a snow flake and a piece of hail. Many of these pieces of snow were around 5 or 6 mm wide, and were shaped like a clumpy version of the Star of David, or like cookies that got cut into six-sided stars, and then baked. I can't recall ever seeing anything quite like that before.

At 5:37 am, four geese flew over the western sky in a lopsided V formation, honking loudly. Also, somewhere nearby I could hear an high-pitched bird sound that sounded like this, using dit-dah terminology like in morse code:

dit-DAH-dit-DAH

with that repeating about once per second.

Another bird had a rapid sound like a machine gun:

dit-dit-dit-dit (pause) dit-dit-dit (pause) dit-dit-dit-dit

At 5:51am, I observed some clouds to the SE had turned candy-cane pink. I could see some thick, dark clouds to the E, but they had not taken any color yet.

At 6pm, I observed light and dark pink on the bottom of the clouds to the NE, mixed with dark grey. Most of the NE sky is now white, with the zenith a dull blue color, and the western sky is a brighter vivid blue. The SSW horizon is a very light pink — almost white.

At 6:05am, the dark, thick clouds to the E are turning light pink on the sides toward the N. The bottoms of the puffy clouds to the NE are a bright, light pink. The pink is blending in now with the dark grey clumps. The clouds to the NE and E are puffy, but somewhat flat and sparse.

At 6:11am, the clouds in all direction now show some pink color. I went back inside.

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