06/17/2026
🌅 The green flash is not a myth. It is an atmospheric optical phenomenon that occurs at the precise moment the last sliver of the sun disappears below a flat, clear horizon — the sun's light refracting through the atmosphere at that extreme low angle in a way that separates the colors of the spectrum, with the green wavelengths bending just far enough to be visible for one or two seconds before the sun is completely below the horizon. It requires a perfectly flat, unobstructed horizon, extremely clear air, and the willingness to stare at the exact point where the sun is setting for the entire final minute of its descent without looking away. Most people who have spent their lives watching Gulf Coast sunsets have never seen it. The ones who have tend to remember it for a long time.
The Gulf of Mexico off the Alabama coast is one of the best locations in the continental United States to witness a green flash — the flat, unobstructed water horizon extends for miles in every direction, the Gulf air in October and November after a cold front passage achieves the kind of transparency that makes the atmospheric optics work, and the sunsets themselves are spectacular enough to make the watching worthwhile even when the flash doesn't appear. Experienced Gulf Coast sunset watchers develop habits around it — watching from the water's edge rather than from the dune, keeping their eyes on the exact point of sunset rather than scanning the sky, waiting through the entire descent of the sun's disc for the final second.
Have you seen a green flash at sunset from the Alabama Gulf Coast — and if you have, where were you standing and what did it feel like when it happened? Drop a comment. 🌅
