Why do we have such a "red" sun today in the Channel Islands? Sophia explains

There's been a lot of speculation about why we have a "red" sun today - from Saharan dust particles, to the weather conditions associated with the ex-hurricane Ophelia.

Having spoken to the UK Met Office today, and Jersey Met, it appears the Saharan Dust is not the main reason for the unusual glow. There may well be dust particles in the air, or particles from forest fires across Portugal that have been blown up towards the islands courtesy of #Ophelia which contributed to the unusual light. According to data that both meteorological offices have, it is not Saharan dust that is the main cause. The UK Met have scientists looking into the unusual conditions to understand the reasoning. If this is the case, the dust scatters the blue light from the sun letting more red light through much as at sunrise of sunset.

My earlier tweet, above, shows the direction of the winds as they wrap around #Ophelia pushing up warm air and possibly particles.

Current indications are that the reasons behind this include dust particles, the mid and high levels of cloud cover, and the angle of the sun. In addition to this there is a front moving towards the islands from the west and hence the skies appeared to be getting darker for a time