If you happened to be looking at the sky during sunset on Thursday evening, you may have been one of the many lucky Humboldt residents to catch an incredible sight — a full rainbow with a backdrop of orange, pink and purple clouds. At moments you could even catch glimpses of a faint double rainbow. It was really something!

The eerie orange sky one year ago above HSU | File photo: Andrew Goff

In addition to the almost overwhelming beauty of overlapping sky art, what made the event particularly special is that it landed on the one-year anniversary of what some refer to as “smokeageddon” — the strange day when smoke from multiple nearby wildfires enveloped our coastal skies, choking out the sun and casting an eerie orange light. 

While the orange sky day signaled a particularly bad wildfire season and left many of us feeling uneasy, the orange-ish rainbow that graced our skies one year later seemed to give many a moment of hope, especially during a time where the rain is badly needed.