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Crepuscular rays over DC formed hundreds of miles away over Ohio
If you spotted these crepuscular rays – created when sunlight shines through gaps in the clouds – Wednesday in the D.C. region, Matthew Cappucci says you could have been looking at shadows that originated in Ohio – over 200 miles away!
WASHINGTON - Did you catch the sunset on Wednesday night? You might have noticed a picket fence pattern of alternating luminance and shadows. They're referred to as "crepuscular rays."
Where did the shadows come from? Tall clouds. But there were no tall clouds in our immediate area. Instead, the storms were more that five hours away near Akron, Ohio! That's 237 miles from D.C..
Storms in Ohio prompted tornado warnings and brought gusty to locally damaging winds along a decaying cold front. The shadows cast by them around sunset reached all the way to the Atlantic.