Vanilla sky, Pastel sunsets, yellow glow (56k warning)

[Spectre_nz]

Edit: no longer a 56k warning, I've got thumbnails rather than giant images

I figure this is more science than photography and I'm curious as to how frequent photogenic sunsets are in other parts of the world, so this seemed like the best place for it...

So, I live in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm a bit of a homebody, I like the region I live in and am seldom inclined to travel far from it. When I do go on holiday, I mostly go to the same place, a family holiday home 3 hours drive away in the Coromandel; roughly 150km east south east from Auckland, as the crow flies. I've taken photographs of nice sunsets when away, but I've been rather surprised by the reaction of some overseas friends to my sunset pictures - some of them talk like they've never seen sunsets like that, and others ask if the colours have been manipulated and/or the pictures doctored.

Now, I always just assumed that a nice sunset was an uncommon, but not unheard of thing everywhere in the world. So I began to wonder if I lived in the sun-set capital of the world or if the respondents to my photos just lived under rocks (or in high-rise cities and didn't look up much)
Auckland and the east side of the Coromandel share several features - sea to the north, west and east, mountains to the west and a humid subtropical climate. Is this region some kind of geographical sunset machine?
I got to thinking more on it after a trip away to a part of the country I don't usually visit last week where I was rather disappointed to discover that despite a prime sunset facing location and good weather, 4 nights in a row yielded unspectacular, muted sunsets.

My first question, for those of you in other parts of the world, is, how frequently would you see a vanilla sky or a pastel sunset? Spring and Autumn are the best months for sunsets here, Winter can be a mixed bag. I'd see a good pastel sunset or vanilla sky two or three times a month that I'd photograph if I had a camera on me. Away on holiday I'll see vanilla skies 6 nights out of 7 for a week in Autumn.
I'd come to assume that skies that looked like they were on fire and sweeping pastel hues from horizon to horizon were normal - or is this just a misconception based on my location?

Now, a note on my photography; my camera is a few years old, small, and I just point it at the sky and shoot. The colours I get on the jpg are never as good as I saw with my eye. I get oranges, pinks, magentas and reds, but the contrast with the blue sky never seems as intense as it did with the naked eye.


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Now, part 2; yellow glow.

Three times in the last 15 years I've seen something I call 'yellow glow'. I haven't managed to find anything with a google search so I don't know what else to call it. (I'm reasonably certain I didn't hallucinate the whole thing, other Aucklanders I've talked to seem to remember them)
Basically, it's like someone has turned on an intense yellow floodlight. Like you're viewing the whole world through those yellow contrast increasing lenses. Everything stands out, green plants (of which there are a lot in Auckland) turn an electric shade of lime and the whole thing felt like I was walking around in neon lit cartoon.
I've seen it happen to varying degrees, about half an hour before sunset, persisting nearly until sunset, and always when there has been a mid altitude, solid layer of cloud overhead extending towards a clear horizon, with the sun visible between the cloud layer and the ground. My guess was that scattered yellow light normally not seen before sunset was being reflected back down by the cloud layer, but, I've never been able to find anything written about it, so I remain unsure.
Has anyone else ever experienced that kind of phenomena?

[Broomstick]

First of all, what do you mean by "vanilla sky"?

Second, are you downwind of any active volcanoes? And by that I mean you could be a long way down wind, the point being that if you've got volcanic dust at high altitudes above you, you can wind up with spectacular sunsets.

We do get spectacular sunsets around here (US Great Lakes Region), and part of that is the extreme flatness of the landscape so our view of them tend to be unobstructed by the terrain, but from the sound of it not quite so often as you do. We may have greater air pollution in my area so that could be a factor, a quick glance at the map makes me think you don't have any heavy industry nearby. I note that your pictures tend to have clouds, and you say you have a "humid" climate so perhaps you get more clouds than some other places and that accounts for some of it?

As for your "yellow glow" - can't recall exactly that. I've sometimes seen and orange glow, usually associated with conditions favoring tornadoes, in which the area lights up with this really lurid orange light, but I don't think that's quite what you meant.

[Spectre_nz]

Vanilla sky, a Monet painting that, now that I look for it, is not as good a description as I thought.
Also a Spanish film and an American remake with Tom Cruise.

However sunset photos that come up when I image search Monet Vanilla sky are close to what I had in mind; peach, pink and orange coloured clouds, pale cream tending to blue sky, across much of the sky.
As opposed to a deep red and orange glow in the clouds around where the sun is setting.

Volcano, not really. New Zealand has a few, but Ruapehu wasn't erupting that year, or this. White island isn't too far away, but it doesn't really throw up ash.
Plus, these sunsets happen fairly frequently. I'd be inclined to think its something to do with dust or moisture in the air and maybe mountains being in the right place between me the viewer and the setting sun that drive moist air into just the right place for full sky light shows.

Lurid orange light is how I'd describe the glow, only in yellow. Sounds similar at least.
The clouds go bright yellow, the grass and trees glow an unearthly green. I don't know if I'm conveying it very well other than to say 'an extraordinary infusion of yellow onto the afternoon commute'

[Korvan]

Here in Vancouver, BC I've seen your yellow glow on occasion. I've always thought it was like the air being saturated with liquid gold. However you describe it, makes an otherwise ordinary day a little magical.

edit... found a picture that sorta shows the yellow glow effect. It's a lot more impressive seeing it live.

[Akkleptos]

Oh, I think I've seen those. Ore something quite similar (to the Vancouver Sunset picture).

Where I live, at least twice in a 10 year period I saw what I call "green days", where the sky is kind of overcast, and the air is filled with this eerie greenish-yellow glow.

I was thinking it might have something to do with particles from forest fires at high altitude.

Edit: text in parenthesis

[salm]

We get the pastel skies her in Southern Germany quite regularily. Never seen the yellow sky, though.

Stuff like this:

Pic 1

Pic 2