This series of photos was taken near sunset on 21 January 2026 from my backyard (near Corpus Christi, Texas). It was quite a remarkable sunset “event”.
I have taken many spectacular sunset photos from this same location over the years, but this was perhaps one of the most stunning, mainly because these clouds were directly over my house. The entire event lasted only about 30 minutes.
It had been overcast all day today-Wednesday, January 21, but the clouds broke at sunset in just the right way to create this effect. I had to almost bend over backward to take some of these photos.
All of the photos (taken with a small, pocket Canon PowerShot camera) show true color, even though that might be hard to believe. The clouds were so bright that the orange glow made it look like the backyard was on fire (which is what first alerted me to what was going on).
The event began rather benignly (first few photos) and then proceeded quickly to the remarkable orange/red colors and strange, sweeping cloud patterns of the middle photos. At its peak the sunset mimicked a forest fire, I suppose.
As the intensity faded, as seen in the last 3 or 4 photos, the colors changed to a more pinkish hue. Almost as quickly as it had started, it was over and the next thing I knew it was dark and the solar lights in the backyard had come on. I was glad to be able to see it and have a camera handy.
