Praying down on Newfoundland

I get lots of great photos that I love to share with you. I do my best to cover Atlantic Canada from one end to the other. Every once in a while, I’m asked why I don’t share more photos of Newfoundland and Labrador. I’m going to turn that one around and ask why I don’t receive more photographs from Newfoundland and Labrador.

The other day, Donna Canning reached out and was wondering the same thing but was good enough to share this lovely picture taken by Jerome Canning. The photo reminds me of the prayer cards that Grandma gave my sister and me the day of our tionally tiny so we could carry it with us in a pocket or a small purse; for years, I carried mine around in my pencil case. The sight of sunlight beaming down through the clouds is inspiring; so much so that it’s referred to as God’s rays. These cally.

Rays of light can change direction when they encounter small particles suspended in the atmosphere; this is called scattering. A cloud between you and the sun can block some but not all of the sun’s light. Where the light peeks through, scattering illuminates its path from the sun to your eyes, creating a sunbeam in the sky.

These beams appear to converge toward the sun, but that’s just an illusion; in fact, the rays are parallel. When you look down a railroad track, the tracks look like they converge off in the distance, but we know and hope they remain parallel.

These rays are not multi-coloured, like a rainbow, because the light is being scattered by an object. Rainbows get their colour from light entering and bouncing off water droplets.

I’m so glad Donna reached out. Now, I’d like to ask those of you who have friends and family in Newfoundland — and there are many — to reach out to them. There is so much beauty in Newfoundland and Labrador; you should be bragging about your piece of heaven.

Your photos might convince people who are itching to travel to head on over to the most easterly province in Canada and experience your unequalled hospitality.

You can send photos to weathermail@weatherbyday.ca.

Earlier this month, Jerome Canning spotted sunbeams over New Perlican, NL. He says the wonderment he first felt as a child at seeing sunbeams has never changed.