Transparency mirroring the night
Dumbarton, Thursday night into Friday 16 October 2026
From the hills above the Clyde the town lights were already soft. The sky sat low and closed, a heavy deck of cloud with only a faint lighter band near the horizon. On the water the reflections of the bridges and the far bank were diffuse rather than crisp. Distant points of light merged into a milky glow instead of standing out as sharp points. The air itself was doing the filtering.
Transparency had called the night Poor — Low cloud. From dusk at 18:17 through to dawn at 07:51 the forecast showed low cloud closing most of the hours. The hour-by-hour bars stayed short, with only brief, modest lifts. Humidity was wet at 94%. Haze was light (0.08). Smoke and dust were clear. Thin high cloud was clear. The air was damp and the cloud deck was sitting low enough to wash out the sky and soften everything below it.
The photos and the forecast line up. The lights still reached the eye, but they arrived softened by the damp air and the low cloud. Clarity never developed. Transparency is reading the air, not promising stars. On this night the air and the view agreed.