Driving earlier this evening, I found myself in the midst of a white out.
Usually, white-outs occur during heavy snowstorms, where the falling snow is so dense the volume of snowflakes obliterates the view in every direction.
My white out was slightly different, as for one, it wasn’t snowing, and two, I only couldn’t see ahead. Unfortunately, as ahead was the direction I was travelling in.
What caused the unusual phenomena is easy to explain. It was sunny. It was also raining. And the clouds were white. Oh, and the roads were wet. I drove in the direction of the Sun – not literally, as I remained on the road – and the sunlight had been diffused by the clouds, making them appear whiter and brighter than usual. The raindrops were reflecting the sunlight and the bright ‘cloudlight’, so they were also falling as white shards… and everything was then reflected again by the wet road surface.
Everywhere ahead was white, bright and sparkly.
Which isn’t really a bad outlook, when you think about it. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Shortly after the white out, everything returned to normal. Wet and grey.
Here’s an artists impression of the whiteout:

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