On Saturday much of the country was bathed in sunshine. And in the evening there was a rare chance to see a fantastic twilight long after the sun had set below the horizon. The sky was awash with glorious colours: yellow at the horizon, blending into orange, then red and reaching purple towards the night sky above. Similar twilights were seen across much of Europe.

These skies were created by a volcano off the coast of Alaska. Between August 7 and 8, three huge eruptions rocked the Kasatochi Volcano in the remote Aleutian Islands. A thick plume of ash rose high into the atmosphere, along with about 1.5 million tons of sulphur dioxide, the largest volcanic sulphur cloud produced for 17 years. Airlines diverted or cancelled flights in the region of the volcanic cloud to avoid serious damage to aircraft.

The volcanic cloud gradually swept around the northern hemisphere as a thin veil of dust and acid. That veil scattered the light from the setting Sun to produce fantastic colours, and also produced unusually long-lasting twilight by reflecting the light from the Sun hidden below the horizon.

The curious sunsets of volcanic clouds are so striking that they have had a noticeable impact on works of art through history. Turner’s pictures of vivid red sunsets followed three big eruptions in his lifetime, and his work was no exception. A scientific study of 554 paintings by 181 artists, including Gustav Klimt and Edgar Degas, revealed that 54 of the pictures showed the characteristic colours of volcanic sunsets, and were painted within three years of volcanic eruptions.