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		January 1st 2000.    Photo Les Cowley          When the air is moist or misty and laden with water droplets, sunset colours are subdued, washed out. Mist and fog droplets are 1 - 100 micron ( 1/1000 - 1/10 mm) diameter. They are larger than the wavelengths of visible light and optically they act as Mie scatterers.   They scatter most light forwards in the general direction of the original beam. With the exception of rays directed in a few other specific directions, light of different colours is scattered far more equally than by the smaller Rayleigh scattering particles responsible for vivid sunsets.    Multiple scattering further evens out intensity and colour differences to give the overall pale and watery hues.