THE skies over Sussex were a blaze of colour as the county experienced a spectacular sunset.

These stunning pictures were taken by readers of The Argus with the sky turning dramatic and fiery shades of red, orange and yellow at dusk.

And the Met Office says continuing high pressure may lead to more eye-catching sunsets over the next few days.

Malcolm Thomason, 58, from Balcombe, took a photo of a deep orange sky over the Newlands area of Balcombe at about 6.30pm on Sunday.

He said: “It was absolutely breathtaking. I’ve lived in Balcombe for years and have never seen anything like it.”

Prue Heron captured what she said was a "showstopper moment... a real wow moment" at the Bandstand on the seafront.

Other pictures included ones of the Palace Pier and Woodingdean in Brighton.

A Met Office spokeswoman said a combination of good weather and high pressure led to the colourful displays.

She said: "We have been experiencing some high pressure which means the air is pushing down and trapping particles in the atmosphere.

“You can imagine it being like a big lid covering the atmosphere.

“The particles scatter the sunlight, creating the colourful skies. When you have high or middle level cloud, this can also contribute to the overall effect.

“The high pressure is expected to continue for a few days so there may be some more colourful sunsets to come.”

The sun’s rays are made up from a spectrum of colours ranging from violet through to red, with each colour having a slightly different wavelength.

A red sky appears when dust and small particles are trapped in the atmosphere by high pressure.

This scatters blue light and leaves only red light to give the sky its notable appearance.

The blue and violet part of visible light is scattered by air molecules more than other colours in the spectrum, due to its wavelength, and so it dominates over the other colours during the day.

When the sun is lower in the sky, around sunrise and sunset, the light must pass through more atmosphere.

This leads to more scattering of the blue light so the reds and oranges of the spectrum begin to dominate.