City Celebrates brought out the couples and families, along with all the animated characters and performers, who filled New Bedford town center with New Years Eve revelry. Then, with a loud boom and a sudden flash of light , the sky above the harbor was painted with a red coating coming from within the clouds, caused by the fireworks exploding above the low cloud cover which acted as a cover.

One of the biggest disappointments for fireworks viewers is when the weather is foggy and the hazy clouds are low, as this limits the amount of fireworks you can see. As New Bedford is a port city, we also have to deal with marine cloud layers, which are very low level clouds that form over the ocean.

So why have fireworks if you can’t see them?

The decision to go ahead with the fireworks or not was not an easy one. In most cases, a contract is signed with another given day, but the following night called for heavier rains, so that wouldn’t work.

It was a Catch-22: either shoot them on a hazy New Years Eve, or not have any fireworks at all. Also, more than likely, the deposit money would not have been returned to the Bristol County Savings Bank, which paid them.

“Despite the bad weather, there was no better time for the fireworks than Friday night,” said Mike Lawrence, spokesperson for the city of New Bedford. “The whole weekend seemed cloudy so the city decided to run the show as planned, with the crowds already downtown for City Celebrates and everyone excited to ring in the New Year.”

Other cities call the fireworks in the fog “May Gray”, “June Gloom” and “No-Sky July”. How about if New Bedford called it “New Years Eve break?” “

“It was a great, safe way to host 2022, the clouds and everything,” Lawrence said.