Top panel: structure of the lower atmopshere at 110 s into the flare simulation. Solid black and red lines display the temperature and electron density. The dashed lines display the original atmosphere at t = 0 s. Bottom panel: contribution function for the Balmer continuum at 3646 Å and for H α at line centre (6564.7 Å) for a viewing angle of μ = 1. The H α function was scaled by a factor of 100 to be visible on the same scale. The dashed black line displays the inital contributon function for the continuum at t = 0 s.