Dash 8-300
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Executed Go Around / Missed Approach
Human Factors; Procedure; Weather
About 10 minutes before arriving to our destination the ASOS said the visibility was 10 SM and ceiling 3;000 feet broken. We were being vectored to the airport to pick up a visual approach. We were 1;500 AGL and 160 KTS and 4.5 miles to the field when we picked it up visually. We configured the aircraft and finished the landing checks. Turning base to final we realized we were much higher than the glideslope and pitched down to capture the glideslope. We received an EGPWS warning and realized there was no way to maintain a stabilized approach to landing. We executed a go around and got vectored back around to do an ILS approach and landed normally.At 500 feet AGL we would have to descend more than 1;000 feet per minute to make a landing in the first 1/3 of the runway making it an unstable approach. The same time I figured that out we received an EGPWS warning.At the airport visibility may have been 10 miles and the ceiling may have been 3;000 feet but 4 miles from the field it was not. The runway lights were on step 2 making it hard to see the lights until we were very close to the field. The dim lights also made it hard to judge distance. We were actually closer to the field than we appeared to be causing us to start the descent too late to land at a normal rate of descent.Went around and did the ILS and landed normally. On the ILS we were about 500 feet to minimums and I asked the tower what the runway lights were set to and this is when he told me step 2. I was about to ask for them to be turned up when we saw the field and landed.Ask for the lights to be turned up to the brightest level before looking for the airport. Start descent a little earlier to land with a normal rate of descent. Ask for the ILS approach when able.
[Report Narrative Contained No Additional Information]
Dash 8 flight crew reported executing a go-around during a visual to EWN because the approach was unstable.