An optical phenomenon called iridescence due, according to the National Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Weather, "to light being diffracted by water droplets of a fairly uniform size in altostratus and altocumulus clouds, and occasionally in cirrocumulus clouds and pileus clouds atop cumulonimbus."
Of course, by the time I finished typing all this, it was gone. (Current conditions: mixed skies with cirrocumulus undulatus.)
5.30.2008
Out My Window, Now
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7 comments:
Horizontal rainbow-like phenomenon! Who woulda thunk it?
It's the kind of thing the cosmos thinks up while we're sitting around worrying about the stock market, etc.
May the first about 4PM I did see 2 rainbow. The second one after more that half hour after the first one. Any explanation?
That's interesting about the two rainbows. I guess the sky was in an especially cheerful mood that day!
Hi! I'm just a weird atmospheric science student searching around on Google, the pictures you have are of a rare phenomena called a circumhorizontal arc or CHA, not iridescence, which is also very cool and beautiful, but different.
Hi Ian,
Thanks for the ID on the cloud. Very cool to know this! Good luck with your interesting studies.
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