We live our lives never truly knowing when the day comes that something remarkable happens. I was doing totally normal errands today in the middle of town when I saw a sun dog, a common enough occurrence, but it was so bright I decided to snap a shot. But as I got out of the car, I realized something more complex had become visible, something I'm fairly sure I've never seen before. The sun dogs were connected to a halo around the sun, but at the top was an "upside-down" rainbow, like a giant smile in the sky.
I made use of a highly technological sun-blocking tool that I have in my pockets sometimes to try and bring out the colors a little better. In my capacity as an earth science instructor I generally teach about climate and weather, but phenomena related to the refraction of light off hexagonal ice crystals in the upper atmosphere gets lost in the concerns over global climate change and that sort of thing. So I haven't kept up the finer details of atmospheric refraction effects, and had to get a refresher about what I was seeing.
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| Source: Meteorology Today by Don Ahrens |
There were five phenomena happening at once here, all related to the refraction of light in ice crystals in the upper atmosphere: a 22 degree halo, part of a 46 degree halo, two sun dogs, an upper tangent arc, and high above, the circumzenithal arc (the upside-down "rainbow"). I read that the arcs are not uncommon, but are noticed less because they tend to occur overhead where people don't tend to look. I didn't see it myself until I stopped on the way home to try and catch the arc again. It can be seen in the picture below.
Beautiful things can find you any time. You just need to watch for them!
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