Ice Halo

 

This ice halo, encircling the sun, was observed yesterday while I was walking in St-Laurent looking for migratory birds.

Just a quick note on how ice halos come to be:

Ice halos are caused by both refraction, or splitting of light, and also reflection, or glints of light from ice crystals typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.  The crystals have to be oriented and positioned just so, in order for the halo to appear.  They can appear around the sun or the moon.

Here is another photo of this atmospheric phenomenon:

Fire Rainbow

On June 10, 2018 near South Lancaster, Ontario in a conservation area called Cooper Marsh, my cousin Blain and I were treated to a rare and very beautiful atmospheric phenomenon called a fire rainbow.

After researching it on the Internet we learned that certain conditions need to be met for the formation of fire rainbows. 

These conditions are as follows:  the sun must be more than 58° above the horizon; cirrus clouds need to be present; and the hexagonal ice crystals in those clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

Here is a picture that Blain took of me photographing the amazing sight!

The following shots are a selection of many that I took that day.  

(Note: colours have not been adjusted but the images have been slightly darkened to compensate for over-exposure).

I have made two other blog postings of atmospheric phenomena (iridescent clouds and ice halos).  They can be found by clicking on the following links:

Iridescent Clouds

Ice Halos

Ice halo

If you recall, back in November I had a post about supernumerary rainbows and iridescent clouds. Well, on Christmas day I witnessed another interesting atmospheric phenomenon - the ice halo!

Thanks to the keen eyes of my friend Jean, it was brought to my attention that there was a "rainbow" around the sun. I only had my pocket camera with me but managed to take these shots. You can read about ice halos here.

I find the wispy clouds add to the "other worldly" aspect of the scene.