Monday, June 27, 2011

What is a Circumhorizon Arc? Photos and Text by Bob Kelly


I shot this photo on Sunday afternoon, June 26, 2011, north of Boone, Iowa at 2:25 PM.  I was looking to the West when I noticed the rainbow patterns in the sky and took the photo.  I did some searching on Google and Wikipedia and I believe it to be something called a Circumhorizon Arc, which forms when sunlight refracts on the ice crystals in cirrus clouds, like we had today at that time.  It was beautiful, however a few miles down the road, with that particular angle at the time, I could not see it as clearly as the photo shows.

1 comment:

Dianne said...

I always wondered what to call them and how they came to be

beautiful photo