Saturday, May 16, 2015

Started out as a segment of 22d halo and circumscribed halo with right parhelion and parhelic circle but later on a nice sheet of cirrus stratus clouds blew in and in the cirrus were hi-quality column and plate crystals. I was getting near the end of mowing the lawn and hurried up and in all got to see 22 degree halo and sharp oval halo that surrounds the 22 degree halo is a circumscribed halo from oriented hex column crystals, Infralateral arc also from hex column crystals, a complete parhelic circle and the bright horizontal rainbow colored arc near the horizon is a circumhorizontal arc. Some refer to the Circumhorizontal arc as a " fire rainbow" and it has nothing to do with fire or rainbows. Circumhorizontal arc is a spring and summer time halo only because the sun has to be over 58 deg elevation to form. if one lives at 57 deg latitude will not see it because sun won't get high enough but it can be seen in low level diamond dust at night around artificial light sources