A fascinating natural spectacle presented itself to the residents of the village of Aylesford in the English county of Kent on Thursday. In the afternoon, a beautiful light phenomenon could be admired in the sky above the community – a so-called circumhorizontal arc…
Circumhorizontal arcs resemble a horizontal rainbow and are therefore colloquially called rainbow clouds. Although the light phenomenon is reminiscent of a rainbow (same spectral colors, note), that is not the case, because in rainbows the sunlight is refracted by liquid raindrops (and not by ice flakes).
Ice crystals are responsible for the shine
The rainbow colors of a circumhorizontal arc are created by the refraction of the sun’s rays as they fall nearly vertically on ice crystals floating in high cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. Depending on the size and orientation of the ice crystals and the angle at which the light hits the crystals, sometimes whitish and sometimes colored halo phenomena appear in the form of circles, arcs or even columns in the sky.
A circumhorizontal arc can only occur when the sun is higher than 57.8 degrees above the horizon. Therefore, rainbow clouds cannot be observed at locations further north than 55 degrees north latitude or southerly than 55 degrees south latitude.
Source: Krone
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