A few days ago, people in China’s Jiangxi province in the east of the country were treated to a fascinating natural spectacle. In the sky above the city of Shanrao, a beautiful light phenomenon could be admired: a so-called circumhorizontal arc…
Guide Xiao Chen filmed the colorful celestial spectacle, also known as the fire rainbow, on Tuesday, but the fascinating footage has only now been released.
Natural spectacle resembles rainbows
Circumhorizontal arcs resemble a horizontal rainbow and are therefore also called rainbow clouds. Although the glow 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 create a glow
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 fire rainbow can only form 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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