Saturday, May 17, 2008

Beautiful Saturday, Chance of a shower / storm Sunday

Happy saturday! Take a drive with the top down or on the Harley! Here's your Weather on the Ones Forecast Discussion:






okay, I mentioned at the end of the discussion a type of cloud that was not a sundog or a rainbow. Here's what it looked like:



This is courtesy of the National Weather Service in Spokane, Washington.

Its called a circumhorizon arc. This definition is courtesy of the NWS Spokane:

" A circumhorizon arc is one of the rarest halos one can witness. First. it requires a very high sun angle of approximately 58° or higher. A sun angle this high can only occur at northern latitudes during a small portion of the year centered around the summer solstice.
But a high sun angle is only part of the recipe. The other ingredient is even more restrictive. This ingredient is a cluster of perfectly aligned (i.e. nearly perpendicular to the sunlight) ice crystals. This alignment allows the light to enter the nearly vertical side of the ice crystal and exit the relatively horizontal bottom of the crystal. The crystals refract the light approximately 46°, resulting in a very pure spectrum of colors and a vivid light display.
For more information about circumhorizon arcs and other atmospheric optical phenomena please direct your favorite search engine to "Atmospheric Optics."

Have a great day!

Pati Darak

Weather on the Ones Meteorologist,

News 14 Carolina

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