What Is A Fire Rainbow? 6/18/15
Fire Rainbows are known as circumhorizontal arcs. Its a huge multicolored halo that runs parallel to the horizon and its center is beneath the sun. Red is the upper color. This cloud is rare and it depends where and when you are at a certain time.
Fire Rainbows occur when the sun is is higher than 58 degrees above the horizon. The suns light passes through the cirrus clouds which are made up of hexagonal plate ice crystals. When they are perfectly aligned, the crystals act as a prism and will result in a rainbow!
Since the sun has such a high altitude, it would be impossible to see this phenomenon in areas north of 55 degrees north or south of 55 degrees south. In other latitudes it may be visible but depending on which latitude you are, depends on the amount of time you see it for.
Fire rainbows mostly occur in the day time. They usually have a certain time of year when they occur. In London, England they would occur between mid-May and late July. In Los Angeles, they would occur between late March and late September.
Below is a video of a Fire Rainbow
Very cool blog I found it interesting how fire rainbows are formed and I liked the pictures you found also.
ReplyDeleteReally good information! Very detailed, i loved your pictures and notes!
ReplyDeleteI thought that the amount of information on fire rainbows was really good and accurate as well,and also interesting to read and made me want to learn more about them. The video made me understand it a lot better. Ps Iiked the rainbow title
ReplyDeleteThey're rather pretty looking, I like their appearance of multi-color clouds. They remind me of those marshmallows that are colored for some reason. It'd be nice to see one of these in real life, have you?
ReplyDelete