Wednesday 7 January 2015

The Fire Rainbow: Beautiful And Rare Circumhorizontal Arc

image credit: Jonathan Fox

If you are very lucky you may see a fire rainbow once or twice in your life. It sounds almost as if it could be the title of one of a series of children’s books - Harry Potter and the Fire Rainbow has a certain ring to it: but this phenomenon is not fiction. If you are in the right place and at the right time then a fire rainbow is something that you will remember.

A CHA (CircumHorizontal Arc) is a kind of halo - which is an optical phenomenon. These appear around the moon - or in this case the sun. You have probably seen a halo around a strong light source - take a look at street lights in the fog for example.

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