[Explored] Circumhorizontal ice halo segment

            I happened to look up and saw an area within the clouds that was colourful and pretty. Like a horizontal line. The area was high in the sky and this lasted around 4 minutes. 

I thought initially this phenomenon was irisation by diffraction - but after some research/reading, I believe this to be a circumhorizontal arc segment (common name fire rainbow, although nothing to do with either fire or rainbows). An optical phenomenon that belongs to the family of ice halos formed by the refraction of sun or moonlight in hexagonal plate-shaped ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere, typically in high cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. The arc, or segment seen, has the appearance of a large, brightly spectrum-coloured band (red being the topmost colour) running parallel to the horizon.

Brightly coloured circumhorizontal arcs occur mostly during the summer and between particular latitudes. The sun has to be at an elevation of 58° or greater, (it was at 68 at the time of shot), there must be high altitude cirrus clouds with plate-shaped ice crystals, and sunlight has to enter the ice crystals at a specific angle. This is why circumhorizontal arc is a relatively rare phenomenon.

© All rights reserved.

Taken in: Australia / New South Wales / Merewether (show map)

Taken on: November 1, 2020

Tags:

atmospheric optics

iridescent cloud

meteorology

sky

clouds

photometeor $Everybody's photos tagged with diffraction$ diffraction

optics

australia

nsw

new south wales

ice halo

circumhorizontal arc

optical phenomenon

circumhorizon arc

rare optical phenomenon

in explore

spring

rare optics « less

Sets appears in: • Astronomy/Meteorology • Explored

Groups appears in: • sky & clouds • clouds more » • the skies above • Atmospheric Optics, and Rare Clouds • Sky Poetry • in explore « less

Stats: 10,577 views / 17 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder