Mike H.: Light Anomaly?

[Jeff Bartlett]

Since we're on the topic of solving meteorological mysteries, I thought I'd give this one a shot also.

I think it was a year or so ago, I saw a report by Mr. Hollingshead in which he reported an unusual light anomaly that occured to his east while the sun was lowering in the west. It appears as rays of light that look to be emanating from a single source just below the horizon. I was curious if you ever got an explanation of that event, as I had a similar experience on June 4, 2005.

It was a Moderate Risk day for northern and central OK, and storms fired on the dryline, but too many storms filled in the line and there was far too much competition which kept the event from getting too out of control. The main show in Oklahoma was south of Norman on the "tail-end-charlie" and everywhere else north of that experienced some severe weather and some absolutely fantastic photo-op's with the mammatus and sun setting and the anvil-ly goodness that came with it all. Before the sun moved below the anvil, and was still high enough in the sky to be obscured by the anvil deck, I was driving south on highway 108 east of Stillwater and south of the Glencoe area. This was just after the main line of severe warned cells had moved past me and to my east. As I was heading south I looked to my ESE and saw this.

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I then look to my west and there is no trace of the sun at this time, as it was still above the anvil deck. I kept driving south and trying to see what this light could possibly be emanating from, but I could never identify a source. It eventually faded and disappeared entirely. I was curious if Mike H. ever received an explanation or if anyone else may have a hypothesis.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

All about perspective.... think about a corn field. What do the rows of corn look like? They converge at a distance even though the rows are parallel. This is what's occurring in this picture. Although you may have not seen the sun, apparently that part of the atmosphere was still experiencing direct radiation from it.

 

[Chad Cowan]

Jeff- that is whats called Anticrepuscular rays. They're like regular crepuscular rays, but they converge on the antisolar point (180 degrees from the solar point). Yeah, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing some of H's shots of these.

From wiki:

Anticrepuscular rays are similar to crepuscular rays, but seen opposite the sun in the sky. Sunlight travels in straight lines, but the projections of these lines on Earth's spherical atmosphere are great circles. Hence, straight-line crepuscular rays from a setting (or rising) sun can appear to re-converge at the antisolar point. Anticrepuscular rays are most frequently visible near sunrise or sunset. Crepuscular rays are usually much brighter than anticrepuscular rays. This is because for crepuscular rays, seen on the same side of the sky as the sun, the atmospheric light scattering and making them visible is taking place at small angles (see Mie theory).

Although anticrepuscular rays appear to converge onto a point opposite the sun, the convergence is actually an illusion. The rays are in fact parallel, and the apparent convergence is to the vanishing point at infinity.

Not as well defined as your shot, but this was taken 4/24/07 looking EAST:

 

[Justin Turcotte]

Wish I had a better camera at the time but did see something similar in Lincoln, NE several years ago. I was looking east with the sun to my west. A rainbow thrown in for extra viewing pleasure.

 

[Jeff Bartlett]

Nature kicks a**. It always keeps me on my toes and keeps me on my quest for knowledge. Thank you, gentlemen, for your great explanations.

I can finally take off my tin foil hat and quit sleeping in my closet. I was convinced it was the beginning of some extraterrestrial invasion of some sort.

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

If you like optics stuff, this site is top notch:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Justin, I remember that night and saw the same thing ... this is just a screencap (wish I would have had the Canon back then, because that was really beautiful) on I-80 just west of Lincoln. Justin is right - the sun was behind me when I took this video, and I'm facing east into the dark. That night was full of beautiful atmospherics:

This was another strange one from north of Kansas City one time several years ago. Several distant cumulus were casting enormous shadows across the sky as the sun went down:

The most beautiful sunset under a storm base, though, goes to a storm near Platte City, Missouri three or four years back ... I got a wicked case of poison ivey because of this photo:

 

[Jim Saueressig]

I meant to ask that question when I seen it in the East as the sun was setting in the West. It was spreading out from the focal point of the rainbow. May 1st

This was the view to the West: