What causes this?

[Court Hubbard]

A couple of days ago I was driving out to my mom's house and happened to be looking in the sky and noticed what looked to be like a rainbow, but on a partly cloudy day?

I know it has to do with the light spectrum and that sort, but was wondering if anything weather related causes this? Anyone else seen anything similar? Just curious is all.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Looks like a sun dog to me. These are relatively common during the winter, and they are caused by the sunlight reflecting and refracting off and by ice particles. It's usually seen on days with cirrus or cirrostratus clouds (which are upper-level clouds and therefore composed of ice). --> http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase...mos/halo22.html , http://www.astrophys-assist.com/wilobs/wea...hwin/sundog.htm , etc. (Just google "Sun Dog")

 

[Doug Raflik]

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/m...opt/ice/sd.rxml

http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/halo/parhelia.htm

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase...mos/halo22.html

 

[Court Hubbard]

Yep, thats exactly what they are. Pretty interesting. Thanks for the help.

 

[B Ozanne]

Great site and tons of photos on various atmospheric optics:

http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/atoptics/phenom.htm

 

[Andrew Khan]

Sun Dog's are awsome! I was on my way to my home, and I saw one in the sky, it was pretty early in the morning to!

 

[Mike Kay]

I see sundogs fairly often, most often during cold winter days, although they do occur at any other times when there's a lot of high cloud present.

But the best ones I see usually occur on sunny winter days colder than -20°C (-4°F) to -30°C (-22°F) outside and there are a lot of ice crystals about, both at low and high altitudes. On days like these, you'll also get a host of other optical phenomena like halos and stuff, too.

 

[Darin Brunin]

I took this on Sept. 19th.