Monday, May 14, 2007

Fire Rainbow

I just got this from my friend Michel:


THIS IS A FIRE RAINBOW – THE RAREST OF ALL NATURALLY OCCURRING ATMOSPHERIC PHENOMENA.

THE PICTURE WAS CAPTURED ON JUNE 3, 2006, ON THE IDAHO/WASHINGTON BORDER.

THE EVENT LASTED ABOUT 1 HOUR.

THE CLOUDS HAVE TO BE CIRRUS, AT LEAST 20K FEET IN THE AIR, WITH JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF ICE CRYSTALS, AND THE SUN MUST BE HIGHER THAN 58 DEGREES ABOVE THE HORIZON.

To which I add:

Wowser!

14 comments:

Moonbeam said...

Holey Moley....that is so beautiful!

Mother Nature at its best.

Inspiring me to put a new canvas on my easel and paint.

David in DC said...

Just be careful. You know what they say:

Easel does it.

laura b. said...

I have never seen anything like that. Gorgeous. And wowser, too.

David in DC said...

l.b. me neither. I double-checkerd snopes first. It's no hoax, according to them.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/firerainbow.asp

Moonbeam said...

Yep :) and...

They also say:

Easel as pie.

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

Wowser is right.. or Holy Smoly.. or Cripes... Nice pic...don't see that too often..

Anonymous said...

Thats pretty cool. I have never seen this before.

Snopes rules!

ANON1 said...

There is a perfectly good explanation for that. I was in the area that day and my future is so bright...

You know the rest!

Val said...

Beautiful. How come you're just showing it a year later?! :-P

Churlita said...

Very cool. I would love to see it in person.

David in DC said...

Moonbeam: Pi? That's not so easel. I can only recite it out to four decimals: 3.14159...

b.b. yup.

E-E: snopes is really amazing. And you can tell from the way they write it that it's a labor of love.

A1: I gotta wear shades. Now that tune will be in my head all day. Thanks. I guess that beats "Hang on Sloopy" which is what I was humming before this.

Val: I only got it yesterday. It claimed to be from a week ago, but snopes filled me in about the real origin of the photo and one other slight mis-statement.

it's worth saying again www.snopes.com is great.

dmarks said...

That's my windows wallpaper now.

susie said...

I was SO thrilled to find this!!! I live in South Tx and last fall my husband and I were on the coast and we SAW one!! I swear on everything holy I am not putting you on! We actually saw two about 10 min. apart. The first one disopated quickly, but the second one lasted about 45 minutes. There were only 3 of us on the beach at that time and we didn't know the other guy. It was amazing, and I am SO relieved to see we didn't all three just hallucinate the same thing! THANK YOU FOR POSTING THIS!
Susie in Texas!

David in DC said...

Thanks Susie. Here's more info on the phenomenon: http://didc.blogspot.com/2007/05/aka-circumhorizon-arc.html