Halo around the Sun for a few hours

James

KEY LARGO --
No, the world is not coming to an end, National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Strahan assured several callers Tuesday.

Overhead, the bright sun had a perfect pink circular ring around it.

''We had about 150 calls, and a lot of people walked in to ask about it,'' said Strahan, with the National Weather Service's Key West office. ``They had never seen it before.''

The strange sight in the skies throughout the Keys is known as the rare halo phenomenon.

Strahan explained it's created by a layer of thin high cirrus clouds that cause an ice crystal prism around the sun. The light is refracted through the ice crystals.

''It's like what rain drops do to create a rainbow,'' he said.

The same ring can occur around the moon.

Strahan said he called his counterparts in Miami, and they were not able to see the halo because of cloud cover.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's website, the halo usually indicates that rain is on the way.

The last time there was such a halo in the Keys was about a year ago, Strahan said.

''That was the first time I had ever seen one,'' he said. ``They are very rare.''

That one did not last as long as the one Tuesday, which began around 11 a.m. and lasted until about 1:30 p.m. ''I think they are only seen when the sun is very high in the sky, directly overhead,'' Strahan said. ``Once the sun started heading toward the west, it disappeared.''

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Anyone ever seen this phenomenon?

polluxlm

Never even heard about it.

Atmospheric phenomena such as halos were used as an empirical means of weather forecasting before meteorology was developed.

Doesn't seem to be too rare though.

Anyways, I can't find any doomsday links here, so the interest is waning.

Re: Halo around the Sun for a few hours

Re: Halo around the Sun for a few hours

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