We decided to try and find out all about what we have witnessed; the sun halo.
 |
| Photo captured by Tia |
 |
| Photo captured by Youzhen |
 |
| Photo captured by Youzhen |
Here are just SOME of the information we have found out within the 30 minutes. I would consider ourselves practitioner for research as well as knowledge for sun halos.
When did we see this? 11:16 am,18 degrees, 15th of March 2018
What can we see? A big ring around the sun.
How can we see this? The sun halo is caused by ice crystals in cirrostratus clouds in the upper troposphere the shape of these crystals determines the shape of the halo. The sunlight bounces of the ice crystals forming a 22 degree radius halo around the sun. Therefore, it is also known as 22 degree halos.
What else do we know? If you see a sun halo it indicates that there is a storm nearby before or after it appears. Interestingly, we recently had Ola hit NZ and Linda is expected to hit the upper North Island. Sun halos are made from ice crystals and there is an old saying ‘Ring around the moon means rain soon'.
We see this phenomenon because of ice crystals in the atmosphere bounce light back (refraction) from the sun making a visible light halo. Technically the sun halos are always there but because of how the ice crystals act you can’t see them because the crystals are higher up and closer to the sun making the blur that is some ice crystals floating around in and out of space. The colder the temperature the more ice in the air making more sun dogs that make more sun halos.
Interestingly everyone sees their own unique halo as the ice crystals we are seeing the lights refract from will be different from person to person!
A quick summary by Nick:
On Thursday 15th of march 2018 at 11:16 am a sun halo formed over rotorua Intermediate. Sun halos also known as 22 degree halos are formed when the light from a solar flare gets filtered through the crystals in the clouds in earth's atmosphere. Also it usually causes a huge storm a few hours after it forms.
Overall it was a great (and short) day!
No comments:
Post a Comment