Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Snowbow Sky

Icebow

Kind-of like a rainbow, but with the absence of rain we'd decided they should be called 'snowbows' (sounds better than 'icebows' as well).

After some quick research (i.e. Wikipedia), it looks like they are called halos or icebows - an optical atmospheric phenomenon formed by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals.

Icebow

The particles (ice crystals) in the air are apparently a meteorological phenomenon referred to as diamond dust - or less eloquently, clear-sky precipitation.

diamond dust aka clear-sky precipitation