Sundog!

I was in at the Mall in DC this past weekend, and saw a sundog! I was watching the sky (like all meteorologists right? LOL) and spotted the beautiful ice rainbow.

Sundogs are also known as parhelion or parhelia (plural) in scientific terms. They are very common and are formed by the refraction of sunlight by hexagonal ice crystals and form part of a halo, around the sun. This is what a full sundog looks like:

Notice the location of the sun. Sundogs appear when the sun is low and near the horizon. The sunlight which passes through the ice crystals, is bent at a 22 degree angle before our eyes see it. The result is of this bending of light is a sundog. The orientation of the ice crystal results in the formation of a sundog as well and they can be observed when the flat faces of the ice crystal are horizontal. This orientation is what sets a sundog apart from a halo. In the occurrence of a halo, the orientation of the ice crystals is random.

Here is a picture of the sundog I saw:

Pretty isn't it?

For more information on sundogs, visit here. They show a good representation of the 22 degree at which the light is bent.


For giggles :-)