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The misleading term "fire rainbow" is sometimes used to describe this phenomenon, although it is neither a rainbow, nor related in any way to fire. The term, apparently coined in 2006, [ 3 ] may originate in the occasional appearance of the arc as "flames" in the sky, when it occurs in fragmentary cirrus clouds.
Iridescent mid altitude clouds Iridescent polar stratospheric cloud at sunset over Aberdeen, Scotland Cloud iridescence, seen above the clouds covered with grey clouds, Pondicherry, India. Cloud iridescence or irisation is a colorful optical phenomenon that occurs in a cloud and appears in the general proximity of the Sun or Moon.
A rainbow is a narrow, multicoloured semicircular arc due to dispersion of white light by a multitude of drops of water, usually in the form of rain, when they are illuminated by sunlight. Hence, when conditions are right, a rainbow always appears in the section of sky directly opposite the Sun.
The circumzenithal arc, also called the circumzenith arc (CZA), the upside-down rainbow, and the Bravais arc, [1] is an optical phenomenon similar in appearance to a rainbow, but belonging to the family of halos arising from refraction of sunlight through ice crystals, generally in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds, rather than from raindrops.
In the Anglo-Cornish dialect of Cornwall, United Kingdom, sun dogs are known as weather dogs (described as "a short segment of a rainbow seen on the horizon, foreshowing foul weather"). It is also known as a lagas in the sky which comes from the Cornish language term for the sun dog lagas awel meaning 'weather's eye' ( lagas , 'eye' and awel ...
A stunning rainbow cloud lights up the sky in Southern China
The sky inside a primary rainbow is brighter than the sky outside of the bow. This is because each raindrop is a sphere and it scatters light over an entire circular disc in the sky. The radius of the disc depends on the wavelength of light, with red light being scattered over a larger angle than blue light.
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