Clouds can take on various colors and shapes, but such wonders in the sky as those whose photos we received on Kontakt 24 are truly unique. The clouds, photographed in the north of Iceland, shimmer like a rainbow. Synoptic tvnmeteo.pl Daniel Kowalczyk explains how such phenomena arise.
On Kontakt 24 we received photos showing an unusual phenomenon. Reporter 24 with the nickname Tomaszek1970 photographed iridescent clouds in Akureyri in the north of Iceland, where he has lived for 17 years. As the Internet user told us, such clouds appear quite rarely, but on Saturday he was exceptionally able to see and capture them.
Light and ice
The iridescent phenomenon in the sky is the so-called pearl clouds. As explained by tvnmeteo.pl weather forecaster Daniel Kowalczyk, these are a type of stratospheric clouds. – They usually form in the winter in the lower stratosphere and occur in the polar regions. They are most often seen just before or just after sunset in Iceland, Scandinavia, Canada and northern Russia, he said. The stratosphere is the second layer of the Earth’s atmosphere from the surface.
The forecaster added that such clouds consist of tiny ice crystals and particles of nitric and sulfuric acid that cause iridescence – or rainbowing – of sunlight. This means that light waves scatter on transparent or translucent objects – in this case cloud components – giving rainbow colors.
Main photo source: Contact 24