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Iridescent clouds
Oh boy, have I got a treat for you! I actually shot it this morning. It was such a joy to catch a glimpse once again of yet another fairly uncommon phenomena. I have researched cloud iridescence in the past, but I have never witnessed it first-hand, that I can recall. Cloud iridescence occurs when light (generally it occurs in the clouds close to the sun's location in the sky) hits small individual water droplets or even small ice crystals and the iridescence (like a smudged rainbow in the clouds)is a diffraction phenomenon, where light is apparently bending around the small water droplets and spreading out its waves past small openings, not to be confused with the refraction phenomenon, where light's direction is changed due to a change in velocity, such as when light encounters a large impenetrable area, creating an almost angled reflection. Such refraction occurs when light hits larger quantities of water and will tend to generate a halo, arcs or perhaps a rainbow. Those are different effects. Diffraction is almost a smudging of light, where refraction displaces its original path.
Cloud iridescence or irisation is the occurrence of colors in a cloud not dissimilar to those seen in oil films on puddles. It is fairly uncommon phenomena and is usually observed in altocumulus, cirrocumulus and lenticular clouds but very rarely in Cirrus clouds.
In my case, the cloud iridescence occurred in cirrocumulus clouds. To read more about cloud iridescence, feel free to check out this link. These little love letters from God thrill my heart.
In weather, a storm system that dropped feet of snow (I hate that word) in some places in and around Colorado, has now created a severe weather scenario in the plains. The front has turned into a squall line of severe weather for some, as it races across the country as a virtual wall of wind and rain.
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