A couple of weeks ago we had an overcast day with dark clouds... except for one that was glowing with all the colors of the rainbow. This cloud lasted for about half an hour, a bright splash of color alone among black clouds in a dark sky. It was like an iridescent oil puddle in the sky. Amazing! We watched until the cloud broke up just as the sun went down, and there was Venus, right where the cloud was.

I took a bunch of pictures, but I won't post those because the following day it was just unbelievable. Check these out. These are from the shore next to my house and through the window of a house we're building over the fjord. This second day the show lasted about 2 hours.

The phenomenum is called cloud iridesence and it occurs when a very thin cloud at very high altitude is composed of very small water or ice droplets, and rays of light from a hidden sun strike just one droplet each. It is an uncommon weather phenomenum, but happens in Norway more than other places I think. At least everyone I talked to has seen cloud like this before. They call them "perlesmor sky" which means "mother-of-pearl clouds".


posted 2657 days ago