19-05-2025
Fire rainbow spotted in Ohio sky explained
GALLIPOLIS, Ohio (WCMH) — People in southeastern Ohio were treated to an unusual sight overhead, many described as a 'fire rainbow' in social media posts.
Rusty Mittendorf shared a few shots with NBC4, captioning the images 'Fire in the sky over Gallipolis' on his Facebook account. The pictures showed a long streak of multicolored 'flames' licking the sky.
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Comments on social media to the posts ranged from humorous to wonder and amazement.
'Wow. The Nexus Ribbon!' commented one person, referencing a plot point from the movie 'Star Trek Generations.'
It made another person think of 'Back to the Future,' who wrote, 'Doc and Marty passing by in the flying DeLorean is what I see.'
'This is so cool and I'm saving it for painting inspiration, if that's ok!' someone else enthusiastically added.
Surprisingly, this atmospheric phenomenon is not a rainbow, but something known as a circumhorizontal arc.
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Storm Team 4 chief meteorologist Dave Mazza reviewed the photos and described what created the spectacular sight.
'It's a thin layer of clouds made up of ice crystals and the sunlight is refracted through those ice crystals to create the rainbow effect,' Mazza said.
An article on the American Meteorological Society's website notes that these 'ice-halos' can be formed by sunlight or moonlight and 'are most commonly spotted in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.'
The website Scientific Origin reveals that the so-called 'fire rainbows' are 'rare and geographically limited' because of three factors. First, the sun's angle must be at least 58 degrees above the horizon. Next, the cirrus clouds need hexagonal, plate-like ice crystals to refract the light. Last, the ice crystals should be horizontally aligned within the cirrus clouds to get the distinctive blaze shape.
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