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Rainbow Cloud Formation Visible Over British Isles

Ermintruder

Ermintruder

The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
Joined
Jul 13, 2013
Messages
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Well, I could certainly see this, late today...did anyone else? My location was near Aviemore, and my view was nearly identical to Leicester's

30CFBB0D00000578-0-image-a-124_1454424955398.jpg


People across Leicester were left astounded this afternoon when an unusual cloud formation appeared in the sky.

The formation, which looked like a rainbow around an oval of bright light, appeared at about 5pm in an otherwise murky, grey sky.

Witnesses took photos of the phenomenon and uploaded them to Twitter, many commenting on the "beautiful" appearance.

Leicester Mercury weatherman Dave Mutton said the formation was the result of a cold front moving from the North down to the South.

He said that when a cold front meets a warmer front, bits of cloud break off, creating a gap in cloud cover.

Today's 'gap' occurred just as the sun was setting behind it, creating the ethereal oval of light.

He said the rainbow effect appeared because of the light refracting through ice crystals or water droplets in the clouds.

Dave said: "It would have been quite a sight with the sun setting behind it."

However, Dave said it could have also been a polar stratospheric cloud.

Polar stratospheric clouds form at very high altitudes, between 15km and 25km (about 50,000 to 80,000 feet) and at very cold temperatures (around -78 deg C).

They are also known as nacreous clouds, from nacre, or mother of pearl, due to their iridescent nature.

Lisa Tubby, of Thurnby Lodge, was among the many people intrigued by the phenomenon, but said it made her feel slightly anxious.

She said: "To be honest, at first I thought it was another planet because of its circle shape, but also because I'd never seen anything like it before.

"I told my daughter to come and have a look at it, and she said it was similar to when petrol and water mix, but I told her that of course it wasn't that as there isn't any petrol in the sky.

"I then went to my mum and dad's, who live just down the road from me, and my dad said it was a rainbow, and my mum said that it was unlike anything she had seen in her life. She's 52 years old."

On Twitter, Leicester Schools Welcome Refugees said that a similar cloud formation appeared in Birstall at 4.30pm this afternoon.

Mercury photographer Chris Gordon captured the phenomenon, which was only briefly in the sky, on camera.

He said: "It's amazing. I've never seen anything like it. It's very reminiscent of a rainbow.

"I decided to take the picture as everyone in the office was so excited about it. Plus, I've always loved sunsets – they're my favourite spectacle."

Posts on Twitter suggested the spectacle was visible all around the UK.

Broken Link—Photos recovered from elsewhere:
http://leicestermercury.co.uk/Rainbow-cloud-Leicestershire/story-28648129-detail/story.html
 
That looks fantastic. Can not believe I've missed this twice in my life! There was a big display on 16th Feb 1996 - I was sat in my office that evening and only found out a few days later. Now this... . Oh well roll on Feb 2036....
 
Ermintrude said:
Well, I could certainly see this, late today...did anyone else? My location was near Aviemore, and my view was nearly identical to Leicester's

People across Leicester were left astounded this afternoon when an unusual cloud formation appeared in the sky.

The formation, which looked like a rainbow around an oval of bright light, appeared at about 5pm in an otherwise murky, grey sky.

Witnesses took photos of the phenomenon and uploaded them to Twitter, many commenting on the "beautiful" appearance.

Leicester Mercury weatherman Dave Mutton said the formation was the result of a cold front moving from the North down to the South.

He said that when a cold front meets a warmer front, bits of cloud break off, creating a gap in cloud cover.

Today's 'gap' occurred just as the sun was setting behind it, creating the ethereal oval of light.

He said the rainbow effect appeared because of the light refracting through ice crystals or water droplets in the clouds.

Dave said: "It would have been quite a sight with the sun setting behind it."

However, Dave said it could have also been a polar stratospheric cloud.

Polar stratospheric clouds form at very high altitudes, between 15km and 25km (about 50,000 to 80,000 feet) and at very cold temperatures (around -78 deg C).

They are also known as nacreous clouds, from nacre, or mother of pearl, due to their iridescent nature.

Lisa Tubby, of Thurnby Lodge, was among the many people intrigued by the phenomenon, but said it made her feel slightly anxious.

She said: "To be honest, at first I thought it was another planet because of its circle shape, but also because I'd never seen anything like it before.

"I told my daughter to come and have a look at it, and she said it was similar to when petrol and water mix, but I told her that of course it wasn't that as there isn't any petrol in the sky.

"I then went to my mum and dad's, who live just down the road from me, and my dad said it was a rainbow, and my mum said that it was unlike anything she had seen in her life. She's 52 years old."

On Twitter, Leicester Schools Welcome Refugees said that a similar cloud formation appeared in Birstall at 4.30pm this afternoon.

Mercury photographer Chris Gordon captured the phenomenon, which was only briefly in the sky, on camera.

He said: "It's amazing. I've never seen anything like it. It's very reminiscent of a rainbow.

"I decided to take the picture as everyone in the office was so excited about it. Plus, I've always loved sunsets – they're my favourite spectacle."

Posts on Twitter suggested the spectacle was visible all around the UK.
Click to expand...

"I told my daughter to come and have a look at it, and she said it was similar to when petrol and water mix, but I told her that of course it wasn't that as there isn't any petrol in the sky."

Daughter had a good point though - you do see complex chromatic effects when there's a thin film of oil on water.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_interference

I have pics of this myself, but the Wiki ones are better. And no, there is no petrol in the sky... probably!
 
I've seen something like that myself, about 15 years ago. Spectacular.
 
I believe it's possible that what so many of us saw in the skies over the British Isles, initially, was the 'eye' of the weather system that was (and still is) Storm Henry.

The low pressure area itself (currently 973mb, has now substantially
rotated anti-clockwise, such that the centre is now north-east of us, over Denmark...
2016-02-02 07.42.21.png
 
By this (the sighting of the massive sinuous mis-shapen oval of cloud yesterday, around 5pm GMT), I think the sun angle must've been just right to create this nacreous cloud effect.

I am utterly amazed that it's making itself visible again, today....
CaM2ecgWcAAMxKS.jpg

(the above was posted on a BBC website, but I strongly suspect it's a stock picture, going by it's URL)
 
There was a beautiful specimen of this cloud this morning (Midlands of Ireland). I got pictures on my phone but the colour's didn't come out at all well. It certainly cheered me up on my way to work this morning.
 
Ermintrude said:
I believe it's possible that what so many of us saw in the skies over the British Isles, initially, was the 'eye' of the weather system that was (and still is) Storm Henry.

The low pressure area itself (currently 973mb, has now substantially
rotated anti-clockwise, such that the centre is now north-east of us, over Denmark...View attachment 1913
Click to expand...


Looking at that weather pattern Ermintrude, you must have some severe westerly winds.
 
I was on the ferry on St Judes day in 2013 going from Wales to Dublin - it was a bit blowy then, but nothing like 238 K's an hour - Ut's enough to blow a brown dog orf 'is chain.
 
A potentially-useful resource uncovers itself, apropos my 'Force 13' (an apparently non-novel meteometro neocardinalisation....)
http://www.force-13.com

ps 'brown dog', eh? Back when I was a person, we used to have blue dogs performing that particular utility. Though, so saying, that was once in a brown moon...
 
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..blue dog..on a brown moon...It must be a state thing Ermintrude.


We did once almost have a drovers dog win a federal election over here, then there's that thing that you can't kill a brown dog with, and then there's the dog that's so thick, that he doesn't know when to come in out of the rain - it just shows, I suppose, our benchmarks, or, the importance of dogs in Australian folklore, or the musings of my mind on a Friday morning...
 
MungomanII said:
almost have a drovers dog win a federal election over here
Click to expand...
A quick cursory search uncovers that the owner of that dog may have been a Bill Hayden, a great expression.

But your enigmatic saying:
MungomanII said:
that you can't kill a brown dog
Click to expand...
...must be one of the most idiomatic piece of Strine to hit the internet in a long time. Well done sir, it very nearly generated a Googlewhack! (now, there's a rare animal! I haven't heard that term for maybe five years or so). Only two other citations exist in the Googleverse (I'd already inferred it's meaning, but, a quote keeps a particularly-pedantic pom passified)

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/18/1032054827268.html said:
Billy Bessemer declared his confidence in the company by declaring that "Stockford is a brown dog: you can't kill a brown dog".
Click to expand...

Intriguingly (and completely-accidentally) I discovered that pictographically, an image-search on Google for that fascinating "brown dog" phrase does actually generate just exactly one unique return. The name for a imageographical Googlewhack is unknown (though I stand ready to be reeducated on that point). Until then, by the power invested in me by the internet, I hereby name a visual Googlewhack to be....a Googlewhat.

And here's the Googlewhat for that.....(some unique Linux forum-person's avatar.... )
index.php


Apologies to all that this thread has become a bit weather-beaten. I do suffer from quite strong bouts of random cryptophylology (for which I'm receiving treatment...thanks) and, consequently, sometimes whether I want to (or not) I can be easily blown off-track, down rabbit-holes. Or up drainpipes.
 
Intrigued by this Brown Dog stuff, I tried it on DuckDuckGo. Just 'Brown Dog' got uncountable responses, but 'You Can't Kill A Brown Dog' just found the Billy Bessemer quote, plus four ads. (And no results for images or videos.)

Well, that wasted about ten minutes!
 
It's a strange expression Ryn and Ermintrude, and one most probably based on a real life happening for a dog that was run over, trampled, kicked, shot, poisoned, snake bit, and lost in the bush, only to turn up 30 days later at the back door looking a little thinner but no worse for wear.

The brown dog is a chocolate brown Kelpie - originally a Scottish breed that was brought over here, along with the Border Collie, but whereas the BC was used primarily with sheep, the Kelpie was used as a cattle dog and got a reputation for its toughness, endurance and intelligence - they are a beautiful dog to watch working and every station (property) has an old one that, due to time, fades in colour to a light tan, usually is blind in one eye and can typically be found hanging around the homestead.

IMG_2360.jpg



This was Dickens - 15 year old at the time, arthritic and blind but a damned brilliant dog in his time who had a healthy fear of snakes, and so, would jump a mile when the kids would dangle a sloughed snake skin under his nose when he was asleep. Some kids can be cruel little buggers at times.

Why the name? when he was a pup he was a bit scared of cattle and would hang back a bit when he was supposed to be working - the common phrase at the time was "Where the dickens is that bloody dog" - and so the name stuck.
 
Excellent explanation, @MungomanII , such a lyrical dusty tale, it really gives us northern-hemisphere folks a proper mutts-nuts down-under insight, thanks so much for that.

Kelpie- amazing, I'd never heard of that Scots breed of dog. I should have, now that is odd. Perhaps during the Highland Clearances, all these dogs were transported to Botany Bay, for worrying sheep (I dursant mean that was their declared job as landed immigrants, I means that was, perhaps, their previous misdog-deed).

Kelpies, are of course, the horse-mains and horses'-tails of the sea spirits of Scotland seas. So I'm doubly-puzzled as to the breed-name, and inescapably-unaquatic nature of these redoubtable tough hounds.

Now, I confidently-state that Kelpies are horse-spirits of Scottish water, with the waves and breakers being seen as horse-hair spiritual embodiments of the sea. But that's just the understanding I was given as a kid (and clearly-shared within the intent of these magnificent Kelpie structures that I, and millions of other motorists in Scotland, drive past, in total wonderment)
The_Kelpies,_at_The_Helix,_Scotland.JPG


But that's an over-simplistic idea of what 'Kelpies' are. In origin, they are spirits much more like Chinese water dragons, gods and guardians, associated with freshwater lochs, sea shores, waterfalls and rain. The wiki entry for them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie also reminds us of their ability to take-on human form, and their similarities to the Australian bunyip (amongst other world water wraiths).

(For those readers of this thread failing to see any connection back to rainbow clouds, I will concede, there's been a fair bit of weather drift. But sometimes that's good. I'm glad to have become acquainted with The Brown Dog, and he will become part of my pantheon of archepups, along with blue dogs, and The Black Dog...apologies Mods)

Is there an acknowleged pseudosynaesthetic rainbow spectrum of dogs, like there evidently is for hats? (Note: hats, not cats, and not hats containing...cats) If not in existence, perhaps we should doggedly-define the affiliative associations of other canine colours. But not here, upon this thread, presumably.
 
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Ermintrude said:
Excellent explanation, @MungomanII , such a lyrical dusty tale, it really gives us northern-hemisphere folks a proper mutts-nuts down-under insight, thanks so much for that.

Kelpie- amazing, I'd never heard of that Scots breed of dog. I should have, now that is odd. Perhaps during the Highland Clearances, all these dogs were transported to Botany Bay, for worrying sheep (I dursant mean that was their declared job as landed immigrants, I means that was, perhaps, their previous misdog-deed).

Kelpies, are of course, the horse-mains and horses'-tails of the sea spirits of Scotland seas. So I'm doubly-puzzled as to the breed-name, and inescapably-unaquatic nature of these redoubtable tough hounds.

Now, I confidently-state that Kelpies are horse-spirits of Scottish water, with the waves and breakers being seen as horse-hair spiritual embodiments of the sea. But that's just the understanding I was given as a kid (and clearly-shared within the intent of these magnificent Kelpie structures that I, and millions of other motorists in Scotland, drive past, in total wonderment)
The_Kelpies,_at_The_Helix,_Scotland.JPG


But that's an over-simplistic idea of what 'Kelpies' are. In origin, they are spirits much more like Chinese water dragons, gods and guardians, associated with freshwater lochs, sea shores, waterfalls and rain. The wiki entry for them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie also reminds us of their ability to take-on human form, and their similarities to the Australian bunyip (amongst other world water wraiths).

(For those readers of this thread failing to see any connection back to rainbow clouds, I will concede, there's been a fair bit of weather drift. But sometimes that's good. I'm glad to have become acquainted with The Brown Dog, and he will become part of my pantheon of archepups, along with blue dogs, and The Black Dog...apologies Mods)

Is there an acknowleged pseudosynaesthetic rainbow spectrum of dogs, like there evidently is for hats? (Note: hats, not cats, and not hats containing...cats) If not in existence, perhaps we should doggedly-define the affiliative associations of other canine colours. But not here, upon this thread, presumably.
Click to expand...


Thanks Ermintrude. The original Kelpie - early 1800's - was the property of a Scotsman, who bred from an imported Collie and another breed, because he liked the nature, character and intelligence of both breeds, and as luck would have it, got what he reckoned he could get from both breeds, without any of the failings associated with either breeds.

There is supposedly some dingo blood in the earlier kelpies and dingoes are known for their endurance, and endurance can be seen in the majority of the Kelpie breeds.

As for hats of a different colour Ermintrude, there are seven recognised different colours when it comes to Kelpies - and yes, they were originally named after the Scottish Kelpie of mythology - why, I don't know - but what has percolated into my mind just now is that maybe the brown kelpie is closer in breed to the Dingo, notoriously hard to kill, so maybe that is the origin of the expression itself.
 
New rainbow clouds reported on the BBC, they look pretty amazing:

Rare 'rainbow cloud' spotted in UK skies

Residents in Scotland were amazed by a rare sight in the sky on Tuesday evening.

Looking like a "portal to the next dimension" or possibly a spaceship, the shimmering colours of nacreous cloud were spotted.

One of the highest clouds in our atmosphere, they are often referred to as "mother-of-pearl", and are rarely spotted in the UK because of the exceptional conditions needed.

Nacreous cloud form in very cold conditions over polar regions and within the stratosphere, around 12-19 miles (19-31km) high, for above our normal clouds.

BBC Weather Watcher SazzyJ "spotted this cloud iridescence from our garden in Edinburgh late afternoon. We'd never seen anything like it before".

"A portal to the next dimension" said Weather Watcher SkyWatcher.

Another commented "Brief, eerie and bright cloud illumination at sunset this evening. Unsure exactly what. No filter, no spaceship."
 
SimonBurchell said:
New rainbow clouds reported on the BBC, they look pretty amazing:

Rare 'rainbow cloud' spotted in UK skies

Residents in Scotland were amazed by a rare sight in the sky on Tuesday evening.

Looking like a "portal to the next dimension" or possibly a spaceship, the shimmering colours of nacreous cloud were spotted.

One of the highest clouds in our atmosphere, they are often referred to as "mother-of-pearl", and are rarely spotted in the UK because of the exceptional conditions needed.

Nacreous cloud form in very cold conditions over polar regions and within the stratosphere, around 12-19 miles (19-31km) high, for above our normal clouds.

BBC Weather Watcher SazzyJ "spotted this cloud iridescence from our garden in Edinburgh late afternoon. We'd never seen anything like it before".

"A portal to the next dimension" said Weather Watcher SkyWatcher.

Another commented "Brief, eerie and bright cloud illumination at sunset this evening. Unsure exactly what. No filter, no spaceship."
Click to expand...
I saw one over Dundee yesterday which was a cresent shape and cast a faint shadow. Only problem was I was in a bus and couldn't get a piccie and it didn't last too long. But it was nice while it lasted.
 
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