Solar hounds abound
Eh? Barring the fact that the title is a rather imperfect rhyme, what am I talking about?
You may, if you’re an avid follower of the blog (thank you kindly), remember that our meteorologist Sanki wrote a great article in one of the newsletters about interesing atmospheric phenomena here in Antarctica. If you haven’t read that yet, then pop over to the newsletter page and look it up. Sanki also gets special mention because I know her grandmother is a regular reader (Groete ouma!).
Parhelia, or ‘sundogs’ as they are commonly known, are bright glowing points in the daytime sky formed when the the rays of the sun are reflected by ice crystals in the atmosphere. The same mechanism can cause beautiful rings to form (or an arc, if the sun is close to the horizon). Depending on the size and type of the ice crystals, the common forms are 10° and 22° arcs. Although not as striking as some of the ones I’ve been too slow to photograph, we had sundogs and an arc this evening which I was able to capture. Oh, and yes, ouma, that is Sanki posing in the middle to blot out the sun 😉
