This phenomenon is called "Parhelia" -- for more on that go here.
These were all recorded a few days or less prior to Hurricane Sandy making landfall.
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NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office head Bill Cooke says that he had, "never seen anything quite like it." Another onlooker, Kyle Winkleman, called it a "once-in-a-decade event."
Spaceweather writes that the extremely rare apparition was "almost certainly connected to Hurricane Sandy":
The core of the storm swept well north of Alabama, but Sandy's outer bands did pass over the area, leaving behind a thin haze of ice crystals in cirrus clouds. Sunlight shining through the crystals produced an unusually rich variety of ice halos.
"By my count, there are two sun dogs, a 22 degree halo, a parahelic circle, an upper tangent arc, and a parry arc," says Chris Brightwell, who also photographed the display. "It was amazing."
Here is an info graphic naming all the parts of the parhelia:
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The following description of this phenomenon appears in a letter written by Jeremiah Shakerley in Lancashire, March 4th, 1648: – “On Monday the 28th of February last, there arose with the Sun two Parelii, on either side one; their distance from him was by estimation, about ten degrees; they continued still of the same distance from the Zenith, or height above the Horizon, that the Sun did; and from the parts averse to the Sun, there seemed to issue out certain bright rays, not unlike those which the Sun sendeth from behind a cloud, but brighter. The parts of these Parelii which were toward the Sun, were of a mixt colour, wherein green and red were most predominant. A little above them was a thin rainbow, scarcely discernible, of a
bright colour, with the concave towards the Sun, and the ends thereof seeming to touch the Parelii: Above that, in a clear diaphanous ayr, [air], appeared another conspicuous Rainbow, beautified with divers colours; it was as neer as I could discern to the Zenith; it seemed of something a lesser radius than the other, they being back to back, yet a pretty way between. At or neer the apparent time of the full Moon, they vanished, leaving abundance of terror and amazement in those that saw them. (See William Lilly.)