© Vickie Haines
These beautiful pictures show a rainbow.
But possibly no rainbow you've ever seen before.
Vicki Haines took a couple of pictures of a rainbow entirely circling the sun form her back garden in Tewkesbury
And nearby in Bishop's Cleeve Lesley Cairns also captured the celestial phenomenon, known as a halo.
It is caused by the presence of high cirrus clouds containing ice crystals which are refracting the sun's light and causing the appearance of the rainbow halo.
Sometimes a halo can also be seen around the moon and the legend is: 'a ring around the moon means rain will come soon.'
Which is all very well, but what about the leprechauns? (Is it leprechauns with rainbows, we might be a bit mixed up.)
Thanks to Vicki and Lesley for their wonderful photographs.
Wow. Ring around the moon-Rain Soon
Why? Due to Earth's constant's rotation and the atmosphere hesitantly dragging along, (see "coriolus effect') it so turns out that across the Earth, in both hemispheres, quick weather changes (called 'fronts') do not approach as one might intuitively thing.
You feel the cold the rain, the front is going this way
--->>>>
and so you think that since you feel it, you think it would look like this from a lateral view:
--->>>>
WRONG.
Rather, an approaching cooler/cold front approaches like this:
--->>>>///////
Thus the ice crystals are high above you (creating the ring around the moon) and the rest of the lower part of the front will come soon.
Why must the mainstearm media make those relatively few things that are [say above 89%] 'certain' sound as if they involve magical beings such as Leprechauns.*
R.C.
* I should know; I've been called one enough.
RC
it's above you after that. wrong.
If a front moves like