Circumhorizontal arc in Georgia
© Facebook/Karen Dell SeagravesA circumhorizontal arc captured Wednesday in northwest Georgia.
A Georgia woman captured an image Wednesday of a rather stunning weather phenomenon.

Karen Dell Seagraves of Resaca in northwestern Georgia posted the photo of what looks like a vivid, rainbow-like stripe streaming across the sky to Facebook.

The odd but equally beautiful rainbow-like stripes are circumhorizontal arcs, or CAs.

Typically, you associate rainbows with rain and sunlight. However, CAs result from the refraction of sunlight through plate-shaped ice crystals.

For a CA to form, the sun has to be 58 degrees above the horizon. This is a rare sight at higher latitudes, where the sun is not sufficiently high above the horizon. In the middle latitudes, however, the spring and summer months offer the best chance to see this.

CAs show up primarily where cirrus clouds are located. It's as if wispy cirrus clouds take on a rainbow palette.

Another variation of this is called a circumzenithal arc, which appears as a quarter-circle rainbow. For this to form, the sun has to be 5 to 32 degrees above the horizon. An angle of about 22 degrees above the horizon gives the optimal brightness, arc length and width for viewing. It will always be on the same side of the sky as the sun.

We would love to see your amazing photos of these phenomena. Share them with us either at weather.com/photos, or on Facebook or Twitter.