A unique light formation appeared in the Northland sky on Tuesday combining two more common sights — a halo and a sundog.
A viewer took a picture of the formation at 10:30 a.m. at the intersection of 169 Highway and Tiffany Springs Parkway. In the photo, you can see what looks like a circle of light with rainbow colors marked on both the left and right sides with brighter light spots.
© Teresa and Mark Harvey
Halos can form both around the sun and the moon, according to the
National Weather Service. Although they're usually just white, sometimes they can contain rainbow colors, like in the photo.
Sundogs, also known as mock suns or parhelia, which means "with the sun," are located at about 22 degrees either left, right, or both, from the sun. The colors usually go from red closest to the sun, out to blue on the outside of the sundog.
Comment: Skymet Weather defines Western Disturbance as "a low pressure area or a trough over surface or the upper-air in the westerly winds regime, north of 20°N, causing changes in pressure, wind pattern and temperature fields. It is accompanied by cloudiness, with or without precipitation."
The term Western Disturbance (WD) was coined by Indian meteorologists for describing the systems moving from the west to east direction.