Strange Skies
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Rainbow

Viewer captures fire rainbow during drive in Galveston, Texas

Samica Knight
ABC13
Mon, 25 Jun 2018 13:31 UTC
Circumhorizontal arc over Galveston, TX
An Eyewitness News viewer was lucky enough to capture a colorful fire rainbow on video in Galveston - and it was an incredible sight!

Technically, it's neither a rainbow nor fire.

The National Weather Service says it is actually called a circumhorizontal arc that forms when you have ice crystals in high clouds.

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Sun

Sundog appears over Cornwall, UK

Jacqui Merrington
Cornwall Live
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 10:53 UTC
Sundogs often form in pairs on either side of the sun, looking like detached pieces of rainbow
Sundog over Cornwall, UK
© Frances Watts
This is the moment a rare sundog appeared in the sky, making it look like there was a halo over Cornwall .

People across the duchy were sharing their photos of the phenomenon last night which created a 'second sun' in the sky.

The halo effect appeared over St Ives , while in Newquay it looked like a streak of rainbow alongside the sun.

Yesterday was the hottest day of the year so far, and forecasters say it could get hotter, with no sign of a let up in the sun for the next few days.

The Met Office has issued a heatwave warning with an 80 per cent chance we could see potentially dangerous levels of hot weather between today, Tuesday, and Thursday.
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Cloud Grey

Ominous looking roll cloud filmed over Memphis, Tennessee


CBS Chicago
Tue, 26 Jun 2018 19:38 UTC
roll cloud
© Angie HuttonPeople near Memphis, Tennessee, thought they spotted a UFO a couple of weeks ago, but meteorologist have determined it to be a “roll cloud”.
Earlier this month, people near Memphis, Tennessee, spotted an odd formation in the sky after a storm.

It was an ominous, cylindrical mass that some likened to a UFO.

The mysterious sight prompted at least one person to snap photos, wondering what this UFO-like image might be.

Colby Hutton saw the mass in the sky over Adamsville, Tennessee, as he was driving over a bridge, his mom Angie Hutton told CBS News.

Angie shared her son's photo on Facebook, hoping someone could help them identify what it was. Local news station WMC-TV looked into the case.

It wasn't an unidentified flying object, and despite it's odd appearance, it has nothing to do with aliens at all.

Comment: More roll clouds:

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Rainbow

Several 'fire rainbows' seen in Massachusetts

Frank O'Laughlin
whdh.com
Wed, 20 Jun 2018 12:31 UTC
Tyngsborough
© Micaela FordTyngsborough
Several Massachusetts residents spotted "fire rainbows" in the sky Wednesday.

The optical phenomenon known as a circumhorizontal arc occurs due to the refraction of sunlight in ice crystals, according to the National Weather Service.

7News viewers spotted the beautiful spectacle in Tyngsborough, Lynn and Reading.

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Cloud Grey

'Rare' noctilucent clouds dazzle Seattle, Washington

Brittany A. Roston
Slash Gear
Mon, 18 Jun 2018 15:00 UTC
Noctilucent clouds over Seattle, WA
© National Weather Service - Seattle
Folks near and in Seattle were treated with a rare type of cloud formation early this morning, one that looked stunning with a backdrop of starlight. Images and details about the clouds were recently published by the National Weather Service, which says the clouds were visible over Lake Washington at the Service's Seattle location earlier today.

Noctilucent clouds is a fancy term for "night clouds," which are exactly what they sound like: clouds that are visible when the sky is still mostly dark. The clouds are composed of ice crystals located in the Earth's upper atmosphere, where they become visible during what is known as "astronomical twilight.'

According to local news agency KGW8, the noctilucent clouds became visible between 3AM and 4AM local time, when they appeared to be wispy, white, and bright. Due to how thin they are, the clouds - which are the highest in the atmosphere - aren't visible once the sun is up.
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Cloud Precipitation

Sheets of rain: Austrian photographer creates stunning time-lapse of cloud dumping 'tsunami' over lake


RT
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 16:03 UTC
austria sheet rain
© Peter Maier / YouTube
Mother Nature's beautiful and mysterious ways have been caught on camera by a professional photographer who has captured time-lapse footage of a powerful rainstorm over a lake in Austria.

The video, titled 'Tsunami from Heaven' shows blue skies turning grey as rain clouds swoop in over Lake Millstatt in Carinthia, Austria. It doesn't take long to see why photographer Peter Maier gave the video its title, as the downpour of the rainstorm does indeed look like a tsunami coming from the heavens.

Comment: Epic looding around the world is on the rise and according to one study atmospheric are expected to rivers to double in size:
"However, because the findings project that the atmospheric rivers will be, on average, about 25 percent wider and longer, the global frequency of atmospheric river conditions - like heavy rain and strong winds - will actually increase by about 50 percent." Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow jets of air that carry huge amounts of water vapor from the tropics to Earth's continents and polar regions.

[...]

These "rivers in the sky" typically range from 250 to 375 miles (400 to 600 kilometers) wide and carry as much water - in the form of water vapor - as about 25 Mississippi Rivers. When an atmospheric river makes landfall, particularly against mountainous terrain (such as the Sierra Nevada and the Andes), it releases much of that water vapor in the form of rain or snow.
See also: Also check out SOTT's monthly documentary: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - May 2018: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs

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Nebula

Changing atmosphere: Footage of Russian rocket flyover lights up social media


RT
Sun, 17 Jun 2018 08:02 UTC
Russia's Soyuz rocket
© Taken from https://vk.com/club134454330Russia's Soyuz rocket
A scheduled launch of Russia's Soyuz rocket with a satellite aboard turned into quite an event in Russia after pictures of it heading into space baffled the whole country.

People across Russia took to social media to post dazzling pictures and videos featuring a mysterious object flying over them in the night to Sunday. Searching for an explanation, some said it could have been a UFO. Others said the white oval object leaving a massive trail could be a sign that Russia's state of the art ICBM Topol-M had been launched.

However, alien-seekers were left disappointed, as it turned out to be a Russian Soyuz 2.1-b rocket, which was launched at 12:46am Moscow time (21:46 GMT) from the Plesetsk test launch site. Several hours later, the carrier rocket's Fregat booster put the Glonass-M navigational satellite into orbit. The satellite will join the group of Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), which currently has a total of 25 objects, one of which is currently undergoing flight tests.

Comment: There are a great many signs that our atmosphere is changing:

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Cloud Grey

Ominous clouds photographed over Nebraska, US


Strange Sounds
Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:00 UTC
clouds nebraska

Comment: With the rise in rare and unexplained phenomena in our skies, clearly something is changing in our atmosphere: Also check out SOTTs' monthly documentary: SOTT Earth Changes Summary - May 2018: Extreme Weather, Planetary Upheaval, Meteor Fireballs

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Rainbow

"Fire rainbow" spotted in Vermont sky


CBS News
Mon, 11 Jun 2018 13:56 UTC
Fire rainbow over Vermont
© Trish Lanfear
An iridescent rainbow-colored cloud seemed to magically materialize in the sky above Vermont. The colorful streaks across Sunday's blue sky puzzled some people who saw it near the New York-Vermont border.

It's a "fire rainbow," WCAX reports. The phenomenon has made headlines before, and it's technically called a "circumhorizontal arc," National Geographic explains.

A similar fire rainbow made headlines in San Francisco less than two months ago. The National Weather Service shared several photos of that fire rainbow and an explanation from meteorologist Roger Gass.
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Cloud Grey

'Rare' noctilucent cloud drifts over Puget Sound, Washington

Rich Marriott
King5
Tue, 12 Jun 2018 11:35 UTC
Noctilucent clouds over WA
Tuesday started with clear skies and an unusual phenomenon. Between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. thin bright white clouds appeared in the night sky. These were noctilucent clouds - the highest clouds in the earth's atmosphere!

Our usual high clouds may reach up to four to five miles, but noctilucent clouds occur around 50 miles up in the earth's mesosphere - basically on the edge of space. These clouds are made up of very tiny ice crystal - 100 nanometers or smaller. A nanometer is 1 billionth of a meter.

Researchers are still looking for a clear explanation of these clouds. They know that they only occur around local summer, and they know they only occur at higher latitudes. But much of their origin is still being figured out.

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