Strange Skies
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BOOM! Mysterious blasts rattling the skies are on the increase around the world - UPDATE at least 64 documented events (VIDEO)

World Net Daily
Tue, 21 Nov 2017 10:55 UTC

A sound graph from the U.S. Geological Survey's Lakeview Retreat near Centreville, Alabama, shows a loud boom heard over Alabama at about 1:39 p.m. CST on Nov. 14, 2017.

Was it a supersonic aircraft? A meteor? A ground explosion? The end of the world as we know it?

Those are the questions experts and non-experts around the world are asking themselves in recent weeks as curiously loud mystery BOOMS have not only been hear around the world, but felt - shaking buildings and rattling nerves from Alabama to Michigan, Idaho to California, Russia to Denmark.

The Alabama boom last Tuesday at 1:39 CST was heard and felt through 11 counties, but an earthquake event has been ruled out.

The day after Alabamans were shaken by that incident, something similar occurred in Idaho. No explanation has been forthcoming from law enforcement officials there.

Comment: Also See: Witches, Comets and Planetary Cataclysms

Rare pink auroras sparked by spotless Sun's solar wind

Space Weather
Fri, 24 Nov 2017 12:00 UTC

spotless sun pink aurora 22 november 2017

© Marianne BergliIn nearby Kvaløya, aurora tour guide Marianne Bergli witnessed a surge of pink that was, if anything, even more dramatic.

Taken on November 22, 2017 @ Kvaløya, Tromsø

On Nov. 22nd, the face of the sun was unblemished by sunspots, and NOAA classified solar activity as "very low." Nevertheless, the skies above Tromsø, Norway, exploded with a remarkable outburst of pink auroras. "Suddenly, the whole valley turned white (with a hint of pink)," says Frank Meissner, who witnessed and photographed the display. "It was over after about 20 seconds."

How bright was it? "The brightness of the auroras may be compared to the car lights in the background of my photo," points out Meissner.

An update: Sunspots a la Cyclic Catastrophism

John Ackerman
Acksblog
Wed, 22 Nov 2017 19:32 UTC

This post is a response to "Variation of the Solar Microwave Spectrum in the Last Half Century", Masumi Shimojo et al. Astrophysical Journal, Volume 848, Number 1.

The abstract states:

"... we found that the microwave spectra at the solar minima of Cycles 20-24 agree with each other. These results show that the average atmospheric structure above the upper chromosphere in the quiet-Sun has not varied for half a century, and suggest that the energy input for atmospheric heating from the sub-photosphere to the corona have not changed in the quiet-Sun despite significantly differing strengths of magnetic activity in the last five solar cycles."

See Figure 1 above.

Circumzenithal arc spotted within wispy cirrus clouds in northeast Alabama

Christina Edwards
WHNT
Thu, 16 Nov 2017 20:38 UTC

We love receiving photos of the Weather Where You Live, and this one had us taking a second look!

One viewer wrote in from Grant, saying:

WHNT,
I wanted to share this photo with you. The clouds were absolutely beautiful and after taking a few pictures, I looked up and noticed the rainbow colors within the clouds, which added to how stunning they were already. You'll notice the rainbow colors slightly left of center in the picture. This picture was taken right around 3pm today on top of Grant.

The rainbow colors within the clouds are known as a circumzenithal arc.

Circumzenithal arcs are rare sight. It looks like an upside down rainbow, or is often described as a smile in the sky. These arcs form when the sun is lower on the horizon, when the light can be refracted just the right way to produce this colorful effect.

Sundogs seen in southern Mississippi sky

Wesley Wiliams
WLOX
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 18:13 UTC

If you looked up in Monday afternoon's sky, you may have noticed a strange weather phenomenon. The sun appeared to have a halo and two bright spots on either side of it: this is called a sundog.

Sundogs occur when light interacts with ice crystals in the sky.

Thin and wispy cirrus clouds high in the sky are made up of ice crystals. And as the sun's light shines down through those ice crystals, the rays of light are bounced off of each ice crystal, forming unusual arcs of light on either side of the sun.

Impressive sun halo spotted over Las Vegas, Nevada

Brian Donegan
weather.com
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 17:50 UTC

An impressive sun halo appeared in the sky over Las Vegas on Monday morning thanks to the presence of a thin layer of high-altitude cirrus clouds.

Halos are rings of light that can encircle the sun or the moon, and they usually occur when cirrus clouds are covering the sky.

A mix of chemistry, physics and geometry are the main components for sun halos.

The atmosphere consists of a mix of gases, including oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor. At high altitudes in the sky, water vapor condenses and then freezes into ice crystals. As sunlight passes through those ice crystals, the geometry of the crystals causes sunlight to refract, or bend, similar to what happens when light passes through a prism.

Spectacular series of sun phenomena appear in the skies of northern Chile

Strange Sounds
Tue, 14 Nov 2017 17:15 UTC

High altitude cirrus clouds sometimes contain a large number of hexagonal ice crystals, and if these are struck by sunlight at just the right angle, with the sun elevated at least 58 degrees, the sky suddenly looks like somebody waved a giant magnet in front of an old-school computer monitor.

But, yesterday was more than unusual in Antofagasta, Chile. A series of different sun halos lit up the sky over the whole day, baffling sky-watchers as if they've finally discovered the gateway to Oz.

At around midday, a double solar halo - circumhorizontal arc below the very common 22-degree halo - amazed onlookers for approximately half an hour.

Then around 3:30pm, another sun halo appeared before an incredible sundog or two suns phenomenon around 6:30pm. Chemtrailing? Approaching storm? or just weaponized weather art in the heart of Atacama desert? Will see that in the news in the next day. Meanwhile enjoy as if you weren't aware of the weather war going on.

New intergalactic explosion could be biggest supernova ever

Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Gizmodo
Thu, 16 Nov 2017 05:23 UTC

The Earth, the Sun, Andromeda galaxy, they have all been around for as long as you can remember and as long as humanity has been around. So when a new light suddenly shows up in the distance, it's a weird occurrence. But a newly-detected explosion could be one of the weirdest - and it isn't the only one.

An international team of scientists is reporting a new kind of explosion that they can't quite explain, billions of light years away. Maybe it's a supernova. Or maybe it's a star being eaten by a black hole. Or maybe it's something entirely different.

"I'm a supernova person to start with so I got really thrilled that this could be the most energetic supernova ever," Peter Lundqvist from Stockholm University in Sweden told Gizmodo. "But I had second thoughts."

Southern Arizona treated to beautiful halo around the sun

Jeff Beamish
KVOA
Mon, 13 Nov 2017 08:28 UTC

Some very observant KVOA viewers captured atmospheric awesomeness on Sunday.

Every so often, Southern Arizona is treated to a huge ring surrounding the sun or moon. So what causes it? Let's explore the world of optics. (I promise to keep it simple.)