Cloud Bow

[Michael Lerch]

Just a few days ago I was greeted during a morning boundary security patrol by a white arch in the sky. I was able to photograph the trespasser to my uncaffinated senses before it faded away. Sorry about all the telephone and power lines in the back yard shot. There wasn’t enough time to get a clear shot. I looked it up on Crowley’s Atmospheric Optics web site. Its a ” Cloud Bow’.

Same general physics as a rainbow but the colors are very pale, washed out. The Sun was covered by a altocumulus startiformus blanket to the east. The cloud of the bow wasn’t very thick but apparently had enough of the right kind of icey crystals to create the visual arch. I’m amazed because I hadn’t ever seen one much less knew such a phenom existed.

[Howard Brown]

Never mind the infrastructure, Michael, yours is one of the best cloudbows my Google searches produced. But I didn’t read of ice crystals so much as smaller rain droplets e.g.
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz987.htm

[Michael Lerch]

Yes, of course hygge, ice for halos, water droplets for bows, Thanks! , Thats the only pic i got of the phenom. Apparently they don’t last for very long.

[George Preoteasa]

Michael, what a great catch! I wanted to ask you something. You say “during a morning” patrol, how early in the morning? I am interested in the approximate height of the sun at the time.

[Michael Lerch]

George,,It was around 9 am ‘ish..maybe 9:30am ?? Sun rise somewhere around 7:30 – 7:45 ??.. I recall the sun being in about an hour or more above the horizon position. Again there was a blanket of alt strat in front of the sun. The bow should be just about opposite the sun,?? Hope that helps.

[George Preoteasa]

Thanks Michael. I’ll be watching. :-)

[Howard Brown]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pambamarca#Cloudbow

Cloudbow is in the contents list as item 4.

[Michael Lerch]

HA! I have proof that the Pambamarcaians Weren’t Crazy!
Also,,One of the hints I read somewhere about these Cloud Bows is that there is a belief that they are a lot more common than commonly thought. Well then, where are all the pics? Granted, this one did not last very long but across the whole world nobody has witnessed one since my post?

[Hans Stocker]

Never saw one myself, Michael. I still wait for a good opportunity. The Carambaians were crazy with luck for having the right conditions to observe it more often according to the explanation wikipedia gives. In a flat country you must be on the border of a fogbank with a sun behind you to observe it. Mostly the fog is surrounding us over here. So no cloudbow. One has to take a plane or climb a mountain (not here) to have the opportunity to see one. On the atoptics site you can read that the phenomenon might be less rare then it seems to be, for it can be easily overlooked.

I once spotted something alike, but it turned out to be a 46 degrees halo or more likely a supralateral arc (the two are very difficult to distinguish from each other according to atoptics). That phenomenon is also very rare, but I count until now two observations of this halo (in four years) and no cloudbow.

Mistaken for a cloudbow some years ago: a supralateral arc (most likely). You can see top left the CZA tangent to the larger bow. Although no cloudbow, it was spectacular to see something like this slowly appear and then vanish again. The picture doesn’t even come close to reality.

[Patricia L Keelin]

So wise you were not to wait, Michael. I’ve never seen a cloud bow — at least not yet. So thank you for sharing this reminder of how full of surprises the sky can be. Ok, eyes open, head atilt, smile at the ready…

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