Spotted while watching the kids’ Sports Day this morning – a halo around the Cape Town sun.
When I say the Cape Town sun, I’m obviously aware that it’s the same sun for everyone. I’m not suggesting that there are multiple suns or that each city has its own sun. I was just in Cape Town when I saw this sun.
The halo is caused by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals which make up cirrus clouds high up in earth’s atmosphere. I’m not talking Felix Baumgartner high, just 20,000 ft or so. Allegedly, these clouds are often the precursor to stormy weather (many were seen ahead of the recent Hurricane Sandy), but our forecast looks pretty good, so it looks like this halo is cirrussy in the wrong place.