Rare sun dog rainbow spotted in sky above Seaham
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Echo reader Rob Whitehead sent us these pictures of the sight he caught yesterday, Monday, June 8.
“This afternoon, I photographed what looked like a huge, white, ring-shaped cloud over our house in Seaham,” he said.
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Hide Ad“Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture the entire circle in one image, as it was simply too big, but I've attached three images of different parts of the circle.
“I've never seen anything like it before and wonder if any Echo readers could offer an explanation.
“It definitely wasn't anything to do with any aircraft, but beyond that I can't really offer any kind of answer, other than it possibly being something to do with the Sun reflecting through the clouds or ice crystals creating a kind of white rainbow or something.
“It was quite spectacular, that's for sure.”
Met Office forecaster Simon Partridge said the was a ‘sun dog’, a phenomenon similar to a rainbow.
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Hide Ad“It is caused by the refraction of light through high-level clouds, clouds which are full of ice crystals,” he said.
“Sometimes you get the complete circle, if the angle is right, but it looks as though this is a bit early in the day.
“This is a big one – quite often you are able to get the whole thing in the picture from further away, but because the sun is high in the sky, in this case he’s only been able to get a section of it.”