Eyes drawn to ‘rainbow clouds’ over Ning'er

Source: InKunming | 2022-07-13 | Editor:Christine

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A rare phenomenon of iridescent clouds showed up over Ninger County, Yunnan Province, on July 11. Looked like a colorful hat, this breathtaking spectacle drew much attention.

The rainbow clouds appeared over west of Ninger County around 5:30 p.m. From its hat-like shape to cake-like shape, it was existing about 1 hour.

Plenty of local people took pictures of it, shocked by the rainbow clouds. “ It is the first time to enjoy such a long time of rainbow clouds.” A citizen said, who even redesigned the pictures of rainbow clouds with painting some lovely images on it such as ducks, rockets, ice creams, etc.

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The iridescent cloud is in fact a fragment of a circumhorizontal arc, which is an optical phenomenon formed by plate-shaped ice crystals in high cirrus clouds. Refraction occurs regularly when light hits clouds. Diffraction occurs when light passes through small water droplets with similar wavelengths. With those conditions enough, the rainbow clouds would appear.

Here are some painting works from the Internet:

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