Central Oregon Daily News received a stunning photo taken in December by Cathy Pearson, showing what appears to be a rainbow effect around the sun as it peeked through some tree branches that were covered in snow.
Meteorologist Dorrell Wenninger explained this effect.
“This picture … was taken in mid-December around Northwest Bend and it’s a classic example of what we call a sun halo. What’s happening here is we can see the sun is right behind some thin alto layer clouds and you can actually see through it a little bit. What’s happening is the light is shining through, and when the light is hitting different particles of ice, it’s refracting or diffusing a little bit. And that’s actually causing this rainbow around the sun. Sometimes we even see it with a bright full moon, and that is a lunar halo.”
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