South Carolina Residents Treated to Rare Fire Rainbow

South Carolina Residents Treated to Rare Fire Rainbow

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Isle of Palms, South Carolina residents got quite the surprise this past weekend. A rare fire rainbow lit up the sky, and managed to linger there long enough for some to capture it on film for the world to see.
Tiffany Jenks told CBS News, “When I looked up I was truly in awe. Others like myself at the time had no idea it was a rare kind of rainbow, a fire rainbow I later learned.”
Jenks, who said it appeared to resemble one of her favorite band’s logos – Dave Matthews Band’s fire dancer logo, took this stunning photo of the twisted, colorful cloud.

While they’re best known as fire rainbows, the technical name for the phenomena is circumhorizontal arcs, and they occur in high-level cirrus clouds which are made up of tiny ice crystals.
Meteorologist Justin Lock explained, “To produce the rainbow colors the sun’s rays must enter the ice crystals at a precise angle to give the prism effect of the color spectrum.”
“The sun must be at an altitude of at least 58 degrees above the horizon,” he added. “Again, it has to do with getting the precise angle.”
Jenks told CBS, “The world today is so full strife, but just for that brief moment — when looking at the fire rainbow myself, the others around me and those seeing the photo — I seemed to step back and remember how beautiful our planet really is and how blessed we are to be a part of it.”
Here is a look at some of the striking images others were able to capture as well.