Followers of this blog know that I was in Brazil (Iguazu Falls) for business the last ten days or so. During my spare time I was able to visit the amazing Iguazu Falls, elected as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. Simply magical!
On May 16, 2014, just before sunset, during my back flight from the city of Iguazú Falls to Rio de Janeiro, and just five minutes before landing, I also experienced a rare fire rainbow cloud, also known as circumhorizontal arc, which was looking like a colored fireball striking through the Brazilian sky!
Yeah, this elongated and colored cloud looked like a giant fireball crossing the sky of Rio to reach the sun! But it wasn’t moving! We were preparing for landing!
You can learn how these multicolor clouds form here.
Seriously awesome photos. But those are not fire circumhorizontal arcs – because the sun has to be at 58 degrees or higher. Near sunset, this would be parhelia, better known as sun dogs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog While they are often shown with bright spots on both sides of the sun, they can occur on just one side or the other.
Either way, those are fabulous photos of a phenomenon that I have not seen in person.