20 Amazing And Unusual Weather Phenomena

[Otis McNutt 395]

I've only seen a few of these, how many have you seen?

The science of weather is a fascinating one; but even more so are the flukes and irregularities that can occur within our world. This is a list of 20 of the most amazing and unusual of those anomalies.

20 Moon bows

A rainbow is caused by the Sun shining on moisture droplets, most commonly in a post-rain atmosphere. A moon bow is much rarer, only seen at night when the moon is low and full to almost full. One popular place to see moon bows is at Cumberland Falls in Kentucky, as pictured above.

19 Mirages

Mirages occur when light is refracted to produce an image of an object or the sky where it is not. It is most commonly seen on hot surfaces, such as the pavement or a desert.

18 Haloes

Like rainbows, haloes are formed around the Sun due to moisture (in this case ice crystals) being refracted from the Sun

[Otis McNutt 395]

I wanted to include all iamges so here's part 2

10 Pyrocumulus Clouds

Another heat related phenomenon, pyrocumulus clouds form from the fast and intense heating of an area to create convecture, which in turn creates a cumulous cloud. Volcanoes, forest fires, and nuclear explosion (in the form of a mushroom cloud) are all prime causes of pyrocumulus clouds.

9 Sun Pillars

Sun Pillars occur when the setting sun reflects off high, icy clouds at different layers. It creates a pillar of light that reaches high into the sky. It is also possible to see moon pillars.

8 Diamond Dust

Linked closely to haloes, diamond dust is a fog made of frozen droplets.

7 Non-aqueous Rain

Rare and yet real, cases exist of rains of animals or insects instead of water. This has occurred occasionally throughout history, from the Biblical times up to recent history. Meteorologists are still unsure of the cause.

6 Virga

Virga is when ice crystals in clouds fall, but evaporate before hitting the ground. They appear as trails from clouds reaching for the surface, sometimes giving the cloud a jellyfish-like appearance.

5 Katabatic Winds

These are winds that carry dense air from a higher elevation to a lower elevation due to gravity. They are known locally as the Santa Ana (southern California), the Mistral (Mediterranean), the Bora (the Adriatic Sea), Oroshi (Japan), Pitaraq (Greenland), and the Williwaw (Tierra del Fuego). The Williwaw and winds traveling over the Antarctic are particularly hazardous, blowing over 100 knots at times.

4 Fire Rainbow

A fire rainbow is an extremely rare phenomenon that occurs only when the sun is high allowing its light to pass through high-altitude cirrus clouds with a high content of ice crystals.

3 Green Ray

Also known as the Green Flash. This occurs very briefly before total sunset and after sunrise. It appears as a green flash above the sun that lasts very briefly, generally only a few moments.

2 Ball Lightning

This is a very rare phenomenon that involves ball-shaped lightning that moves much slower than normal lightning. It has been reported to be as large as eight feet in diameter and can cause great damage. There are reports of ball lightning destroying whole buildings.

1 Sprites, Jets, and Elves

All refer to phenomena that occur in the upper atmosphere in the regions around thunderstorms. They appear as cones, glows and discharges. They were only discovered in the last century because of their placement (In Spcae) and their very brief life-span (they last less than a second).

[AarghZombies 0]

Is picture number 7 really raining fish?? Hahahahha! It's like the bit at the end of Magnolia where it

rains frogs

. I won't spoil it in case anyone hasn't seen it.

I've only really seen a mirage, it was on a road on a really hot day.

[SoulSwordx 0]

7 Non-aqueous Rain

Freaky raining fish???

[Otis McNutt 395]

I've seen A mirage, a Haloe, a Belt of Venus, colored moon, Mammatus Cloud, Virga and a Pyrocumulus Cloud.

[Musicale Personna 0]

I've definitely seen a colored moon before; the night we moved from Cincinnati to Charlotte I truly remember the moon looking like a pumpkin. I was exactly a year, three months, and twenty-one days old. I had dreams about it when I was really little, about four, and I've started having more dreams about it. I finally asked my mom about it an hour ago and she said that was what the moon looked like the night we moved: orange and about ten zillion feet wide. I've also seen the mammatus and noctilucent clouds, the Belt of Venus, halos, a mirage, a sun pillar, and a virga. That's eight out of twenty! Nine, if seeing the green flash in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End counts. I must be a lucky person to have seen eight of the twenty rarest weather occurrences in the weather world!

That's really quite interesting. I should ask my Science teacher if he knew about those. Great find!

[Knuckle 484]

I've seen the colored moon during an eclipse, but that's it. Blue moons seem to be missing from the article, but they're more calendar-related than weather related anyway.

Also, the event that Musicale described sounded a bit like a harvest moon, if I'm not mistaken.

[Ralan Bek 0]

I have seen a green flash before(gosh it took me a lot of days to see that) and a red moon.

I have always wanted to see the Great Northern Lights and the Great Southern Lights.

[Arctic Fire 0]

Earth is a beautiful place. I love nature, it's so vast and amazing.