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Did You See A Sundog Saturday? (And What Is A Sundog Anyway?)
January 26, 2020
People across the North Escambia area were treated to a cool sight Saturday afternoon. Sundogs are a literally cool natural phenomenon as light bends around in icy crystals.
They are colored spots of light, much like rainbows, that develop due to the refraction of light through ice crystals. They are located approximately 22 degrees either left, right, or both, from the sun, depending on where the ice crystals are present, according to the National Weather Service. The colors usually go from red closest to the sun, out to blue on the outside of the sundog.
Sundogs are also known as mock suns or parhelia, which means “with the sun”.
Pictured: A sundog over Walnut Hill Saturday afternoon. NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Comments
6 Responses to “Did You See A Sundog Saturday? (And What Is A Sundog Anyway?)”
Sunrise Photo — thank you for the information. I saw all three from the downtown waterfront on Saturday afternoon . Awesome blue and sundog skies – camera pics cannot do them justice, though I tried!!
@Sunrise Photo
i LOVE seeing literate & informed comments here ~ THNX agin~!
I see the face of a dog in the top right of picture.
We saw it on Quintet road about 4:30 Sat afternoon it was so pretty I’ve never seen anything like this,the colors was like a rainbow sideways in a crescent shape.
Yes, we saw it when we were headed into Atmore. I’ve never seen anything like it before and it lasted for quite awhile. Thanks for letting us know what it’s called William.
There are actually 3 “sundogs” in the picture, at 9 o’clock, 12 o’clock, and the one mentioned in the article at 3 o’clock. The noon position is actually a circumzenithal arc, which is an upside down arc. We saw a very similar looking sundog arrangement to this in Molino on Christmas Day afternoon 2019, although I believe it may have been a double arc (the second halo being termed a 46 degree halo). We witnessed it with naked eye, but due to the height of the second arc we weren’t able to fit it in the viewfinder of the camera on my phone. An attempt at a panoramic shot didn’t come out unfortunately.