Rainbow Clouds Over Goomalling Delight Locals

A fleeting appearance of a seldom observed cloud iridescence over a tiny Wheatbelt town has delighted locals who were fortunate enough to view the vibrant optical phenomena.

A staff member at Jenni Shaw's family-run business in Goomalling, 130 kilometers northeast of Perth, got a text message telling them to look at the sky while she was there, as reported by ABC News.

(Photo: by ALEX OGLE/AFP via Getty Images)
Cloud iridescence, an optical phenomenon where light is diffracted through water droplets, is pictured at the edge of clouds before a summer thunderstorm over Bangkok on May 28, 2020.

According to Jessica Lingard from the Bureau of Meteorology, rainbow clouds—also known as cloud iridescence—appear when sunlight reflects off water or ice crystals in the sky, just like rainbows do. Iridescence in clouds, according to Ms. Lingard, is probably "as common" as rainbows.

However, the fact that rainbow clouds may vanish just as fast as they form is what makes viewing them so uncommon.

The rainbow-colored cloud, according to Ms. Shaw, was only visible for a brief while.

In July, people were delighted to see a stunning rainbow cloud in Colombia's sky, which was quite unusual.

Rainbows in the sky are usually beautiful to watch, but a few fortunate residents of Medellin, Colombia, were treated to a rare cloud rainbow, which was also seen on camera.

On TikTok, a video of the mesmerizing pileus cloud—also known as a rainbow cloud—was posted and has now received over 174 million views.

Even though the TikTok hashtag said "China," the video was really shot in Colombia on July 6 when the unusual cloud appeared.

The meteorological occurrence known as cloud iridescence occurs when individual water droplets or ice crystals scatter the sun's light. They frequently follow thunderstorms and may produce both pastel and brilliant, vibrant tones.

At the end of January, unusual "rainbow clouds" adorned the skies over the Arctic Circle in Finland, Iceland, and Norway.

Icelandic amateur photographer Jónna Gurn Skarsdóttir recorded the event, which is brought on by extremely cold temperatures in the stratosphere.

At high latitudes, during the winter, or polar night, there is little to no solar radiation, which results in severe temperature reductions. These 'rainbow clouds' can form in these circumstances.

Because it depends on a mixture of thin clouds, chilly stratospheric temperatures, and numerous water droplets or ice crystals of comparable sizes, this event is exceedingly uncommon.

Bad for the Climate?

Despite their beauty, rainbow clouds are hazardous to the environment.

They cause the ozone layer, which protects Earth from the sun's damaging UV radiation, to degrade because of the chemical interactions they promote.

Ozone and the chemical components in chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which are emitted into the atmosphere by aerosols and refrigerators, react when tiny ice crystals are present.

These reactions result in the ozone hole above the South Pole, where PSCs are more frequent than in the Arctic due to lower stratospheric temperatures.