Premium
Ice halos in weather lore and meteorology, and a rare halo display in San Francisco
Author(s) -
Zinkova Mila
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
weather
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.467
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1477-8696
pISSN - 0043-1656
DOI - 10.1002/wea.3237
Subject(s) - halo , meteorology , geography , climatology , astronomy , history , geology , physics , galaxy
From Aristotle to modern science, this article presents several accounts of ice halo displays in weather lore and answers questions such as Could a sighting of a halo be an omen of a shipwreck? Does a halo herald a hurricane? How are ice halos observed in Oklahoma connected to plankton from the Pacific Ocean? and others. The article also offers images and descriptions of a very rare odd‐radius solar halo display, observed in California on 23 February 2016, in which the Sun appeared to be surrounded by five concentric circles. Finally, the article analyses the meteorological conditions associated with this phenomenon, alongside those of other displays, and answers a question that has been asked for many thousands of years: can halo displays be used as indicators of the weather?