Beautiful Eastern Light Show over the Lancashire Farmlands
By
Pat Regan
A recent November afternoon’s nature ramble, with my
youngest son Jason onto my local farmlands behind Southport, produced some rather
exciting photographs.
I am familiar with rainbows and sundogs (parhelia)
as atmospheric phenomena, yet I was a little hesitant about the precise identity
of the following.
The time was approximately 3.45 am in the afternoon
when my son Jason shouted out that the sky was becoming very weird.
We looked on in amazement as a mysterious rose-pink
glow, shot through with other vivacious colours, materialised to the east towards
the old Lancashire town of Ormskirk.
The sun was in fact ‘behind’ us so I partially ruled
out the sundog effect as sundogs usually appear at the sides of the sun. This
odd light however was in the ‘opposite’ direction to the sun.
Sundogs
are normally made up of plate-shaped hexagonal ice
crystals therefore it was possibly a sign of cold weather to come. Forecasters in
the UK have been predicting ice and snow very soon in fact.
I may
also add here that I have recorded sundogs before on occasion.
And here
is an Irish report that was brought to my attention:
We had not seen any rain that particular day so I
was unsure that I should even call the lights a rainbow. Nevertheless, I think
we can safety conclude that this light show was ‘not’ of extraterrestrial
origin and marked some type of natural event.
I ran my thoughts past my old friend Nick Pope, ex
of the MoD, and he concurred….
“Pat - I agree it's a meteorological phenomenon of some kind.”
The rose-coloured glow stayed visible for about 5 to
10 minutes before gently fading away.
Whatever one wishes to call it this amazing
phenomenon was stunning and unexpected.
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