Oko Wikcemna Topa ake Sakpe

Monday, Jan 4 to Sunday, Jan 10, 2010: high 46, low -16

Today, Wednesday the 6th, was remarkable in that a rainbow encircled the sun all day long. Since this photo was taken late afternoon, the full circle is not visible–its bottom quarter was below the horizon line. Earlier in the day, however, the entire circle was above the horizon. A short arced segment of rainbow along a portion of circle centered on the sun, commonly called a “sun dog,” is infrequent but not uncommon. These sun dogs are usually visible only briefly. Today’s full circle sun dog, however, lasted all day. Very unique. Perhaps it was created by ice crystals in the bitter cold sky refracting sunlight? The sky was bitter cold all day long.

This photo does not capture the remarkable phenomena. In addition to the full circle rainbow, it was stretched at the two points where a level horizontal line passing through the middle of the sun would intersect the circle. This “stretching” is almost evident in the photo above.