Yellowstone Cloud Corona

Provided by: Mike Burdic
Summary authors & editors: Jim Foster, Mike Burdic 

The photo above showing a charming cloud corona was captured in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming in the early fall of 2007. I was in the east end of Lamar Valley in late afternoon photographing a moose when I happened to notice what looked like a rainbow painted on the clouds. The cloud corona, like all coronas or iridescent clouds, results from deflection of sunlight about uniform water droplets, which typically are found in mid-level clouds such as altocumulus or altostratus.