Yulee, Florida Circumhorizontal Arc

Provided and copyright by: Brenda Schumpert
Summary authors & editors: Brenda Schumpert, Jim Foster 

This lovely, colorful strip of sky observed hovering over Yulee, Florida is a fragment of a circumhorizontal arc. The characteristic color pattern of red on top, blue and violet nearer the Earth, distinguishes it from a circumzenithal arc, which has the inverted color pattern. The rather orderly colors indicate that it's not an iridescent cloud, which tend to have colors that overlap. In order for circumhorizontal arcs to be detected, the Sun has to be at least 58 degrees above the horizon -- a condition met throughout much of the year in Florida between about 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Photo taken in March of 2007.