On Sept. 15, residents from Costa Rica witnessed an odd cloud scenario in the sky that left them amazed and confused. The strange phenomenon was full of multicolored and iridescent clouds which were seen in cities such as San Jose, Hatillo, Parrita, Pavas and Escazu.
“I immediately grabbed the camera and started taking videos and photos. We were just so amazed. We had no idea what it was and we’d never seen anything like it.” Said Joey Petit, current resident of Costa Rica, as ABC News reported. Others also expressed their feelings by saying it was breathtaking and it was like a sign of God.
When the skies of Costa Rica began to embrace these strange but beautiful and colorful formations, people immediately started using social networks to share photographs and videos of the event, some of them speculating that it could be related with extraterrestrial beings. Scientific experiments and others even suggested that it could be the associated with the “end of times.”
Cloud Iridescence
However, Eladio Solano, meteorologist from the National Meteorological Institute (IMN) in Costa Rica, broke with all speculation and explained that this foreign cloud formation, was caused by a rare weather episode known as a “cloud iridescence”, which happens when small water ice crystals individually separates light. Larger ice crystals produce halos. So, if parts of the clouds have small ice crystals, their cumulative effect is seen as colors.
He also said that the group of clouds spotted in Costa Rica skies, expanded significantly, so it allowed to refract more sunlight and as a result produced a more attractive optical effect in the clouds.
In addition, the scene was an accurate match due to the weather phenomenon occurred in the same day as the Independence Day in the Central American country.
Source: ABC News