#iridescent clouds

[vangoghcore]

by llumsdelartic

[geopsych]

Some cloud iridescence this afternoon but it was too bright for the phone to capture all of it

[uniories]

Iridescent Clouds (2025)

[without-ado]

Clouds via NASA APOD

[ambermaitrejean]

Iridescent clouds. Arapahoe County, Colorado. Photos by Amber Maitrejean

[yomogi-trip]

​A fleeting watercolor in the sky. Soft rings of light blooming through the clouds.

- Iridescent clouds -

[rebel-heart-gypsysoul]

Iridescent clouds over flower fields 😲

📍North Carolina, USA

[thefirststarr]

Why are these clouds multi-coloured? A relatively rare phenomenon in clouds known as iridescence can bring up unusual colours, or even a whole spectrum of colours simultaneously. These polar stratospheric clouds also, known as mother-of-pearl clouds, are formed of small water droplets of nearly uniform size. When the Sun is in the right position and, typically, hidden from direct view, these thin clouds can be seen significantly diffracting sunlight in a nearly coherent manner, with different colours being deflected by different amounts. Therefore, different colours will come to the observer from slightly different directions. Many clouds start with uniform regions that could show iridescence but quickly become too thick, too mixed, or too far from the Sun to exhibit striking colours. The featured image and an accompanying video were taken late in 2019 over Ostersund, Sweden.

Image Copyright: Image Credit: Goran Strand