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A few years ago while doing a little midnight fishing on the Green River I saw something that I had never seen before or since. It was a bright full moon lit night with clouds in the mountains. Right before us was this wonderful rainbow from the moon. The colors were soft faint pastels but had the full spectrum of colors. I nick named it a moonbow but I'm sure there is already another a formal name for it. If you know what it is called would you let me know. I sure wish I had a camera with me at the time.
Thanks
Kim C. **********************************************************
Oh there's nothing I enjoy more than questions from you all about what's going on the sky!!! Since the moon was full on the night you were out and it probably wasn't raining you most likely saw a halo around the moon. These are awesome! You can see them in the day time too.
Halos are formed by tiny ice crystals that are shaped like hexagons that bend the light. Like raindrops, with ice, you can get the colors in the spectrum and a really clear halo will have pastel colors to it. Halos come in two sizes, 22 degrees and 46 degrees. The 46 degree halo is enormous and excellent to witness.
Halos aren't contained to just winter, the atmosphere is cold enough high up to have ice in it all year. Frequently though, we do see more halos in the winter time around the moon. Sometimes, you only see a partial halo too if the crystals just aren't in the right places, so this would look like the bottom or top half of the circle.
There's some links on the side to where you can learn more about halos, but if you don't think this is what you saw, then just get back to me and we'll work it out.
Whenever there's a halo, we in the weather department get about a zillion emails from people wondering what it is. Halos happen pretty often, especially if you watch the ones during the daytime when you have any ice in the sky, cirrostratus clouds frequently show a sun halo.
Also of note the term moonbow is the same as "lunar rainbow" but these happen when rainbows form and the source of light is from the moon instead of the sun. This would imply rain going on instead of just ice crystals.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman
