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SALT LAKE CITY — A large part of Utah was covered in an even layer of clouds Monday, leading to a noticeable solar halo in cities throughout the Wasatch Front.
A solar halo forms when sunlight is refracted off ice crystals in cirrus clouds. The halos — solar during the day and lunar at night — are similar to what is created when sunlight is refracted off water coming out of a garden hose.
Native Americans believed the appearance of a sun dog or halo meant a storm would come within five days — and that holds true about 90 percent of the time outside of the summer months, when the accuracy rate falls to 70 percent, according to KSL's chief meteorologist, Kevin Eubank.
"That's a high number," he said. "And we have a big storm coming in on Wednesday with rain and snow in the south and snow in the north, so in the sense of being a predictor, yeah, they're pretty cool."
Pictures submitted to iWitness show a full halo around the sun. Eubank said halos are not as common as sun dogs, but the effect is a relatively regular one — people just may not notice it because conditions aren't right.
"We have had a very even layer of cirrus cloud cover all day," Eubank said. "If we had only partial cloud cover, we wouldn't have seen it for that long, and it wouldn't have been that prominent."
