Photo of ‘strange’ glowing clouds spotted in California has an explanation, experts say
A “strange” shimmering cloud was spotted in California in the early morning — and a photographer was able to catch it on camera.
Rain Hayes saw it from her condo’s living room window around 6:15 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 16, over Lake Merritt in Oakland, she told McClatchy News.
She had no idea what kind of cloud it was, so she snapped a photo of it and posted it on Twitter.
“I had never seen a bright, shimmering cloud in the dark of night like this before and was a little confused about what I was seeing,” she said.
The National Weather Service in San Francisco’s Bay Area had an answer.
The clouds seen in the photo are called noctilucent clouds.
They are “rare high-altitude clouds” that are also called night shining clouds, according to Space.com. They form on the Earth’s third atmospheric layer, the mesosphere, making them the highest clouds to form on this planet.
At this altitude, water vapor freezes into “clouds of ice crystals,” according to NASA. This is what people see.
“When the sun is below the horizon and the ground is in darkness, these high clouds may still be illuminated, lending them their ethereal, ‘night shining,’” NASA reported.
These clouds are typically seen in the summer months, when temperatures reach their coldest in the polar regions, according to EarthSky.
Oakland is about 15 miles east of San Francisco.
This story was originally published December 16, 2022 at 2:34 PM with the headline "Photo of ‘strange’ glowing clouds spotted in California has an explanation, experts say."
