20 Rare Weather Events Caught Defying the Sky

For minutes, the sky turned into stained glass. Sunlight diffracted through plate-shaped ice crystals at high altitude, creating iridescent sheets of turquoise, violet, and gold. Meteorologists call them “circumhorizontal arcs,” but to witnesses, they looked like the heavens burning softly. The event lasted just long enough for commuters to

stop mid-street, faces upturned — unity born from astonishment.