What in the ?! A rainbow CLOUD?!?

Question

I was just driving with my family when my son said, "Look at those clouds!" I look up. It is blue sky, no rain, cirus clouds in the sky. I see two airplane streaks in the sky that are in the "poofy" stage and slowly dispating. I say "Yeah. Those are from airplanes". My son says "But what about the RAINBOW one?". :O

I look up and I can't believe what I am seeing! One of the airplane streaks is bright rainbow colored! I actually stopped the car and got out I was so shocked. If I had taken a photo, it would have looked like someone had photoshopped a cloud rainbow colored. On one end of the streak, it was purple, further along the streak it was blue, green, yellow, etc.

The other airplane streak that was parallel to it was white like all the other clouds in the sky. What the ?!

I have seen a rainbow at night recently and know that is extremely rare.....but I NEVER expected to see a rainbow colored CLOUD before. How is this possible? Has anyone ever seen this?

Answer 1

the angle between the sun ,the water droplets and the observer is critical, hence only one contrail forming a rainbow.

Answer 2

I don't know what you call the phenomena but I have seen just a spot in a cloud that has the rainbow colors.  My sister and I were out just looking around and she spotted it in the sky.  We both got pictures of it.  It was so peculiar.  I assume that spot has ice or water and the sun just catches it just so.  Another day my sister called and said run outside and check out the sun.  There was a huge ring around the sun.  It took up the majority of the sky and I have pictures of that too.  It's mother nature at her best.

Answer 3

Yes to both questions -- if the water droplets are large enough to refract and not scatter light, you will see a rainbow.

Beautiful, ain't it?