Tony Blair’s Weather Machine Creates An Upside Down Rainbow

THE Sky is smiling. The sky is smirking. It’s an upside down rainbow over Cambridge…

EXCEPTIONAL atmospheric conditions created a rare and stunning display in the skies above Cambridge.

At 4.45pm on Sunday, a circumzenithal arc - which looks like a bright, upsidedown rainbow - was visible above the city.

A miracle. A sign. On omen. Or just Tony Blair’s weather machine laughing at Gordon Brown?

Cambridge-based astronomer Jacqueline Mitton captured the stunning sight, caused by sunlight being refracted through ice crystals high in the atmosphere, with her camera. The phenomenon is rarely seen outside the polar regions.

She said: “I’ve never seen anything like it before - and I’m 60.”

And at 60 you lucky to see anyting at all that not in big print.

“The conditions have to be just right: you need the right sort of ice crystals and the sky has to be clear. It’s quite surprising for this to occur somewhere like Cambridge, usually it is in places that are colder.”

More evidence of global warming…

Anorak

Posted: 17th, September 2008 | In: Global Warming, Photojournalism, Strange But True Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink