WeatherMatrix (Jesse Ferrell)
Incredible light pillar photos from Wisconsin
By Jesse Ferrell
12/11/2018, 2:53:08 PM
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Tom Purdy uploaded this incredible photo to Facebook Sunday, taken in Beloit, Wisconsin. These are "light pillars" created as street lights intercept ice crystals of different dimensions in the atmosphere. I first blogged about them in 2008.
These particular pillars are flared at the top, something I hadn't seen before. Tom's photo went viral on Reddit, but it wasn't the only one taken that night... the viewer photo sent into WKOW, shown below, adds something new: snowflakes! What a night!
The video below will give you a primer on how light pillars form; Capital Weather Gang has a detailed explanation of why these looked the way they did.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of AccuWeather, Inc. or AccuWeather.com
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