Strangest Weather Phenomena

Extreme or unusual weather can be both terrifying and beautiful.
Here are some of the strangest weather anomalies, and what we know about them.
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1. Moon Halo
Halos are normally formed around the Sun due to ice crystals refracting light in the upper atmosphere. The same phenomena are possible with the Moon, but are much rarer.

2. The Green Flash
The Green Flash occurs very briefly on the horizon over a body of water before a total sunset and just after a sunrise. It’s caused by the atmosphere refracting only the green spectrum of light.

3. Lightning
Catatumbo Lightning occurs only over the mouth of the Catatumbo River in Venezuela. Clashing warm and cold fronts and methane-emitting marshes create the perfect conditions in the area for lightning storms that last for hours.

4. Mammatus Clouds
Mammatus clouds often extend from the base of thunder clouds, and appear as smooth, bumpy shapes. They aren’t fully understood, but many meteorologists believe they form due to differential warming pushing pockets of air up in to the cloud.

5. Morning Glory
The Morning Glory cloud is a rare phenomenon consisting of a low-level wave of air pressure accompanied by a roll cloud. The clouds appear most commonly over Australia, and usually follow a high pressure system moving across the country.

6. Fire Whirls
Fire whirls occur as a tornado-like vortex of flame during a fire, and are caused when air is forced to shift against competing air temperatures and speeds.

7. Pyrocumulus Clouds
Pyrocumulus clouds are formed by the intense heating of the air from either a fire or volcanic activity. A related phenomenon, the pyrocumulo-nimbus cloud, is such a cloud that produces rain, and may even extinguish the fire that created it.

8. Sun Pillars
A sun pillar is a vertical shaft of light extending upward or downward from the sun. Typically seen during sunrise or sunset, sun pillars form when sunlight reflects off the surfaces of falling ice crystals associated with thin, high-level clouds.

9. Volcanic Lightning
One of the most spectacular and violent-looking weather phenomena, volcanic lightning, otherwise known as a dirty thunderstorm, occurs when the colliding particles in the gasses of a volcanic eruption become charged.

Written By:
Shea Huffman

Edited By:
Charlie Benavides

Images Provided By:
Getty Images

Music:
YouTube Music Library

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