A rare optical phenomenon was spotted above Arkansas Sunday morning, January 25, before sunrise. Michelle Ingram in Pottsville, Arkansas, in Pope County, spotted what appears to be a Northern Lights display in the sky, which would be fitting given the impactful winter storm the Natural State is enduring over the weekend. However, the phenomenon captured isn’t the Northern Lights, but it’s still rare for Arkansas.
The same phenomenon was seen in Stuttgart, Arkansas, in Arkansas County, too, by Lona Grasso. Lona spotted it also in the early morning hours of Sunday, January 25, well before sunrise.
Kendra in Mount Ida, Arkansas, in Montgomery County, also spotted this optical illusion Sunday morning, January 25.
The phenomenon is called light pillars. Light pillars form due to falling ice in very cold air, and the ice acts as a bunch of tiny mirrors. The ice needs to be a hexagonal plate. The source of light seen in these pillars isn’t always from directly below the pillar; the visual that it’s a straight line is an optical illusion created by the ice reflecting light within one vertical plane. The light can be from any source on the ground giving off light.
While the skies above Arkansas on Sunday morning were filled with falling frozen precipitation, light pillars can also form on clear night skies, too. Light pillars occur on a clear night due to ice crystals that make up high clouds in the atmosphere, which is what the light reflects off of…