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Keeping with the theme of halos in the sky, this time a beautiful halo appeared around the Moon tonight. Just like the halos around the Sun, it is caused by ice crystals in the high altitude cirrus clouds. These type of clouds normally precede a warm front by one or two days. Warm fronts means storms. A common belief is that the number of stars within a Moon halo indicate the number of days before bad weather. I see two or three stars in the image. I don't think the "number of stars legend" is true, but warm fronts and cold fronts usually do precede storms. Right now here in the Kansas City area we have a warm front to the west of us creating the cirrus clouds, but according to the weather forecasts, storms will slip right by us to the south. I guess in a few days we'll see who is right, the weather forecasters or the urban legend.
I just looked out my window at 10 p.m. and it is snowing! So, sounds like the "legend" is right, two days past your picture of two stars withing the halo. How about that!
ReplyDeleteEliz
That moon/halo was so awesome! My girls came home from a late night at newspaper production night at school, and they came in exclaiming over the "cool ring around the moon!"
ReplyDeleteWichita got 5-6 inches of snow overnight on Thursday. I wonder if they had the halo?