the true colour of clouds?

[Sparks the Knave]

Today I saw something that was in my mind pretty special/magical. It's no doubt nothing new to many of you but I had never seen anything like it in my entire life or thought to look for it.

setting the scene, it's spring here now and firmly warm enough to sun bake, so today I decided to do just that. It's my day off I say, I'm home alone besides the dog, it's a bright blue morning with some nice white fluffy clouds to boot, just what I need.

As the sun was bright I decided to wear some polarized sunglasses and catch some rays next to the pool, perhaps start trying to get some colour back after winter -Now the sun is fairly warm here and even brighter still, so you mostly try to avoid looking into it even with sunglasses on- As I lay there to start with on my back, I had my eyes closed like usual. After five or so minutes of half dozing off and enjoying the warmth, A cloud passed over (easy to tell as it became darker behind my eyelids and the rays beating down lessened in intensity straight away), so placing my hand up to block the sun I open my eyes to check if it's going to be a long wait for the cloud to pass or not.

this is when I noticed through the polarized lens the true colours of light passing through the cloud packs. the cloud away from the sun remained snow white and fluffy as usual and the clouds right where the sun was were to bright and flared to see into, but those clouds not to close and not to far away were a lucid bright mixture of whites, pinks, purples, light blues and turquoisey greens + golds and orange here and there. and the spirals in each cloud were a different moving colour holding it's own and not dispersing into each other. to start with I thought this may simply have been a trick of the lens, so I tested looking without the glasses on, sure enough the clouds were bright and hard to see into and mostly white once more.... but!! I could still see small faint traces of their odd colours. placing back on the glasses I was able to see the different layers of the clouds interact and swirl amidst each other which is much less noticeable with the naked eye, it seemed like magic and I have to say I was pretty in awe of the exact shades of colour coming through and the displays goign on.

I never knew myself, if it's a bright day and you have polarized sunnies then I'd say take a look when the conditions are right. this image will stay in my head for some time and I plan to use it somewhere in some fantasy literature I have bubbling away in my head.

 

[j d worthington]

I don't recall ever having this experience, Sparks, but you describe such a thing beautifully... sounds very nifty indeed. Thanks!

 

[Sephiroth]

That is fascinating. Clouds are pretty dynamic places, after all; it's great to think that you can see the action with the naked eye...

If wearing polarised lenses counts as naked?

 

[Nik]

Rainbows, Halos & Glories.

AFAIR, the classic book on cloud phenomena didn't mention colour changes with polarisation, but it must occur...

Cue mad rush to get polarising filter for cameras...

Um, I remember trying to educate a UFO Spotter, 'See, Look !' 'Nah, that's a SunDog, ice-crystal reflections, should be another at same angle that-away--' 'There's TWO ! A formation !!' 'D'uh...'

 

[Phil Janes]

Your polarized glasses let show you the half of the light that matches the polarity; the other half, which you can see by turning the glasses 90°, has its color bands shifted. Putting the two images together turns it all white. That’s one possible explanation. The other explanation that comes to mind is that the rainbow-like colors are masked by polarized white light; polarized lenses block the white, allowing you to see the colors. On a clear day, you can see that the sky looks darker when the sun is in the direction of the top or bottom of your polarized lenses; when the sun is toward the left or right, the sky looks brighter.

Speaking of sun dogs: I am one of the few people on Earth to have witnessed the complete double cartwheel effect, with brilliant white horizontal and vertical spokes, six sun dogs nearly as bright as the sun, and a perfect 360° circumzenithal arc at the same time. That happened in October, 1968, in Richmond, Virginia

P.S.: What happened to the "Universe" forum? I was active on it, and now I can't find it.

 

[The Ace]

Yup, Photographers use polarising filters to cut down on reflections for this reason. Whether or not this gives rise to true colour, I'll leave to the philosophers.