Wispy cirrus clouds lead to spectacular sights in the evening sky

Meteorologist Tyler Sebree captured two beautiful pictures Wednesday evening.  The first picture is the sunset from here at the station.

The second picture is of a sundog.  Do you see it?  Look closely at the cirrus clouds.  Notice the different coloring?  That's a sundog!

You don't see them too often, but when you do they are very spectacular sights.  But how does a sundog form?  Sundogs form when the sun's rays are refracted by ice crystals in the sky.  In this case, it's the cirrus clouds.  Cirrus clouds are made up of ice crystals because of where they form in the atmosphere.  This cloud layer forms where temperatures are well below freezing and this is why when either sundogs or sun halos - or moon halos - are present, you usually see cirrus clouds in the sky.  Sometimes sundogs can form when the sun is beginning to rise when there are no clouds.  This happens on mornings when the temperature is extremely cold, or when there are ice particles suspended in the sky from snow that is on the ground.

Sundogs are visible when the sun is on the horizon and on the same horizontal plane as the observer and the ice crystals.  This is why they are very common either during sunrise or sunset.