Rare Shimmering Rainbow Clouds Appear Over the U.K.
Called nacreous or polar stratospheric clouds, the rare phenomena adorned the British sky in the wake of Storm Henry.
"After a hurricane comes a rainbow," Katy Perry sings in her hit Firework. The song could almost describe the scene over Scotland and northern England Tuesday night.
While not quite a hurricane, Storm Henry battered the northern U.K. with winds up to 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour), causing flooding and disrupting power for thousands. The cold air the storm blew in also led to the formation of beautiful nacreous clouds. (Pronounced ney-kree-uh s, the name refers to a resemblance to nacre, or mother-of-pearl.)
The shimmery phenomena above were photographed near Whitley Bay, Northumberland, in northern England. That's an unusual place to spot them, as they usually appear along polar regions.
Also called polar stratospheric clouds (or less precisely, rainbow clouds),
