What's the ring around the sun?

Did you see this on Friday? Thanks to Sue Kingsbury who sent me this fabulous image of the 22 degree halo that had the region buzzing! Although rare, we do get halos from time to time.

Here's why they occur. Cirrus clouds are made entirely of ice because they develop in temperatures well below zero in most cases. These ice crystals bend the incoming light from the sun making for the halo we saw on Friday afternoon. Hexagonal (six sided) plates which look like flat wafers are usually responsible for the phenomena! I hope you got a chance to see it!