Solar column with upper tangent arc

It wasn't a typical solar column. Just after sunrise two weeks ago in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, a photographer looking out of a window suddenly got scared. The surprise was caused by a solar column spreading out like a fan at the top. 

Solar columns, individual columns of light coming up from the Sun, are rare in themselves, and are known to be caused by sunlight reflecting off swaying hexagonal ice disks falling into the Earth's atmosphere. In addition, it is known that the upper tangent arcs are caused by the refraction of sunlight through the incident hexagonal ice tubes. 

Finding a solar column connected to the upper tangent arc is an unusual phenomenon, and it took some analysis first to figure out what was going on. The leading theory is that this solar column was also created in a complex and unusual way from falling ice tubes. 

Few people would have believed that such a rare phenomenon was seen again, if not for the ingenuity of the photographer and the camera on his nearest smartphone.

Copyright: Mike Cohea