I'll Be Dogged!

Sun dogs (parhelia) appeared in frigid Eastern Iowa skies both in the mornings and evenings from January 5-6, 2022. Above, a sun dog peeks over a line of businesses looking southeast from 33rd Avenue at 12th Street SW in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at 8:05 am CST, Thursday, January 6. Air temperature was -7 degrees F. 

8:52 am. Sun dog spectacle climbs higher above the horizon. Air temperature was -6 degrees F. iPhone 11 camera.

3:35 pm CST, Thursday, January 6. Looking southwest from Bowman Woods Park in Cedar Rapids. Air temperature was -1 degree F, with winds out of the northwest at 5-10 mph, making for bone-numbing photography fingers! 

Panoramic version of the same time setting at 3:35 pm. 

3:38 pm. Sun drops lower in the southwestern sky at the park. Nikon D7200 DSLR camera.

Sun dogs flank the Sun within a 22-degree halo and are caused by the refraction or scattering of sunlight through hexagonal ice crystals that are suspended in cold cirrus or cirrostratus clouds high in the atmosphere, or drifting in freezing moist air at low levels as diamond dust. The crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them with a minimum deflection of 22 degrees. As the crystals gently float downwards with their large hexagonal faces almost horizontal, sunlight is refracted horizontally, and sun dogs are seen to the left and right of the Sun.