Natural Sightings: A winter halo around the moon

Emily Andelin Hughes took this photo of the moon and clouds over a silhouetted ridge of the Tehachapi Mountains. A bright dot of light in the sky not far from the moon appears to be a planet, probably Jupiter.

This weather phenomenon is known as a moon halo, storm ring, or a winter halo, and is caused by moonlight reflecting off ice crystals from cirrus or cirrostratus clouds, causing a ring to appear around the moon.

These are high elevation clouds, and can be 20,000 feet high or more. Moon halos are more common in colder months, since ice crystals are more frequently present then.

A winter halo is often viewed as a harbinger of stormy weather, which it can be. Old-time weather lore stated that you could count the number of stars that are visible inside a ring around the moon, and that would tell you about when rain would arrive. So if there were three stars visible inside the ring, rain would arrive in three days.

This was only an approximation, of course, but it can frequently prove accurate. A bigger halo encompasses more stars, indicating that stormy weather is farther off, and a smaller halo, closer to the moon, would only include one or two stars, if any, suggesting that a low pressure system, or storm, is imminent.

The winter skies over Tehachapi often provide beautiful scenery and memorable skyscapes of glowing, colorful red sunrises and sunsets, mesmerizing clouds, bright stars and moonlit clouds, and more.

The Nuwä (Kawaiisu or Southern Paiute) word for moon is müze, pronounced MUH-zeh, clouds are küna, pronounced KUH-na.

NATURAL SIGHTINGS is a regular feature of the Tehachapi News edited by Jon Hammond which showcases photos of the natural beauty that enhances the quality of life in Tehachapi. If you have a good quality image of plants, animals, insects, trees, birds, weather phenomena, etc., taken in the Tehachapi area, you may submit it to the Tehachapi News for possible publication. Submissions can be dropped by the News office in the form of a print or CD, or sent by email to: editorial@tehachapinews.com.