Teardrop Sun – Photo: L. Weikel

Teardrop Sun

The cloud with silver (and gold) lining, which I wrote about last night, was enough in and of itself to make our walk yesterday worth the effort. We didn’t need any further meteorological magic to reward our efforts to bundle up and move our behinds. But there it was – a mile or so later – a phenomenon I’d never seen before: a teardrop sun.

It almost looked as though the sun was transforming into an enormous comet, trailing a molten glob of itself as it plunged earthward.

It Only Got Better

Then, only a few steps later, we watched in awe as the sun seemed to engage in a form of solar mitosis. We found ourselves gazing at the setting sun and witnessing it split in two right before our eyes.

Solar Mitosis – Photo: L. Weikel

We stopped only long enough for me to try to capture the surreal beauty of this odd phenomenon. But every few yards, we felt the need to document the transformation as it unfolded before us. This ‘double sun’ experience persisted for maybe ten minutes at the most. (It evolved into something different, yet additionally exquisite, but that’s for tomorrow’s post.)

In the meantime, we noticed a couple approaching us from the crest of the hill we were just beginning to ascend. They, too, kept stopping every few yards, gazing toward the west in unmistakable appreciation of the atmospheric wonder we were all sharing. We met in the middle of the hill, exclaiming how none of us had ever seen anything like it.

Double Sun – Photo: L. Weikel

I shared with them the photos I’d just taken, one after the other. One of them, a young man who confessed to always ‘seeing stuff’ in the sky, suggested we were witnessing a ‘sun dog.’ Without knowing exactly what that was, it sounded plausible; none of us were sure. Part of me thought ‘sun dog’ sounded too close to ‘rainbow dog’ – a free association that bore little use to anything.

Sustaining the Mystery

Not wanting to end the magic of the moment, we parted ways, each continuing in the direction we were originally headed. It was almost as if too much human chatter would spoil the mystery of the experience.

Amazing as it was, the show had not yet reached its conclusion. Luckily for us, the atmospheric performance still had a curtain call to top off our evening.

This is really what it looked like – Photo: L. Weikel

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