It is supposed to be one of the coldest nights of the year and where does that find me? Outside, taking pictures of the sky. Dave would be chagrined that I did not have my tripod with me, but I set the camera on the truck and shot a couple before my fingers froze off. I got a call that there were beams of light shooting into the sky. It had something to do with it being really cold and the lights of the city were hot. I have no idea why they look like this, but check it out. It is quite a show! Also, we had a pretty cool sunset tonight.
**EDIT** Last evening I emailed local meteorologist Rick Mecklenburg and sent him some of the photos to get his explanation of this. He responded back this evening.
Joshua,
Thank you so much for the great picture. What you are seeing is called ice pillars. It’s the light reflecting off the ice crystals in the air. It only happens once in a while, when it gets this cold.Rick
So there you go, the explanation for this amazing sight. I did not venture out to check it out tonight as it was -19.5, but I wonder if it was again visible. I did some googling about it and found that it is pretty uncommon to see, so thanks to Glenda and Rick Thomspon, who were driving around and called me about it.
These are awesome! It reminds me of that night when I pulled into the Camp and say the Northern Lights. It was so overwhelmingly beautiful. Good job even without a tripod!
Nice pics Joshy!
I was on my back porch and also witnessed this. Though it was not as vivid as these pics.