DESERT #ICE #HALOS: You don't have to travel to the Arctic Circle to find ice in the air. Arizona has it, too. Yesterday, Scott Tucker looked up from the desert outside Tucson and saw multiple ice halos around the #sun:
"The heck with freezing in Scandinavia," says Tucker. "I can get a nice halo display here in Arizona when the temperature is 70 degrees."
How can there be ice in the air when the temperature is so far above freezing? Actually, cirrus clouds floating over the warm desert are freezing. Kilometers above the desert floor, millions of ice crystals caught the rays of Arizona's winter sun, producing a 22-degree halo, a pair of sundogs, and a "rainbow-smile"
