Incredible 'Horizontal Rainbow' Captured In Photo Of Perfect Moment

Nature has cunning ways of inspiring awe – atop Lake Sammamish in Washington State, USA, a photographer managed to capture a ‘horizontal rainbow’.

Cessna, from Issaquah, Washington, wrote: 'Witnessed a pretty cool phenomenon out on Lake Sammamish today. A horizontal rainbow! Also known as a circumhorizontal arc. It almost doesn't look real and I honestly barely edited these photos.' It's a mesmerising sight – but how is it possible? Courtney Obergfell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, explained to IFL Science that it's not a rainbow at all, despite its similar appearance. 'It's an optical phenomenon that is essentially an ice halo formed by the refraction of the Sun in ice crystals in the atmosphere,' she said.