Rare 'Fire Rainbow' Spotted At Cape May County Beach

AVALON, NJ — The Jersey Shore is full of unusual sights on Memorial Day weekend, but none quite like this. A circumhorizontal arc, informally called a "fire rainbow," was spotted on the beach Sunday in Avalon.

So what is a circumhorizontal arc? It's the refraction of light in plate-shaped ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. They can occur when the sun has risen higher than 58 degrees in the sky, according to IFLScience!.

The other ingredient in their formation are cirrus clouds — thin, wispy clouds that form at higher latitudes. Since the temperature is so low when these clouds exist, they're made of ice crystals. Once the sun hits the necessary angle, the light refracts through the plate-like crystals to create the rainbow.

They occur mostly during the summer and are most likely to be seen at mid-latitudes, according to IFLScience!.

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