Carol Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:37 am
FLYING SAUCERS: On August 1st, Ken Rotberg observed a pair of rainbow-colored saucers over Delray Beach, Florida --but they weren't UFOs. The technical term is pileus clouds: Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley explains how they form: "On sunny afternoons, cumulus clouds boil upwards, pushing layers of moist air above them even higher where they cool and condense to form cloud caps or 'pileus' (Latin for cap). When pileus clouds form very quickly, their water droplets tend to be all the same size--the perfect condition for iridescent colors."
"I noticed the sun dropping behind a huge storm cloud in the west and ['the saucers' appeared]," says Rotberg. "I was just amazed at what I was witnessing, watching it slowly change. There was nobody near me at the time to share it with!" Consider it shared.
