Sundogs spotted in Howard County

CRESCO - One good thing about the cold weather in Northeast Iowa is seeing sundogs, which were visible in Cresco and Howard County on Thursday, Jan. 6.

According to the National Weather Service, sundogs are colored spots of light that develop due to the refraction of light through ice crystals. They are located approximately 22 degrees either left, right, or both, from the sun, depending on where the ice crystals are present. The colors usually go from red closest to the sun, out to blue on the outside of the sundog. Sundogs are also known as mock suns or parhelia, which means ‘with the sun’.

The term ‘sundog’ (or mock sun) originated from Greek mythology. It was believed the god Zeus walked his dogs across the sky and that the bright ‘false suns’ in the sky on either side of the sun’s disk were the dogs.

Sundogs are different than rainbows. Probably the biggest difference between the two is that a rainbow usually signals an end to the rain, while a sundog often means that rain, or snow is on the way. 

There are also sun bows, which is a bow or arc of prismatic colors like a rainbow, appearing in the spray of cataracts, waterfalls, fountains, vapors and mists.