Did You Catch the Rare ‘Rainbow Clouds’ in the Maine Sky?

Have you ever thought you saw rainbow-colored clouds in Maine?

Kay Mallory was in South Portland, Maine, when she saw rainbow-colored clouds rolling past her. She grabbed her camera and posted some amazing pictures on the Facebook group 'The Maine Photography Page'.

The cold winds after Maine's recent snowstorm helped produce the pretty clouds

If you notice the coloring, these 'rainbow' clouds look sort of like bubbles in soap or oil or gas spilled in water. You can get that rainbow appearance. WMTW makes the comparison to the coloring of mother-of-pearl gemstones.

Where in Maine were these 'rainbow clouds'?

Kay caught these clouds whipping by her in South Portland. She said she hadn't seen colors like this in a long time. But because of the winds that Maine has had lately, she didn't have to move as cloud after cloud came whipping by her - all with colors!

Why did these Maine clouds look like rainbows and are they rare?

According to WMTW's meteorologist Colleen Hurley, this is pretty rare. This is called cloud iridescence. The cloud has to be near the sun or the moon, be thin, and have a large amount of water or ice droplets for light to diffract. That combo doesn't happen every day, but Colleen explained why this is somewhat rare,

This is somewhat rare. In order to see this, all of the cloud droplets need to be of the same size.

READ MORE: The One Essential Tool to Survive a Maine Winter

Kay was doing what a lot of us did as kids, see something in the clouds. She saw an angel in the above cloud and a dog's face, (possibly a black lab) in the cloud above that. She was amazed as they blew by. I appreciate that she let me share the pictures.