Ring Around The Moon

The moon with a "halo" around it.  It was taken around 1 AM
in State College on Jan 9th..  There were reports of seeing it in
Crawford & Erie Counties as well.
Photo Taken By Jordan

I heard a few people talking about seeing a ring around the moon tonight so I went and checked it out.  I was able to see it once last year as well...very neat.  Many people tend to freak out when they see this.  No, it's not a sign that the world is coming to an end.  It's actually a very interesting phenomenon that occurs every now and then. 


The ring is caused by a refraction of light through ice crystals (mainly thin cirrus clouds) in the upper atmosphere.  The crystals have a hexagonal shape to them which causes the ring around the moon.  The ring will typically be the same size (22° across the sky) due to the hexagonal shape of the crystals.

Folklore says that the ring indicates that bad weather is coming.  The cirrus clouds usually come before a warm front and low pressure system which tends to bring stormy weather.  Also, some say that the amount of stars inside the ring indicate how many days until the stormy weather arrives. Does this work? Check it out sometime...