Hey Irish, does this look familiar??

This amazing vision was photographed by solar physicist David Hathaway at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

This apparition is almost certainly connected to hurricane Sandy. The core of the storm swept well north of Alabama, but Sandy's outer bands did pass over the area, leaving behind a thin haze of ice crystals in cirrus clouds. Sunlight shining through the crystals produced a variety of ice halos.

 There are two sun dogs, a 22^o halo, a parahelic circle, an upper tangent arc, and a parry arc.

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley comments on the Sandy-ice halo link: "Over the last few days there have been spectacular halo displays around the edge of Sandy from New England to Alabama. Hathaway's image like many others shows several very rare halo arcs, an upper Lowitz, helic and Parry supralateral."