Photo Shows Bizarre Ice Crystals Form Over New England

Rare and remarkable light pillars caused by ice crystals have been spotted in New England.

Posted on X (formerly Twitter) by WPTZ meteorologist Marissa Vigevani, the images show an array of dazzling light pillars forming on Vermont's Jay Peak this week. The columns appear as if they are coming from the ground and traveling upward toward the night sky, where they eventually fade.

Light pillars are an atmospheric optical phenomenon that appears in the form of narrow rods of glowing light from the ground upward. They can form only during very cold and calm weather conditions, with absolutely no wind and below-freezing temperatures.

They take shape when light is refracted by tiny ice crystals, even smaller than half a millimeter. These crystals are so small and light that they can remain in the air, but for light columns to form, they need to be floating near the ground.

The website Atmospheric Optics says: "These crystals act as tiny prisms, refracting and reflecting sunlight in specific directions. When the crystals align horizontally, they create the illusion of a vertical column of light."

Bigger crystals "tend to produce more pronounced and elongated pillars, while smaller crystals may result in shorter and less defined columns," according to the site.

Although the time the light pillars were seen at Jay Peak is unclear, the most common times to see them is when the sun is low in the western sky before sunset or low in the east just after dawn breaks. They can also be seen during the night, which apparently happened in Vermont.

When they are made with the help of the sun, they are appropriately called sun pillars. But light from the moon and artificial light can also refract from the ice crystals.

"They appear as beams of light to the observer. It is usually caused by streetlights. However, any source of light can create a light pillar given proper conditions," AccuWeather meteorologist David Samuhel said.

Usually, light pillars are only seen in far northern parts of the earth, particularly areas close to the Arctic. They are so rarely seen in the U.S. that they have even been reported as UFO sightings. The National Weather Service last spotted them in December 2022 in Walla Walla, Washington, according to its X page.