GALLERY – Your rainbow cloud pictures

There was a beautiful and unusual site in the sky above South Holland yesterday (Thursday, December 21).

Thankfully a number of you caught sight of the ‘rainbow clouds’ also known as ‘mother of pearl’ and ‘polar stratospheric clouds’, or by their scientific name nacreous.

Many readers commented on how beautiful they looked and how they hadn’t been seen before.

The clouds made of ice crystals quite rare at these longitudes as they need specific conditions to form, namely a temperature of around -80 in the upper atmosphere 20 miles above ground as well as the sun at a certain angle.

It means you only usually see them in and around the polar regions.

But conditions above Britain have been ripe for them with clouds reported in other parts of the country in the days before Thursday.

Yesterday though it was South Holland’s turn. Here’s the pictures you’ve sent to us.

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