It is absolutely freezing in the Canadian Prairies right now.
While frighteningly cold temperatures in Manitoba during January is nothing new, the special weather phenomenon taking over social media in the province is not something you see everyday.
The above images are a weather phenomenon known as a "Sun-dog".
A Sun-dog is a type of atmospheric optical phenomenon in the same family as halos, and are characterized by two bright areas, or rainbows, on either side of the sun often occurring within a larger 22-degree halo that rings the entire sun.
They occur when sunlight is refracted from ice crystals. The hexagonal shape to ice crystals in the atmosphere act like a prism, refracting and bending the sun’s rays in a horizontal fashion creating the small rainbows. They are most commonly seen on very cold days, when there are more ice crystals present in the atmosphere, and at sunrise or sunset when the sun is lower on the horizon.
But is an amazing Instagram photo of a Sun-dog worth the – 40 C temperatures? Depends on who you ask!
