An extremely cold Saturday night brought a dazzling light show to Barrie for those who ventured outside, in the form of bright towers, or pillars, of light.
Light pillars are a local phenomenon that can appear as a distant one.
During freezing temperatures, flat and fluttering ice crystals may form near the ground in the form of light snow, sometimes known as a crystal fog. These ice crystals may then reflect ground lights, such as street lights, in columns.
“It looked like a stage of lights. It was brilliant,” Suzanne Haines said in a discussion with Village Media.
“We were surrounded by them. They lasted about half an hour,” she added from her home on Harrison Crescent, near Livingstone and Anne streets.
Erica Dusome, who lives on Shanty Bay Road, also witnessed the weather phenomenon when she arrived home after 1 a.m. on Sunday.
“I hopped out of my car and saw those pillars in my backyard. At first, I thought it was the northern lights, but they weren’t shimmering like they usually do. They lasted for at least an hour,” she said.
According to the Weather Network, as these crystals float on air currents, their flat faces act like tiny mirrors, each reflecting the light from any source directly below.
“And as there are millions of these crystals suspended in the air, the light from street lamps or signs gets stretched high into the sky as towering pillars of illumination," says the network.
The lights are most likely to appear on cold, calm nights when ice crystals can form closer to the ground rather than higher up in the atmosphere, the network said.
And while they usually form around artificial lights, pillars can also form in the presence of natural sources, like the moon when it is bright.
