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This topic has appeared in the English Wikipedia rankings 1 time. It first appeared on 2026-04-14 and was most recently seen on 2026-04-14.
Crown flash is a rarely observed meteorological phenomenon caused by the effect of atmospheric electrical fluctuations on the alignment of ice crystals. It has been described as "the brightening of a thunderhead crown followed by the appearance of aurora-like streamers emanating into the clear atmosphere". The current hypothesis for why the phenomenon occurs is that sunlight is reflecting off, or refracting through, tiny ice crystals above the crown of a cumulonimbus cloud. These ice crystals are aligned by the strong electric field effects around the cloud, so the effect may appear as a tall streamer, pillar of light, or resemble a massive flash of a searchlight/flashlight beam. When the electric field is disturbed by electrical charging or discharging within the cloud, the ice crystals are re-oriented causing the light pattern to shift in a characteristic manner, at times very rapidly and appearing to 'dance' in a strikingly mechanical fashion. The effect may also sometimes be known as a "leaping sundog" or "jumping sundog". As with sundogs, observation of the effect is dependent upon the observer's position – it is not a self-generated light such as seen in a lightning strike or aurora, but rather a changing reflection or refraction of the sunlight. Unlike sundogs, however, these features move and realign within seconds, forming beams and loops of light, and the effect appears localised directly above the cloud rather than at some distance to the side(s) of the sun.
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