Residents of the Leningrad region welcomed the New Year with an unusual natural spectacle — "light pillars." This phenomenon caught the attention of local residents, who actively shared photos and videos on social media. This information is reported by the News.ru website.
These optical effects looked so captivating that they created the illusion of a forest of vertical beams of light. Light pillars were observed in several localities, including Garbolovo, Vartemyagi, and in the Vsevolozhsky district.
This phenomenon occurs under conditions of significant cold, when the air becomes saturated with tiny ice crystals that refract and reflect light from various sources, such as street lamps and building lights. Light pillars are usually observed in the northern latitudes of the Arctic, so their appearance in the central part of Russia is considered a rare and astonishing event for local residents.
Additional information from 24.kg
Light pillars are an optical phenomenon that manifests as vertical glowing bands in the sky, resulting from the reflection of light (from the Sun, Moon, or street lamps) off flat hexagonal ice crystals present in cold air. They are most commonly observed in winter when ice needles or "diamond dust" form in the atmosphere, especially at low temperatures and high humidity, creating pillars that stretch up and down from the light source.
