It wasn't a fire, and it wasn't a rainbow. But did you see this rare phenomenon?
If you happened to look up in the sky at the right time and in the right location Tuesday afternoon, you might have been lucky enough to see a rare, colorful cloud phenomenon known as a "fire rainbow."
Trisha Garlatti, of Edison, was one of those lucky ones. As she was driving through South River at about 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, she caught a glimpse of it and felt compelled to whip out her camera phone.
"It was like a rainbow inside a cloud," she said.
Although it's commonly referred to as a fire rainbow, in the scientific world it's known as a circumhorizontal arc. And weather experts call it "cloud iredescence," said Sarah Johnson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's regional office in Mount Holly.
Johnson said the conditions have to be right for this phenomenon to form, and on Tuesday those conditions were in play over parts of New Jersey: Thin clouds very high in the atmosphere, tiny ice crystals in the clouds, and sunlight hitting the ice crystals at a certain angle.
"It's basically the same principle behind what we normally see in rainbows," Johnson said. "But instead of dealing with rain droplets with regular rainbows, we're dealing with ice crystals, because these clouds are so high" and the temperatures are very cold up there.
A beach-goer snapped this picture of the so-called fire rainbow in Spring Lake on Tuesday, June 14. (Courtesy of Toni Hoffman | For NJ Advance Media) If the clouds are shaped like an arc and the sunlight hits the ice crystals that are in those clouds, "they will refract the sunlight, creating the full spectrum of colored light instead of just white light," the meteorologist said.
Fire rainbows tend to form when thin, wispy cirrus clouds are high in the sky, as they were on Tuesday, about 15,000 feet above the ground, Johnson said. But they also could develop with even thinner clouds, such as cirrostratus clouds.
In addition to South River in Middlesex County, Tuesday's fire rainbow was also spotted in the sky over several towns in Ocean County, including Toms River, Lavallette and Bayville, according to social media posts and a report by Jersey Shore Hurricane News.
Some people on social media saw the rainbow in the cloud as Mother Nature's tribute to the victims of the Orlando terror attack.
Today I saw a rainbow cloud in the sky. Hard to believe it's not a coincidence. #PrayForOrlando pic.twitter.com/Je7mrkibOu
-- Rosie Murray (@rosie_murrayy) June 13, 2016
Rainbow cloud at the shore because even Mother Nature prays for Orlando [?] pic.twitter.com/vqEwAIxpXy
-- Ashley Carle (@AshCarle) June 14, 2016
A fire rainbow (circumhorizontal arc) over the Shore. Scientific details and photos here >> https://t.co/0Gm5VxDeqd pic.twitter.com/94SD45lV64
-- JSHN (@JSHurricaneNews) June 14, 2016
I don't know how this happened but the sky has a rainbow cloud pic.twitter.com/ld6dTFHshh
-- haley kolos (@_haley_marie_13) June 14, 2016
Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @LensReality. Find NJ.com on Facebook.