wonderful weather

Driving out on Saturday evening, we saw a marvelous pillar of light rising vertically from the setting sun.  By the time I had stopped the car, got my camera, and snapped the picture, it was a lot less bright, but still quite visible (much more so than in the photo):

sun pillar, Sat 15 Oct 2012, 19:32 BST

There is a much better picture of the same effect from the rising sun at WeatherQuesting, and a note about the effect in by A.S. Herschel in Nature from 1901.

Not as rare, but still quite spectacular, was a dark cloud effect late afternoon yesterday:

menacing cloud, Tues 18 Oct 2012, 17:25 BST