The Odd and Magnificent Sun Pillar of Oregon Coast / Washington Coast

Published 4/28/24 at 7:45 p.m.
By Andre' Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Oregon Coast) – When you've spent over 20 years documenting every little bit of the Oregon coast and Washington coast, there's a good chance you'll end of up with something like nearly 50,000 photos in your hard drive. (Photo in Seaside, Andre' GW Hagestedt / Oregon Coast Beach Connection)

I did. And that's not even counting the thousands of shots Oregon Coast Beach Connection has used from other sources.

Like the beaches, there are surprises lurking in those digital places. Such as this one above: the top photo shows a faint sun pillar I photographed in Seaside several years ago – a shot that I never realized I had this whole time. I just found it a couple days ago. It's not the most remarkable of sun pillars, but in a way that's what makes it interesting. This one is not that obvious; it's a subtle effect that I probably didn't even realize I'd captured when I took the shot.

And then was it about Seaside that's just conducive to sun pillars? All but one of my several sun pillar shots are from Seaside, as well as those from other photogs that have sent that subject to us.

Just a wacky coincidence.

So what is a sun pillar? First of all, it's cool as hell. Though it's not always the most obvious of sky / weather phenomena, if you know what you're seeing it's pretty badass.

Photo of the effect in Rockaway Beach, courtesy Marilyn K. Elkins.

What you'll see is a sunset with a shaft of light streaming upwards from it, and sometimes there's a bit of light just underneath it. That, plus the inevitable sun peaking through clouds from a horizontal direction can on rare occasions make a cross shape. Both that and the sun pillars by themselves were taken as signs from God in medieval times, and you'll see this in medieval paintings. More often you'd see the sun pillar's relative – the sun halo – depicted in paintings as something from Heaven.

What's the scientific explanation of a sun pillar on the Oregon coast and Washington coast?

It comes down to how the atmosphere reflects light – not refracts it. Refraction results in sun halos, sun dogs and the green flash at sunset. With sun pillars, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Portland office of the National Weather Service (NWS), it's about reflecting light off of things in the atmosphere.

Courtesy Seaside Aquarium's Tiffany Boothe

NOAA said in this case, light bounces off something with all the wavelengths remaining intact, instead of going through it and getting broken apart (as in refraction).

Oregon Coast Beach Connection talked to Rebecca Muessle, a meteorologist with the NWS, a few years ago.

“Basically, it’s light being reflected off ice crystals that are in the atmosphere, generally out of a higher level cloud like a cirrus stratus cloud,” she said. “When the sun is at a certain angle, light from the sun reflects off those ice crystals and creates that vertical column.”

NOAA said this can happen at sundown or sunup.

“Look for sun pillars when the sun is low on the horizon, and cirrus clouds are present,” NOAA said.

That's why coastal spots like Lincoln City, Bandon, Port Orford, Florence, Seaview, Ocean Shores or Cannon Beach are perfect for spotting it.

A curious factoid about these ice crystals is that they are hexagonal in shape, and many of those sides are flat. Another surprise: as they fall they are wobbling from side to side.

“So you have to have super cold air aloft, which is keeping conditions generally really, really cold, where ice is forming versus water droplets,” Muessle said. “As with anything in our atmosphere, everything is either rising or falling. And in this case it’s the ice crystals that are falling, and before they reach the ground they’re evaporating.”

Sun pillars aren’t the only forms of light pillars. Some are moon pillars, and not all forms ascend. Some sun and moon pillars can point downwards. Not all light pillars are natural, either. Some forms come from street lights: these have really become the center of superstitions as they’ve caused UFO reports.

They are somewhat related to the sun dog as well as moon halos.

How to see a sun pillar? That's simply luck of the draw: it happens when it happens. But you're not going to see it if the sky is completely clear and there's no clouds.

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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