On Saturday evening, the WBRZ Weather Team received an interesting and beautiful photo from Jacob Oubre in the Baton Rouge area. The photo shows a cloud above a larger deck of clouds with a blurry, hazy area in between. A check of the radar revealed that a shower was occurring around that time. With this, it can be inferred that the blurry area below the higher cloud is a rain shaft—a visible column of rain falling from the base of the cloud. It is worth noting, that clouds rain out from the base upward so it is possible this cloud was previously much lower or even one with the clouds seen below.

The sun setting behind the clouds illuminated the rain shaft making for a particularly spectacular and defining view of the rain shaft. Sunbeams that originate below the horizon during twilight hours are known as crepuscular rays. These can sometimes have an orange tint due to the amount of air particles they must shine through and are most vivid when the contrast from light to dark is high.

The WBRZ Weather Team is always happy to receive and share your weather pictures. Email us via weather@wbrz.com or tweet @WBRZweather.