Rainbow and 'Curtains' of Virga over Chile | Earth Science
Photographer Erwin Enrique Sandoval Vargas: "Sunset in Coyhaique with a beautiful rainbow and curtains of virga illuminated by the last rays of the sun."
Virga is also called Fallstreifen, fallstreaks, and precipitation trails. Virga are wisps or streaks of water or ice particles falling out of a cloud but vaporizing before reaching the Earth’s surface as precipitation.
Virga is frequently seen trailing from altocumulus and altostratus clouds, but also is discernible below the bases of high-level cumuliform clouds where precipitation is falling into a dry subcloud layer. It typically exhibits a hooked form. The streaks descend nearly vertically just under the precipitation source but appear to be almost horizontal at their lower extremities. Such curvature of virga can be produced simply by effects of strong vertical wind shear, but ordinarily it results from the fact that droplet or crystal vaporization decreases the particle terminal fall velocity near the ends of the streaks. Under certain conditions, virga is associated with dry microbursts, formed as a product of the vaporization.
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the Southern Cone of southwestern South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
Location: Coyhaique, Chile
Date: Oct. 24, 2026
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