Extreme clouds and colors

   I got a call from my friend Bruce tonight about 8:30pm. He told me go out and look to the northwest at the clouds.  He described it as looking like an oil slick or a gasoline spill in water except it was in the sky. It was pretty awesome.
   These were definitely some of the most interesting colors I have ever seen in the clouds.  I was especially taken aback by the blue-green colors.  Reds and oranges are not that unusual around sunset, but the blue-green colors were amazing.
   The situation was that we had some storms with very high tops out over Lake Erie. The tops of these clouds were made of ice crystals (cirrus clouds) and sheared off.  With the sun about to set, the prismatic affect of the sun and ice crystals produced these really neat colors.
   I took these pictures from downtown Streetsboro looking northwest between 8:30pm and 8:45pm tonight (Friday).

(In the first two pictures you can seen the blue-green colors mixed around the pinks and reds. In the third picture you not only have the blue-green effect around the top of the dark cumulus cloud, but you also have rays of sunlight being blocked by the heavy cloud structure. If you want a better look click on the pictures to make them bigger.)