Bright "flame-like cloud" lights up pre-sunrise sky over Miami Valley

A WHIO-TV viewer, Linda Beasley, spotted this somewhat strange looking, brightly glowing cloud over Covington, Ohio this morning around 7:15.

At first glance, it looks like the sun peeking through the clouds.

However, the sun had not quite risen yet. Sunrise on Tuesday was around 7:21 a.m.

Linda described the cloud as looking like a large flame in the sky.

Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist Eric Elwell says that what looks like a long flame was actually a contrail produced by a high flying aircraft.

It was flying high enough that the colorful light of sunrise from the sun that was just below the horizon was able to reflect onto the contrail.

Elwell says the the line of clouds, containing ice crystals, was likely around 30,000 feet up.

The other clouds still appeared dark because they were much lower in the sky and thus did not reflect any sunlight.