Photo and Commentary ©2026 by Maylan Schurch
Friday and Sabbath, June 26 and 27, 2026
This past Tuesday on a morning walk with Shelley, I happened to glance up and see this dramatic halo around the sun. A bit of research tells me that it’s what’s called a “sun dog,” a name I remember from my youth on the South Dakota prairies. Back then, what my mom called “sun dogs” were most often bright spots on either side of the sun, most often seen close to sunset. Mom spoke about them grimly, warning that they often predicted severe winter weather, maybe even blizzards.
Here’s an explanation I found online, which seems to sum up other accounts of what cause these:
“A sun halo is caused by the refraction, reflection and dispersion of light through ice crystals, suspended within high altitude cirrus or cirrostratus clouds. As light passes through these hexagon-shaped ice crystals, it is bent at a 22-degree angle, which creates the circular halo around the sun.” (Brian Neben, Central Nebraska Today, March 5, 2024.)
Never having seen such a full-formed sun halo, I was startled at first. But remembrance of Dakota sun dogs, plus what I knew of the Bible’s true end-time signs, gave me immediate tranquility.
Want to learn or review some of what Scripture says about end-time signs? Here you go: