shadow bands

British

noun

slow-moving waves of light and dark observed to move across light-coloured surfaces on the earth just before and after totality in a solar eclipse. They are thought to originate from the effects of irregular atmospheric refraction

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Some acts are dismissive of their shadow bands, but Hood is kind of into the idea.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 3, 2019

Then it may be possible to see shadow bands playing across the land, a phenomenon the exact origin of which is not known.

From Time Magazine Archive

Observers close to the path of totality who stretch a white sheet on the ground may see the mysterious shadow bands, which are somehow caused by irregularities in the earth's atmosphere.

From Time Magazine Archive

The ray is split by two half-mirrors, being reunited on the scale-mirrors, where any disparity between the wavelengths of the reunited portions is clearly seen as shadow bands.

From Time Magazine Archive

The shadow bands seem to vary both in breadth and distance apart at different eclipses, and also in the speed with which they pass along.

From The Story of Eclipses by Chambers, George F. (George Frederick)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023