Sun pillars and storm clouds

I looked out of the window of my apartment to watch the sunset this evening as I normally do when I have the chance and was greeted with a sight I'd not seen before - a sun pillar was clearly visible, rising vertically from the setting sun. The ice crystals which had been present in cirrus clouds throughout the day were reflecting the light from the sun off their lower and upper surfaces and sending it straight to me (and everyone else) giving a faint upper tangent arc and a distinct pillar, rising perhaps 30 degrees into the sky - a really lovely sight and of course the camera was on hand.

I thought I'd put up another photo from a wonderful cloudscape a couple of days back when the cumulonimbus rolled into town and gave us a pretty impressive thunder storm:

This photo hasn't been played with at all, but I used a circular polarising filter to take it: