A rare weather event known as a fogbow (rainbow fog) shocked British citizens as it formed in the sky last weekend. Fortunately, this phenomenon is also captured by the camera.
When the event took place, visitors to the east coast of England were treated to a clear sky split by a plume of colorless smoke that billowed over their heads.
"On Saturday (18/12), low clouds and fog thinned along part of our coast, allowing the Sun to break through, while fog remained inland. This created ideal conditions for fogbows," BBC weather forecaster Dan Holley was quoted as saying by the Mirror as reported Wednesday (22/12/2021).
They were stunned to see this unusual phenomenon, then captured it and shared the fogbow picture on social media. Fogbow sightings appear in the sky off the coasts of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex.
Fogbow is similar to a rainbow. This phenomenon is formed from the same process of refraction and reflection that creates a rainbow, but is formed by water droplets in fog or clouds, not raindrops.
These water droplets are much smaller than rainwater droplets, almost always less than 0.1 mm in diameter. Due to small water droplets, the fogbow is mostly white, with a red outer edge and a blue inner edge.
In contrast to the colorful rainbow, the fogbow appears in the form of a bow in the fog, according to its name which if translated from English means a bow of fog. This phenomenon is also sometimes referred to as a white rainbow.
A series of similar fogbow sightings occurred in 2017, when the phenomenon was seen over the skies of the Scottish highlands.