Fogbow: Photo of rare white rainbow wows netizens

All the colours of the rainbow, so the saying goes. But what about a rainbow that does not have any colour?

Yes, there is one, and it's called a fogbow. It is still beautiful, as this picture taken by a photographer in San Francisco and now going viral on social media would show you.

Photographer Stu Berman posted on his Instagram account a picture of a fogbow, or white rainbow, which he clicked while walking in the Marin Headlands area.


A fogbow or white rainbow or cloudbow or ghost rainbow is a similar phenomenon to a rainbow; however, as its name suggests, it appears as a bow in fog rather than in rain.

"They’re made much as rainbows are, from the same configuration of sunlight and moisture. Rainbows happen when the air is filled with raindrops," Berman explained quoting earthsky.org.

Like in the case of a rainbow, a fogbow is always seen in the direction opposite the sun.

But unlike in a rainbow, the water droplets in a fogbow are much smaller - less than 0.05 millimeters - and hence the diffraction gets smeared out resulting in a white bow with very faint red outer and blue inner edge.

“If you look closely in the center, you can also see what’s called a” glory” and a “Brocken Spectre” (my shadow),” he wrote

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A post shared by Stu Berman 📷 San Francisco (@stuinsf)

Berman suggested looking for this rare phenomenon in a thin fog when the sun is bright. “You might see one when the sun breaks through a fog. Or watch for fogbows over the ocean,” he said.

The beautiful picture wowed most people who came across it, and the comments section was flooded with expressions of surprise and appreciation.