Cruising to and from Alaska in September presents a wide variety of weather patterns. On one of my recent cruises, the last few days were warm but quite foggy in the afternoons. I usually took a walk around the deck before dinner, bringing my camera along “just in case.” I was hoping to capture a whale spouting or some other wildlife to photograph. However, on this particular day, I was stopped in my tracks when I saw a “ghostly rainbow” just off the deck. I had never seen anything like it before, and I felt it was worth photographing!
Later, I checked online and discovered that I had witnessed a unique meteorological phenomenon. A fog bow, or white rainbow, is similar to a rainbow; however, it appears as an arc in fog rather than in rain. Because the water droplets that cause fog are often smaller than 0.05 millimeters, the fog bow displays only weak colors, with a red outer edge and a bluish inner edge. The colors fade due to being smeared out by the diffraction effect of the droplets. When the sun is low in the sky, either in the early or late afternoon (as it was in my case), fog bows can occur if all the right conditions align.
Being “in the right place at the right time” was certainly true in this instance, and photographing this atmospheric light phenomenon has given me a deeper appreciation for nature’s wonders.
