HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A FOGBOW?

                                 HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A FOGBOW?

In The Book of  EZEKIAL Chapter 1 verse 28 in THE HOLY BIBLE we read: "As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. and when I saw it I fell upon my face and I heard a voice of one that spoke."

In another book of THE HOLY BIBLE, in THE REVELATION of St. John The Divine Chapter 4 verse 3 it says: ".....and there was a rainbow around the throne, in sight like unto an emerald in appearance."

I have always been interested in and excited by the sight of a rainbow. One of the most renowned poets of all time, the Englishman William Wordsworth, (1770-1850) whose poems "speak his love for nature and its beauty" wrote in a short, simple poem: "My heart leaps up" - he is filled with joy - "when I behold a rainbow in the sky," 

A few days ago I came across an article that introduced me to something I had never heard of before - something that appears in places as far apart as New Zealand, Australia, Finland, Scotland, New Mexico, the USA, Canada and Zimbabwe. The "something" is called a Fogbow.

I read on the EarthSky website: "Fogbows or white rainbows always appear opposite the sun. Watch for them 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."

The descriptions of the "fogbows" were fascinating. A person in San Diego, USA described how, in 2012, the skies were sunny and clear "and then the fog rolled in and with it this beautiful fogbow."

That same month, someone in New South Wales, Australia, on the other side of the globe, saw a fogbow over a barren field. The following year, 2013, another person in cold Finland said a fogbow appeared as winds blew over a lake in that country.

For someone in the USA in 2016, it was a first time experience, as a fogbow appeared in Jonesport, Maine, USA. In 2018 someone saw a Fogbow in Scotland.

"Because the water droplets in fog are so small, fogbows have only weak colors or are colorless."

On the website Atmospheric Optics we read:"The tiny water droplets of cloud mists and fogs produce strange optical effects, they are mostly ringed and mostly brightly colored. "Rays" have little meaning in this domian where water droplets are so small that wave diffraction and interference dominate over classical journeys of light along straight lines."

"Fogbows form in the same way as rainbows. A small fraction of the light entering droplets is internally reflected once and emerges to form a large circle opposite the sun. Fogbows are formed by much smaller cloud and fog droplets which diffract light extensively."

Earth Sky  says: "Fogbows are huge, almost as large as a rainbow and much, much broader."

                                                ===000===