A rare flat rainbow appeared off the coast of Devon, England after a storm recently swept through the area.
The incredible scene was discovered by residents in Torbay, Devon, along with record wind gusts of more than 128 km/h and heavy, chaotic rain across the UK.
Images circulating on social media captured on Paignton beach show a beautiful spectrum of colours appearing across the sea creating a unique phenomenon.
A rare flat rainbow occurs when sunlight passes through microscopic water droplets that are shot up from the ocean surface, creating a phenomenon of refraction and reflection, revealing many brilliant colors.
From a distance, the scene above looks like a multi-colored mist overlapping each other.
“It appears that the strong winds from Storm Francis have lifted the spray off the ocean surface. The same processes that occur in a normal rainbow occur. Tiny water droplets reflect, refract and scatter the sunlight, creating a range of brilliant colours,” said a spokesman for the Net Office weather forecasting agency.
However, this is a spray of water rising from the sea, so the rainbow does not have the usual curved shape but is flatter. The scene on the sea is like a rainbow mist with overlapping bands of color. A local said: “It was raining when we got to the pier, there were no clouds.”
Even though Hurricane Francis has passed, forecasters are predicting continued rain and strong winds. “Now that Hurricane Francis has passed, the weather should improve over the next few days, but slowly,” said forecaster Craig Snell.
Similar phenomena occurred in Bristol, England in March 2017 and in Paris, France in 2013 after heavy rains hit both cities. But in both cases, the resulting rainbows were still slightly curved compared to the flat ones seen in Torbay.
A rainbow is a phenomenon of light from the Sun being refracted and reflected by water droplets. A natural rainbow is made up of six colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. The intensity of each color can vary depending on atmospheric conditions and the time of day.
The shape of the rainbow is also different, normally the rainbow will appear curved, but under certain conditions, it transforms into a flat rainbow, a round rainbow, a fire rainbow, a double rainbow…
