Photographer Captures Stunning Shot of Rare White Rainbow Over Moor in Scotland

The phenomenon formed and disappeared within five minutes.

November 23, 2016, 11:40 AM
Photographer Melvin Nicholson captured a rare white 'fog bow' rainbow, in Rannoch, Scotland, Nov. 20, 2016.
Photographer Melvin Nicholson captured a rare white 'fog bow' rainbow, in Rannoch, Scotland, Nov. 20, 2016.
Melvin Nicholson/REX/Shutterstock

— -- A U.K.-based landscape photographer recently captured a stunning shot of a fogbow, a white rainbow, over a moor in western Scotland.

Melvin Nicholson told ABC News today that he captured the rare weather phenomenon this Sunday while he was exploring Rannoch Moor near the village of Glencoe.

"I had been out in the morning with a friend who said he knew of this beautiful tree, the one in the center of the photograph I took," said Nicholson, 44.

When they made it to the tree, he said, he noticed the area was "incredibly misty."

"Then the sun started to rise behind us, burning off the mist, and at that point, the fogbow appeared," Nicholson said. "I had never seen anything like it in my 10 years capturing landscape photos around the globe or even in my 44 years of life."

Within five minutes, the colorless rainbow disappeared, according to Nicholson.

"I knew I had captured something fairly special when I realized how transient it was," he said.

A fogbow is a "rainbow that has a white band that appears in fog and is fringed with red on the outside and blue on the inside," according to the National Weather Service.

The fogbow's "relative lack of colors" is caused by "relatively smaller water drops" than those of colored rainbows, according to NASA.