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I was at Lake Powell last Monday night August 7th and saw a beautiful "Moon bow", I just returned from vacation and was wondering if you have any viewers that got a picture of it?
Do you think you could help or do you know how often these occur around here?
Laurie C.
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You saw a rare event for sure! Moonbows don't happen that often. Like rainbows, moonbows form from the reflection of light on water droplets outside. Moonlight isn't very bright so you need a very bright or almost full moon to get one.
Like rainbows, moonbows can have colors in them! The moon has to be less than 42 degrees high. Just like a rainbow, the moon has to be at your back to see the bow and raindrops scatter the light into its separate colors. Because of the low light conditions though, sometimes moon bows can just look white or colorless, our eyes don't do well in those low light conditions.
Moonbows are different from fogbows or halos and are very rare to witness. We didn't get any photos of this one on from our viewers but check the link to the right and you'll see some incredible photographs and more explanation on this neat weather phenomena.
Also on the right, is a link to a new weather webpage called weatheroutreach.org. It was made by a PhD student here at the U of U. While there's no info on moonbows, there's a ton of information on other weather features you might find interesting.
Answered by KSL Meteorologist Dina Freedman.
