{"id":815351,"date":"2026-07-21T23:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815351\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T23:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T23:34:11","slug":"elusive-fogbow-photographed-at-cobar-western-nsw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815351\/","title":{"rendered":"Elusive fogbow photographed at Cobar, western NSW"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was no pot of gold at its end, but the appearance of a rare optical phenomenon allowed amateur photographer Marie Johnson to capture an image she will always treasure.<\/p>\n

The Cobar resident could not believe her luck when she spotted a white, fuzzy bow stretching across her western New South Wales property last week.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never seen one. Never, ever seen one in my life,” Ms Johnson said.<\/p>\n

“This is just sitting right on our farm; it was amazing.<\/p>\n

“I’ve wanted to get some photos of the fog in the background with the old house and \u2026 when I turned around, I went, ‘Oh my God, look at that.'”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Marie Johnson says she may never see the phenomenon again. (Supplied: Marie Johnson)<\/p>\n

At first she thought she had snapped a “big white rainbow”.<\/p>\n

“That’s why I took the photos and put them up [on social media],” she said.<\/p>\n

“Then a few other people came on and travellers, [and I learned] it’s called a fogbow.<\/p>\n

“I just thought, ‘Oh wow, that’s amazing.'”<\/p>\n

Ms Johnson said the fogbow faded away after about half an hour.<\/p>\n

Rainbow’s elusive cousin<\/p>\n

Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Jonathan Howe said fogbows were made up of fog droplets, which could be 1,000 times smaller than the rain droplets that generated rainbows.<\/p>\n

He said fogbows were uncommon in Australia.<\/p>\n

“We often see pictures of fog growth from Canada, Europe, northern Asia and that’s because of their position relative to the equator,” Mr Howe said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jonathan Howe says fogbows are created by a mix of conditions not usually associated with western NSW. (Supplied: Marie Johnson)<\/p>\n

Mr Howe said fogbows were unusual in warmer, drier areas such as western NSW.<\/p>\n

“Quite critically, it needs to be fog because mist droplets are quite large,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Fog in western NSW is probably not as common as the eastern parts of the state. So to see this at Cobar is quite impressive.<\/p>\n

“They are more likely in southern parts of the country and particularly in winter, and that’s because the sun is a little bit lower on the horizon.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A photographer captured this fogbow on a Queensland property in 2020. (Supplied: Kate Wall @katethelightchaser)<\/p>\n

Even more unusual are lunar fogbows, which occur at night.<\/p>\n

“They are incredibly rare,” Mr Howe said.<\/p>\n

“The moon needs to be at a very certain angle, and there needs to be \u2026 no clouds in the sky.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was no pot of gold at its end, but the appearance of a rare optical phenomenon allowed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,390703,6884,134,390707,390701,390704,390702,390706,390705,390708],"class_list":["post-815351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bom-fog-bow","tag-bureau-of-meteorology","tag-entertainment","tag-fogbow","tag-glen-hope-bush-camp","tag-lunar-fog-bow","tag-marie-johnson","tag-rainbows","tag-rare-weather-phenomenon-captured-in-western-nsw","tag-what-is-a-fogbow"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}