A stunning phenomenon: Rare, red rainbow spotted in Finland

LOS ANGELES -- It’s likely that you have seen a rainbow in the sky. You may have even had the opportunity to see a double rainbow. But, what about a red rainbow? Impossible as it may seem, a red rainbow was recently sighted by a fisherman in Europe.

Aviv Junno, a fisherman in Finland, noticed the rainbow while fishing on his boat on Lake Paijanne — near Haukkasalo Island — over the weekend.

“I didn’t even realize it was special, but it was pretty creepy,” Junno said.

The 31-year-old shared the now-viral photo on Instagram. He captioned the photo “Red midnight rainbow.”

Junno said he has been a fisherman his entire life, but had never seen the phenomenon up until this point.

What makes a red rainbow?

Rainbows are common and occur when the sun shines through a rainstorm. Water droplets in the atmosphere act as a prism, which scatters light waves, and in turn creates the colorful arc you see in the sky.

But red rainbows are far less common.

According to EarthSky, red rainbows are usually captured outside when the sun is low in the horizon at sunrise or sunset.

Red rainbows use the same physics as a sunset, which also give off red and orange hues.

At dusk or dawn, when the sun is closer to the horizon, this causes waves of light to travel much further. Shorter wavelengths — which include the colors blue and green — are filtered and scattered out, leaving behind the red and orange colors.

Junno said the response to the photo has “been pretty crazy.”

“I hope it convinces my girlfriend to finally come fishing with me sometime,” Junno said.