Rare rainbow cloud impresses small town in Western Australia

Stunning photos have captured a rarely seen ‘rainbow cloud’ over a small farming community.

The colorful cloud appeared over Goomalling, about 130 km northwest of Perth in Western Australia, on Tuesday morning.

Jenni Shaw, a local resident of Goomalling, said everyone was ‘awed’ by the incredible spectacle.

“It was beautiful,” she told ABC News.

The clouds themselves are not rare, but they appear and disappear so quickly that they are rarely photographed

“But we were kind of like, ‘Why is that? Should we still look outside or not?’

The incredible sight on an otherwise clear, sunny day proved that if you want the rainbow, you don’t necessarily have to put up with the rain.

Rainbow clouds, more commonly known as iridescent clouds, form when tiny water droplets or tiny ice crystals scatter the sun’s light through a process called diffraction.

Although the clouds themselves are not too rare, they are difficult to spot and photograph because they usually last for a very short time or appear very high in the sky.

This amazing natural phenomenon was observed over Goomalling, about 130 kilometers northwest of Perth

The happy locals said it was not the first time they had seen the unusual clouds in the area.

“I’ve seen clouds like this a few times in my travels, mostly in the Wheatbelt,” Jill Lefroy wrote on Facebook.

‘Pretty amazing to see a rainbow without rain!’