Pink fog descends over the UK: Brits are baffled by rare weather

Brits have been left baffled by a rare weather phenomenon that has turned the December skies a brilliant rose colour. 

‘Pink fog’ occurs when sunlight passes through fine material such as dust or moisture in the air, according to meteorologists at the Met Office. 

‘When the sunlight comes through lots of layers, it filters out the blue and scatters it, leaving the red to come through,’ said Met Office spokesman Graham Madge.

‘It’s effectively a sunrise filtered through the atmosphere and through the fog, giving it that pinkish hue.’ 

On social media, Brits posted their snaps of the spectacular sight, which has blanketed the sky in regions across the southeast of England. 

TikTok user @crazytailsuk insisted that their video clip had ‘no filter’ as the sky appeared as a brilliant Barbie-style shade. 

One person replied to say ‘it was soooo pink this morning in Hertfordshire’, while another wrote: ‘Sunrise pink fog…….. I would have been thrilled.’ 

Another TikToker joked that she was ‘up in the mountains’ and needed to be rescued as she walked down a residential street. 

According to Mr Madge, pink fog – effectively a sunrise filtered through the atmosphere – depends on local conditions and can be easily missed.  

One January morning last year, a ‘surreal’ pink fog hit parts of British Columbia in Canada, according to a CBC report. 

Darius Mahdavi, climate specialist and science communicator at the network, called pink fog ‘an incredibly rare phenomenon’. 

‘Sunlight has to pass through more layers of atmosphere – or in this case, the suspended water droplets that make up the fog,’ he said.

‘Some of the colours, especially the blues, [then] get scattered out, leaving the reds and oranges and pinks to reach your eyes.

‘But the conditions have to be just right and are near impossible to predict, so it’s really a matter of being in the right place at the right time.’ 

At the time, one Kelowna resident said it lasted somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes, rising up into the sky then coming down before dissipating into a normal grey. 

A pink fog previously covered parts of England’s southwest in February 2019, including Somerset and Shropshire. 

Mr Madge added that the spectacular sight would have likely been seen by a lucky few who were in the right place at the right time. 

‘It will depend on the local conditions, and those conditions were optimal for a few lucky people to have witnessed it,’ he told the Sun at the time. 

According to today’s outlook from the Met Office, London and the southeast endured a ‘foggy and frosty start’, colder than previous mornings recently.  

But freshening winds and increasing cloud cover through the morning are allowing the fog and frost to slowly clear.

There is, however, a chance of rain in the afternoon and this evening is set to be cloudy with the odd outbreak.

Rain and fog could cause flooding and travel disruption on Wednesday in parts of south Wales and south-western, central and eastern England. 

The Met Office said: ‘A period of rain, heavy at times, especially over high ground, will move slowly east across this region during Wednesday. 

‘Coming off the back of recent very wet weather, some travel disruption and flooding is likely across much of the warning area.’ 

Also this week, meteorologists have confirmed that it has been unseasonably warm in Britain in the lead-up to Christmas. 

In some parts of the country, temperatures have risen as high as 15°C (59°F), while conditions have rarely fallen below freezing. 

Jim Dale, senior meteorologist at British Weather Services and co–author of ‘Surviving Extreme Weather’, told Daily Mail that the UK is currently facing an unusually energetic jet stream.

This is the system of fast–moving air flowing about five to seven miles above the ground that steers weather fronts and low–pressure systems towards the UK.

Since November, Mr Dale says that the jet stream has been ‘more or less over us’, causing a wave of warm, wet, and windy weather.