When Oregon Coast Whales Spout Rainbows - Yes, It's a Thing

Published 03/22/26 at 6:55 a.m.
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff

(Newport, Oregon) – There's something whales off the Oregon coast and Washington coast have in common with unicorns. Even the common gray whale. In fact, that's the one you're more likely to see in this way. (Photo Jacklyn Larsen Photography )

Whales can spout rainbows. Yes, unicorns actually either poop out rainbows or they shoot them out of their horns (yes, we kid). Whales, however, shoot them out of their blowholes.

Except that it's much more complex than that. And it's super rare to see or photograph. Yet it turns out photos of gray whales spouting rainbows along the Oregon coast do exist, though they're almost as hard to find as unicorns.

Leigh Torres is a whale research scientist, and a professor with the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, OSU and the Marine Mammal Institute – among other titles. She provided this shot of a rainbow-exuding whale on the area's ocean, taken by the GEMM Lab, Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University.

She told Oregon Coast Beach Connection scientists call them “rainblows.”

Off Newport: courtesy GEMM Lab, Marine Mammal Institute, Oregon State University

Torres and other researchers put together an amazing site about Oregon whales called IndividuWhale.com, which documents closely many of the grays along our coastline. It's an eye-popping look at their personalities and histories – like a whale tell-all. Yet it also shows the challenges the species faces in the Earth's oceans with underwater noise, boat run-ins, fishing gear, warming oceans and more.

That shot on its own is amazing, but the central Oregon coast's Jacklyn Larsen has snagged some of her own. These were photographed from Heceta Head near Florence.

Photo Jacklyn Larsen Photograph from Heceta Head

Catching these definitely brought to mind something Harry Potter-esque.

“While I always find it exciting to see whales here on the Oregon coast, there is something magical about seeing them surface and appearing to spout rainbows in their blow,” Larsen said.

How do whale rainbow spouts happen?

First: What is a whale's spout?

Also known as a blow, it's a cloud of condensed water vapor that happens when the whale exhales, according to NOAA.

Whales only breathe every once in awhile, but when they do it's a lot of air gushing outward at once. This air is warmer than the ocean, so it's quite damp and full of droplets as it fires up. Then they fill back up, and either dive down for awhile or surface now and then to breathe again. This mechanism is more like a giant nose and mouth all at the same time, at least when it comes to breathing.

If you're really lucky, you may get to experience a gray whale spouting through its blowhole. This sometimes happens if they're really close to shore, and there's nothing quite like being within a few hundred feet of these lovely behemoths and hearing the giant hiss of air and water.

Photo Jacklyn Larsen Photograph from Heceta Head

Each species of whale has a different kind of spout. A gray whale reaches up to 15 feet high and is visible about five seconds. Grays dive for three to six minutes, then re-emerge to blow maybe three to five times. It is spectacular.

So how are rainbows formed in a whale spout?

It's pretty much the same action as regular rainbows – and it really depends where the viewer is. Someone 100 feet from you may not see the whale rainblow at all, just as rainbows change and fade in and out depending upon where you are.

According to National Weather Service (NWS), a rainbow comes together when sunlight and certain atmospheric conditions align. It's all about refracting – the bending of light – as light hits a water droplet and then is bent and slowed down. As it does so, it separates the light wavelengths and shoots them out into narrow bands of greens, reds, yellows, etc., all the colors that make up white light.

NWS said rainbows don't really exist in one place. They aren't a “thing.” They are a kind of optical effect, depending on where you are in relation to those droplets.

“A rainbow requires water droplets to be floating in the air. That’s why we see them right after it rains. The Sun must be behind you and the clouds cleared away from the Sun for the rainbow to appear,” the NWS said.

Thus, when a whale fires water up into the air as it's breathing, that runs the chance of catching light and creating a rainbow.

One thing to note: since the sun must be behind you, here on the Oregon coast or Washington coast that means it's got to be morning hours for the light to hit a whale and its spout. If you're on one of those whale watching tours along the coast, you run a better chance of having the sun behind you to the west in the later hours as you encounter of these watery beasts.

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