The weather has been miserable recently - one big Atlantic storm after another. We got the edge of the awful pre-Christmas storm that battered the south. There were high winds and a lot of rain. If you enlarge the picture you'll see the prominent white water in the waterfall on this outlier of Wetherlam at Coniston. It got me thinking: why is turbulent water white? The water is full of bubbles and split into lots of drops. There are many reflecting surfaces and light is reflected in many directions, a form of scattering. White means that all colours are being reflected equally in our direction. This is a sketch of an answer - what I've been thinking about the issue.
