The mix of sunshine and rain on Monday evening provided a beautiful display of one of Mother Nature’s most stunning features… rainbows.
Double rainbows to be exact.
According to Wikipedia: “Secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops, and are centered on the sun itself. They are about 127° (violet) to 130° (red) wide. Since this is more than 90°, they are seen on the same side of the sky as the primary rainbow, about 10° above it at apparent angles of 50–53°.
As a result of the “inside” of the secondary bow being “up” to the observer, the colours appear reversed compared to the primary bow. The secondary rainbow is fainter than the primary because more light escapes from two reflections compared to one and because the rainbow itself is spread over a greater area of the sky.
Each rainbow reflects white light inside its coloured bands, but that is “down” for the primary and “up” for the secondary.[24] The dark area of unlit sky lying between the primary and secondary bows is called Alexander’s band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it.”
We managed to snap a few photos of the rainbows near Dresden on Monday:
Here are a few we spotted on social media from Wallaceburg:
Did you happen to snap a beautiful photo of the rainbows last night?
Please text them to 519-365-1079 or e-mail to aaron@sydehamcurrent.ca and we’ll add them to the story!
