I was near the lake when I spotted this rare rainbow fragment glowing in the clouds. There was no rain where I stood — just a patch of mist/rainfall over the hills that caught the low sunlight. Instead of a full arc, only this vertical slice of the rainbow lit up, making it look like a rainbow beam in the sky.
Minimum-Solid8064 on
That’s amazing! I didn’t know rainbows could show up without rain. It’s so rare to see something like that.
RooknBishop on
I saw the same damn thing today! First time I’ve ever seen such a thing.
CouplePlane8359 on
That looks like a sundog or some kind of atmospheric refraction, super cool catch!
heumpje on
But it is definitely raining over there. You don’t have to be in the rain to see a rainbow. Sunlight is reflected inside waterdroplets and the white light separates in colors because of the color dependent refraction in water. After reflection, white light comes out of the drop separated in colors and continues on its merry way.
For a rainbow to be visible, you need to be at a certain location relative to both the rain and the sun. The reason you see only a fraction of the rainbow is because the rain cloud was quite low and localized. Today was your day.
JhumkayBaddie on
That’s so beautiful omg I could keep staring at it for hours
6 Comments
I was near the lake when I spotted this rare rainbow fragment glowing in the clouds. There was no rain where I stood — just a patch of mist/rainfall over the hills that caught the low sunlight. Instead of a full arc, only this vertical slice of the rainbow lit up, making it look like a rainbow beam in the sky.
That’s amazing! I didn’t know rainbows could show up without rain. It’s so rare to see something like that.
I saw the same damn thing today! First time I’ve ever seen such a thing.
That looks like a sundog or some kind of atmospheric refraction, super cool catch!
But it is definitely raining over there. You don’t have to be in the rain to see a rainbow. Sunlight is reflected inside waterdroplets and the white light separates in colors because of the color dependent refraction in water. After reflection, white light comes out of the drop separated in colors and continues on its merry way.
For a rainbow to be visible, you need to be at a certain location relative to both the rain and the sun. The reason you see only a fraction of the rainbow is because the rain cloud was quite low and localized. Today was your day.
That’s so beautiful omg I could keep staring at it for hours