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Who saw the double rainbow?
By adamg on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 5:45pm
Nancy checked in from the West Roxbury Parkway, says she saw a beautiful double rainbow: "Both were perfect beautiful arcs." Anybody else? Any photos?
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you sure it wasn't yesterday?
I saw a huge complete rainbow from the South End/Roxbury.Fuzzy pic up on my blog.
JP too
I put up JP/Woodbourne from yesterday as well.
Also Central Square!
You can mostly see the second rainbow up and to the left.
Is it me or is it darker
Is it me or is it darker above the rainbow and lighter below?
Not your imagination
This is an often observed effect that has to do with the way light is scattered by the water droplets creating the rainbow.
A rainbowy week
Definitely today, on her way back from dropping the kidlet off at dance class. She was so impressed by it she stopped by her favorite sub shop to let the owner know - then called me.
Priorities
It's good to know where you rate in her list. ;->
Yup - Thursday between 5, 5:30
my wife saw it from Fallon Field in Roslin.
I saw one over Boston when
I saw one over Boston when taking the Masspike eastbound towards the airport. At one point it looked like the rainbow was leaning against the John Hancock from my vantage point.
Both
We've had a bunch of rainbows lately. Yesterday's double rainbow appeared around 5:30 - just when many folks were picking up their kids from after-school at my daughter's elementary school. We convinced a couple reluctant grownups (and a few notably more enthusiastic kids) out front to see them. No one had a camera handy to take pictures though. Would have made a great photo for the school as they were arcing over the main entrance.
Saturday
On Saturday afternoon in Lowell I saw the only triple rainbow I've ever seen. Really faint outer band, screaming vibrant middle band and really faint inner band. And me without a camera.
Awesome!
And it's even better because technically what you describe was not a "triple rainbow" - but part of something even rarer - a 6th-order rainbow set!
When weather geeks use terms like "single" (or "primary" or "1st-order") to describe rainbows, they are talking about the number of times that light rays have bounced around inside the water droplets before emerging to form the effect of the rainbow in your eyes. A primary rainbow is caused by light rays that did one internal reflection before they bounced out of the droplets and traveled to your eye. Secondary (or 2nd order) rainbows are from light that bounced twice, etc.
Now when you have your back to the sun, the primary and secondary rainbows appear in front of you. The primary is the brightest and smaller, the secondary is larger and less than half as bright. But the 3rd and 4th order rainbows appear behind you (between you and the sun)! They're so faint (just a fraction as bright as the primary) and so close to the sun's glare that they're nearly always overlooked.
The 5th order rainbow appears connected to the outside rim of the secondary (and is wicked faint - you may have just assumed it was part of the secondary), and the 6th order rainbow appears really wicked faint and a bit inside the primary. So if you saw three unconnected arcs of color - "faint/bright/faint" - that means you were seeing secondary/primary/6th-order rainbows!
Of course all the above nerding doesn't take away the fact that you experienced something extremely rare and undoubtably beautiful! Amazing!
Photo of rainbow in Dorchester
Charles Swift forwarded this photo, which he took today at Washington Street and Morrissey Boulevard in Dorchester.
Saw it from Longwood Medical Area
Picture is up on my blog...heavily enhanced to bring it out. It doesn't even come close in comparison to that view from Dorchester, though.
Rainbows in Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury
Mike Ball took several photos of the rainbow over Jamaica Plain.
ParkwayBoston looked up on Manthorne Road by Hynes Field in West Roxbury:
These remind me of the one I
These remind me of the one I saw, it wasnt a full fledged rainbow, it kinda just hung in the air
Wednesday's rainbow, taken
Wednesday's rainbow, taken from the federal reserve building:
And did you race outside and follow it to the end?
Because how much more of a pointer to a pot of gold can you get? And in Southie, no less!
The treasury must be bankrupt!
If this is taken from the Federal Reserve building, then we know where the pot of gold is not, I guess.
double rainbow
You can see the double near the top right corner