RAINBOW

What is a rainbow?
Author Donald Ahrens in his text Meteorology Today describes a rainbow as "one of the most
spectacular light shows observed on earth". Indeed the traditional rainbow is sunlight spread
out into its spectrum of colors and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets. The
"bow" part of the word describes the fact that the rainbow is a group of nearly circular arcs of
color all having a common center.

Where is the sun when you see a rainbow?

Most people have never noticed that the sun is always behind you when you face a rainbow,
and that the center of the circular arc of the rainbow is in the direction opposite to that of the
sun. The rain, of course, is in the direction of the rainbow.

What makes the bow?

We will discuss the formation of a rainbow by raindrops. It is a problem in optics that was
first clearly discussed by Rene Descartes in 1637. An interesting historical account of this is
to be found in Carl Boyer's book, The Rainbow From Myth to Mathematics. Descartes
simplified the study of the rainbow by reducing it to a study of one water droplet and how it
interacts with light falling upon it.

He writes:"Considering that this bow appears not only in the sky, but also in the air
near us, whenever there are drops of water illuminated by the sun, as we can see in certain
fountains, I readily decided that it arose only from the way in which the rays of light act on
these drops and pass from them to our eyes. Further, knowing that the drops are round, as
has been formerly proved, and seeing that whether they are larger or smaller, the
appearance of the bow is not changed in any way, I had the idea of making a very large one,
so that I could examine it better.

What makes the colors in the rainbow?

The traditional description of the rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors - red, orange,
yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Actually, the rainbow is a whole continuum of colors
from red to violet and even beyond the colors that the eye can see.
The colors of the rainbow arise from two basic facts:

 Sunlight is made up of the whole range of colors that the eye can detect. The range of
sunlight colors, when combined, looks white to the eye. This property of sunlight was
first demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666.
 Light of different colors is refracted by different amounts when it passes from one
medium (air, for example) into another (water or glass, for example).

Descartes and Willebrord Snell had determined how a ray of light is bent, or refracted, as it
traverses regions of different densities, such as air and water. When the light paths through a
raindrop are traced for red and blue light, one finds that the angle of deviation is different for
the two colors because blue light is bent or refracted more than is the red light.

This implies that when we see a rainbow and its

band of colors we are looking at light refracted and
reflected from different raindrops, some viewed at
an angle of 42 degrees; some, at an angle of 40
degrees, and some in between. This is illustrated in
this drawing, adapted from Johnson's Physical
Meteorology. This rainbow of two colors would have
a width of almost 2 degrees (about four times larger
than the angular size as the full moon). Note that
even though blue light is refracted more than red
light in a single drop, we see the blue light on the
inner part of the arc because we are looking along a
different line of sight that has a smaller angle (40
degrees) for the blue.

What makes a double rainbow?

Sometimes we see two rainbows at once, what causes this? We have followed the path of a
ray of sunlight as it enters and is reflected inside the raindrop. But not all of the energy of the
ray escapes the raindrop after it is reflected once. A part of the ray is reflected again and
travels along inside the drop to emerge from the drop. The rainbow we normally see is called
the primary rainbow and is produced by one internal reflection; the secondary rainbow
arises from two internal reflections and the rays exit the drop at an angle of 50 degrees° rather
than the 42°degrees for the red primary bow. Blue light emerges at an even larger angle of 53
degrees°. his effect produces a secondary rainbow that has its colors reversed compared to the
primary, as illustrated in the drawing, adapted from the Science Universe Series Sight, Light,
and Color.

It is possible for light to be reflected more than twice within a raindrop, and one can calculate
where the higher order rainbows might be seen; but these are never seen in normal
circumstances.
Why is the sky brighter inside a rainbow?

Notice the contrast between the sky inside the arc and outside it. When one studies the
refraction of sunlight on a raindrop one finds that there are many rays emerging at angles
smaller than the rainbow ray, but essentially no light from single internal reflections at angles
greater than this ray. Thus there is a lot of light within the bow, and very little beyond it.
Because this light is a mix of all the rainbow colors, it is white. In the case of the secondary
rainbow, the rainbow ray is the smallest angle and there are many rays emerging at angles
greater than this one. Therefore the two bows combine to define a dark region between them -
called Alexander's Dark Band, in honor of Alexander of Aphrodisias who discussed it some
1800 years ago!

What are Supernumerary Arcs?

In some rainbows, faint arcs just inside and near the top of the primary bow can be seen.
These are called supernumerary arcs and were explained by Thomas Young in 1804 as
arising from the interference of light along certain rays within the drop. Young's work had a
profound influence on theories of the physical nature of light and his studies of the rainbow
were a fundamental element of this. Young interpreted light in terms of it being a wave of
some sort and that when two rays are scattered in the same direction within a raindrop, they
may interfere with each other. Depending on how the rays mesh together, the interference can
be constructive, in which case the rays produce a brightening, or destructive, in which case
there is a reduction in brightness. This phenomenon is clearly described in Nussenzveig's
article "The Theory of the Rainbow" in which he writes: "At angles very close to the rainbow
angle the two paths through the droplet differ only slightly, and so the two rays interfere
constructively. As the angle increases, the two rays follow paths of substantially different
lengths. When the difference equals half of the wavelength, the interference is completely
destructive; at still greater angles the beams reinforce again. The result is a periodic
variation in the intensity of the scattered light, a series of alternately bright and dark bands."

Mikolaj and Pawel Sawicki have posted several beautiful photographs of rainbows showing
these arcs.

The "purity" of the colors of the rainbow depends on the size of the raindrops. Large drops
(diameters of a few millimeters) give bright rainbows with well defined colors; small droplets
(diameters of about 0.01 mm) produce rainbows of overlapping colors that appear nearly
white. And remember that the models that predict a rainbow arc all assume spherical shapes
for raindrops.

There is never a single size for water drops in rain but a mixture of many sizes and shapes.
This results in a composite rainbow. Raindrops generally don't "grow" to radii larger than
about 0.5 cm without breaking up because of collisions with other raindrops, although
occasionally drops a few millimeters larger in radius have been observed when there are very
few drops (and so few collisions between the drops) in a rainstorm. Bill Livingston suggests:
" If you are brave enough, look up during a thunder shower at the falling drops. Some may hit
your eye (or glasses), but this is not fatal. You will actually see that the drops are distorted
and are oscillating."
It is the surface tension of water that moulds raindrops into spherical shapes, if no other
forces are acting on them. But as a drop falls in the air, the 'drag' causes a distortion in its
shape, making it somewhat flattened. Deviations from a spherical shape have been measured
by suspending drops in the air stream of a vertical wind tunnel (Pruppacher and Beard, 1970,
and Pruppacher and Pitter, 1971). Small drops of radius less than 140 microns (0.014 cm)
remain spherical, but as the size of the drop increases, the flattening becomes noticeable. For
drops with a radius near 0.14 cm, the height/width ratio is 0.85. This flattening increases for
larger drops.

Spherical drops produce symmetrical rainbows, but rainbows seen when the sun is near the
horizon are often observed to be brighter at their sides, the vertical part, than at their top.
Alistair Fraser has explained this phenomenon as resulting from the complex mixture of size
and shape of the raindrops. The reflection and refraction of light from a flattened water
droplet is not symmetrical. For a flattened drop, some of the rainbow ray is lost at top and
bottom of the drop. Therefore, we see the rays from these flattened drops only as we view
them horizontally; thus the rainbow produced by the large drops is is bright at its base. Near
the top of the arc only small spherical drops produce the fainter rainbow.

What does a rainbow look like through dark glasses?

This is a "trick" question because the answer depends on whether or not your glasses are
Polaroid. When light is reflected at certain angles it becomes polarized (discussed again quite
well in Nussenzveig's article), and it has been found that the rainbow angle is close to that
angle of reflection at which incident, unpolarized light (sunlight) is almost completely
polarized. So if you look at a rainbow with Polaroid sunglasses and rotate the lenses around
the line of sight, part of the rainbow will disappear!

Other Questions about the Rainbow

Humphreys (Physics of the Air, p. 478) discusses several "popular" questions about the
rainbow:

 "What is the rainbow's distance?" It is nearby or far away, according to where the
raindrops are, extending from the closest to the farthest illuminated drops along the
elements of the rainbow cone.
 Why is the rainbow so frequently seen during summer and so seldom during winter?"
To see a rainbow, one has to have rain and sunshine. In the winter, water droplets
freeze into ice particles that do not produce a rainbow but scatter light in other very
interesting patterns.
 "Why are rainbows so rarely seen at noon?" Remember that the center of the
rainbow's circle is opposite the sun so that it is as far below the level of the observer
as the sun is above it.
 "Do two people ever see the same rainbow?" Humphreys points out that "since the
rainbow is a special distribution of colors (produced in a particular way) with
reference to a definite point - the eye of the observer - and as no single distribution
can be the same for two separate points, it follows that two observers do not, and
cannot, see the same rainbow." In fact, each eye sees its own rainbow!!
Of course, a camera lens will record an image of a rainbow which can then be seen
my many people! (thanks to Tom and Rachel Ludovise for pointing this out!)
  "Can the same rainbow be seen by reflection as seen directly?" On the basis of the
arguments given in the preceding question, bows appropriate for two different points
are produced by different drops; hence, a bow seen by reflection is not the same as the
one seen directly".

What are Reflection Rainbows?

A reflection rainbow is defined as one produced by the reflection of the source of incident
light (usually the sun). Photographs of them are perhaps the most impressive of rainbow
photographs. The reflected rainbow may be considered as a combination of two rainbows
produced by sunlight coming from two different directions - one directly from the sun, the
other from the reflected image of the sun. The angles are quite different and therefore the
elevation of the rainbow arcs will be correspondingly different. This is illustrated in a
diagram adapted from Greenler"s Rainbows, Halos, and Glories. The rainbow produced by
sunlight reflected from the water is higher in the sky than is the one produced by direct
sunlight.

What is a Lunar Rainbow?

A full moon is bright enough to have its light refracted by raindrops just as is the case for the
sun. Moonlight is much fainter, of course, so the lunar rainbow is not nearly as bright as one
produced by sunlight. Lunar rainbows have infrequently been observed since the time of
Aristotle or before. A graphic description of one was writen by Dr. Mikkelson.

Rainbows and Proverbs

There is a delightful book by Humphreys entitled Weather Proverbs and Paradoxes. In it, he
discusses the meteorological justifications of some proverbs associated with rainbows, such
as "Rainbow at night, shepherd's delight;Rainbow in morning, shepherds take warning,"If
there be a rainbow in the eve,It will rain and leave; But if there be a rainbow in the morrow It
will neither lend nor borrow", and Rainbow to windward, foul fall the day; Rainbow to
leeward, damp runs away."

The meteorological discussion Humphreys presents is appropriate for the northern temperate
zones that have a prevailing wind, and also for a normal diurnal change in the weather.
 RAINBOW

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection of light

in water droplets in the Earth's atmosphere, resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the
sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc.
Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun.

In a "primary rainbow", the arc shows red on the outer part and violet on the inner side. This
rainbow is caused by light being refracted while entering a droplet of water, then reflected
inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it.

In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its
colours reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is
caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets

The rainbow is not located at a specific distance, but comes from any water droplets viewed
from a certain angle relative to the Sun's rays. Thus, a rainbow is not a physical object, and
cannot be physically approached. Indeed, it is impossible for an observer to manoeuvre to see
any rainbow from water droplets at any angle other than the customary one of 42 degrees
from the direction opposite the Sun. Even if an observer sees another observer who seems
"under" or "at the end" of a rainbow, the second observer will see a different rainbow further
off-yet, at the same angle as seen by the first observer.

A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours. Any distinct bands perceived are an
artefact of human colour vision, and no banding of any type is seen in a black-and-white
photo of a rainbow, only a smooth gradation of intensity to a maximum, then fading towards
the other side. For colours seen by a normal human eye, the most commonly cited and
remembered sequence is Newton's sevenfold red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and
violet.

Rainbows can be caused by many forms of airborne water. These include not only rain, but
also mist, spray, and airborne dew.

Rainbows can form in mist, such as that of a waterfall

Rainbow with a faint reflected rainbow in the lake

 Rainbows may form in the spray created by waves (called
spray bows)

Rainbow after sunlight bursts through after an intense

shower in Maraetai, New Zealand

Circular rainbow seen while skydiving over Rochelle, Illinois

Visibility
Rainbows can be observed whenever there are water drops
in the air and sunlight shining from behind at a low altitude
angle. The most spectacular rainbow displays happen when
half the sky is still dark with raining clouds and the
observer is at a spot with clear sky in the direction of the
sun. The result is a luminous rainbow that contrasts with the
darkened background.

The rainbow effect is also commonly seen near waterfalls

or fountains. In addition, the effect can be artificially
created by dispersing water droplets into the air during a
sunny day. Rarely, a moonbow, lunar rainbow or nighttime
rainbow, can be seen on strongly moonlit nights. As human
visual perception for colour is poor in low light, moonbows
are often perceived to be white.[1] It is difficult to
photograph the complete semicircle of a rainbow in one
frame, as this would require an angle of view of 84°. For a
35 mm camera, a lens with a focal length of 19 mm or less
wide-angle lens would be required. Now that powerful
software for stitching several images into a panorama is available, images of the entire arc
and even secondary arcs can be created fairly easily from a series of overlapping frames.
From an aeroplane, one has the opportunity to see the whole circle of the rainbow, with the
plane's shadow in the centre. This phenomenon can be confused with the glory, but a glory is
usually much smaller, covering only 5–20°.
At good visibility conditions (for example, a dark cloud behind the rainbow), the second arc
can be seen, with inverse order of colours. At the background of the blue sky, the second arc
is barely visible.

Number of colours in spectrum or rainbow

A spectrum obtained using a glass prism and a point source, is a continuum of wavelengths
without bands. The number of colours that the human eye is able to distinguish in a spectrum
is in the order of 100.[2] Accordingly, the Munsell colour system (a 20th century system for
numerically describing colours, based on equal steps for human visual perception)
distinguishes 100 hues. However, the human brain tends to divide them into a small number
of primary colours. The apparent discreteness of primary colours is an artefact of the human
brain. Newton originally (1672) divided the spectrum in five primary colours: red, yellow,
green, blue and violet. Later he included orange and indigo, giving seven primary colours by
analogy to the number of notes in a musical scale.[3] The Munsell colour system removed
orange and indigo again, and returned to five primary colours. The exact number of primary
colours for humans is a somewhat arbitrary choice.

Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet

Newton's primary
colours

Rainbow (middle: real, bottom: computed) compared to true

spectrum (top): unsaturated colours and different colour
profile

The colour pattern of a rainbow is different from a spectrum, and the colours are less
saturated. There is spectral smearing in a rainbow due to the fact that for any particular
wavelength, there is a distribution of exit angles, rather than a single unvarying angle. In
addition, a rainbow is a blurred version of the bow obtained from a point source, because the
disk diameter of the sun (0.5°) cannot be neglected compared to the width of a rainbow (2°).
The number of colour bands of a rainbow may therefore be different from the number of
bands in a spectrum, especially if the droplets are either large or small. Therefore, the number
of colours of a rainbow is variable. If, however, the word rainbow is used inaccurately to
mean spectrum, it is the number of primary colours in the spectrum.
Explanation
Light rays enter a raindrop from one direction (typically a
straight line from the Sun), reflect off the back of the raindrop,
and fan out as they leave the raindrop. The light leaving the
rainbow is spread over a wide angle, with a maximum intensity
at 40.89–42°.

White light separates into different colours on entering the raindrop due to dispersion, causing red
light to be refracted less than blue light.

The light is first refracted entering the surface of the

raindrop, reflected off the back of the drop, and again
refracted as it leaves the drop. The overall effect is that
the incoming light is reflected back over a wide range of
angles, with the most intense light at an angle of 40–42°.
The angle is independent of the size of the drop, but does
depend on its refractive index. Seawater has a higher
refractive index than rain water, so the radius of a
"rainbow" in sea spray is smaller than a true rainbow.
This is visible to the naked eye by a misalignment of
these bows.

The amount by which light is refracted depends upon its wavelength, and hence its colour.
This effect is called dispersion. Blue light (shorter wavelength) is refracted at a greater angle
than red light, but due to the reflection of light rays from the back of the droplet, the blue
light emerges from the droplet at a smaller angle to the original incident white light ray than
the red light. Due to this angle, blue is seen on the inside of the arc of the primary rainbow,
and red on the outside.

The light at the back of the raindrop does not undergo total internal reflection, and some light
does emerge from the back. However, light coming out the back of the raindrop does not
create a rainbow between the observer and the Sun because spectra emitted from the back of
the raindrop do not have a maximum of intensity, as the other visible rainbows do, and thus
the colours blend together rather than forming a rainbow.[6]

A rainbow does not actually exist at a particular location in the sky. Its apparent position
depends on the observer's location and the position of the Sun. All raindrops refract and
reflect the sunlight in the same way, but only the light from some raindrops reaches the
observer's eye. This light is what constitutes the rainbow for that observer. The bow is
centred on the shadow of the observer's head, or more exactly at the antisolar point (which is
below the horizon during the daytime), and forms a circle at an angle of 40–42° to the line
between the observer's head and its shadow. As a result, if the Sun is higher than 42°, then the
rainbow is below the horizon and usually cannot be seen as there are not usually sufficient
raindrops between the horizon (that is: eye height) and the ground, to contribute. Exceptions
occur when the observer is high above the ground, for example in an aeroplane (see above),
on top of a mountain, or above a waterfall.

Variations
Secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops, and
appear at an angle of 50–53°. As a result of the second reflection, the colours of a secondary
rainbow are inverted compared to the primary bow, with blue on the outside and red on the
inside. 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. 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.

A double rainbow features reversed colours in the outer

(secondary) bow, with the dark Alexander's band between
the bows.

Twinned rainbow

Unlike a double rainbow which consists of two separate

and concentric rainbow arcs, the very rare twinned
rainbow appears as two rainbow arcs that split from a
single base. The colours in the second bow, rather than
reversing as in a double rainbow, appear in the same
order as the primary rainbow. It is sometimes even
observed in combination with a double rainbow. The
explanation for a twinned rainbow is the combination of
different sizes of water drops falling from the sky. Due
to air resistance raindrops flatten as they fall and flattening is more prominent in larger water
drops. When two rain showers with different sized raindrops combine they each produce
slightly different rainbows which may combine and form a twinned rainbow.

Until recently scientists could only make an educated guess as to the reason that a twinned
rainbow does appear, though extremely rarely. It was thought that most probably non-
spherical raindrops produced one or both bows with surface tension forces keeping small
raindrops spherical while large drops were flattened by air resistance or that they might even
oscillate between flattened and elongated spheroids. However, in 2012 a new technique was
used to simulate rainbows that enabled the accurate simulation of non-spherical particles.
Besides twinned rainbows, it can also be used to simulate many different rainbow phenomena
including double rainbows and supernumerary bows.

Tertiary and quaternary rainbows

In addition to the primary and secondary rainbows which can be seen in a direction opposite
to the sun, it is also possible (but very rare) to see two faint rainbows in the direction of the
sun. These are the tertiary and quaternary rainbows, formed by light that has reflected three
or four times within the rain drops, at about 40° from the sun (for tertiary rainbows) and 45°
(quaternary). It is difficult to see these types of rainbows with the naked eye because of the
sun's glare, but they have been photographed; definitive observations of these phenomena
were not published until 2011.

Higher-order Rainbows

Higher-order rainbows were described by Felix Billet (1808–1882) who depicted angular
positions up to the 19th-order rainbow, a pattern he called a "rose of rainbows".[13][14] In the
laboratory, it is possible to observe higher-order rainbows by using extremely bright and well
collimated light produced by lasers. Up to the 200th-order rainbow was reported by Ng et al.
in 1998 using a similar method but an argon ion laser beam.[15]

Supernumerary rainbow
Contrast-enhanced photograph of a supernumerary rainbow,
with additional green and violet arcs inside the primary bow.

A supernumerary rainbow—also known as a stacker

rainbow—is an infrequent phenomenon, consisting of
several faint rainbows on the inner side of the primary
rainbow, and very rarely also outside the secondary
rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are slightly detached
and have pastel colour bands that do not fit the usual
pattern.

It is not possible to explain their existence using classical geometric optics. The alternating
faint rainbows are caused by interference between rays of light following slightly different
paths with slightly varying lengths within the raindrops. Some rays are in phase, reinforcing
each other through constructive interference, creating a bright band; others are out of phase
by up to half a wavelength, cancelling each other out through destructive interference, and
creating a gap. Given the different angles of refraction for rays of different colours, the
patterns of interference are slightly different for rays of different colours, so each bright band
is differentiated in colour, creating a miniature rainbow. Supernumerary rainbows are clearest
when raindrops are small and of similar size. The very existence of supernumerary rainbows
was historically a first indication of the wave nature of light, and the first explanation was
provided by Thomas Young in 1804.[16]

Reflected rainbow, reflection rainbow

Reflection rainbow and normal rainbow, at sunset

When a rainbow appears above a body of water, two

complementary mirror bows may be seen below and above the
horizon, originating from different light paths. Their names are
slightly different.

A reflected rainbow may appear in the water surface below the

horizon (see photo above). The sunlight is first deflected by the
raindrops, and then reflected off the body of water, before
reaching the observer. The reflected rainbow is frequently
visible, at least partially, even in small puddles.
A reflection rainbow may be produced where sunlight reflects off a body of water before
reaching the raindrops (see diagram and photo at the right), if the water body is large, quiet
over its entire surface, and close to the rain curtain. The reflection rainbow appears above the
horizon. It intersects the normal rainbow at the horizon, and its arc reaches higher in the sky,
with its centre as high above the horizon as the normal rainbow's centre is below it. Due to
the combination of requirements, a reflection rainbow is rarely visible.

Six (or even eight) bows may be distinguished if the reflection of the reflection bow, and the
secondary bow with its reflections happen to appear simultaneously.

Monochrome rainbow
Unenhanced photo of a red (monochrome) rainbow.

Occasionally a shower may happen at sunrise or sunset,

where the shorter wavelengths like blue and green have
been scattered and essentially removed from the
spectrum. Further scattering may occur due to the rain,
and the result can be the rare and dramatic monochrome
rainbow.

Rainbows under moonlight

Spray moonbow at the Lower Yosemite Fall

Moonbows are often perceived as white and may be thought

of as monochrome. The full spectrum is present but our
eyes are not normally sensitive enough to see the colours.
So these are also classified (on the basis of how we see
them) into seven coloured rainbow, three coloured rainbow
and monochrome rainbow. Long exposure photographs will
sometimes show the colour in this type of rainbow.

Fogbow
Fogbow and glory

Fogbows form in the same way as rainbows, but they are

formed by much smaller cloud and fog droplets which
diffract light extensively. They are almost white with
faint reds on the outside and blues inside. The colours are
dim because the bow in each colour is very broad and the
colours overlap. Fogbows are commonly seen over water
when air in conta[ct with the cooler water is chilled, but
they can be found anywhere if the fog is thin enough for
the sun to shine through and the sun is fairly bright. They
are very large—almost as big as a rainbow and much broader. They sometimes appear with a
glory at the bow's centre