Evening rainbow, Black Hills, USA
Rainbows
| All rainbows are beautiful, but very few of them are bright
enough to look good on photos. Here are some of the best (or unusual) rainbows
I have seen. |
Double rainbow,
Badlands Nat. Park, USA |
Crow Indians called the Great Plains "the country
of big sky". It is one of the World's best places to watch thunderstorms
and rainbows. I took this picture few minutes after a very strong June
thunderstorm (HP supercell) with lots of rain, hail and wind. There were
no tornadoes, but after the cloud had passed, I was awarded with such a
beautiful sight. |
| Rainbows are less common in tropics, because
the sun is too high overhead most of time. Still, if you are in the mountains,
you sometimes can see the rainbow by looking downhill. This unusually bright
rainbow was visible for almost an hour during winter shower. |
Winter rainbow, Oahu, Hawaii |
Small rainbow,
Carretera Austral, Chilie |
South from the tropical latitudes, rainbows
become common again. This tiny one appeared after a spring snow/rainstorm
in Southern Chilie. It was only visible for less than one minute. |
| When the sun is very low, the atmosphere sometimes
filters away all colors, except for red, as can be seen in this pink rainbow.
This kind of rainbows is very rare, and they usually turn into multi-colored
rainbows in less than one minute. |
Monochromatic rainbow, Iguazu, Argentina |
Multicolored rainbow, Iguazu, Argentina |
As the sun rises higher, the rainbow quickly
becomes multicolored and much brighter. On this picture, taken few minutes
later, yellow and green colors are already in place, but blue is still
weak |
| Finally, about 30 minutes after sunrise, the
sunlight gains all colors, and rainbows become complete with blue and purple.
In the middle of the day, the tropical sun is high overhead, and the rainbows
you can see in large waterfalls are sometimes very bright and beautiful. |
Triple rainbow, Iguazu, Argentina |
Moonlight rainbow,
Niagara Falls, USA |
To see moonlight rainbow (also monochromatic),
you need dense clowds of water droplets - such as in high surf or large
waterfalls. Very rarely it can be observed in the sky after rain, but in
this case it is not so bright. Street lights can also produce small yellow
rainbows. |
| This rainbow was hovering inside a small, vapor-producing
crater in the middle of very dry lava desert. The colors were unusual,
because some wave lengths were absorbed by volcanic gases. Beside the rainbow,
the crater was inhabited by endemic moist-loving ferns and millipeds. |
Rainbow in volcanic crater,
Isabela, Galapagos Islands |
Sunset rainbow, Napa Valley State Park,
California (composition of 4 images) |
This was the most beautiful rainbow I have ever
seen. It was raining heavily all day, and it was already dark in the forest,
so this rainbow was a complete surprise. It was almost full circle, because
I watched it by looking in a valley from a mountain top; outside this circle
everything was dark, and inside there was still bright light from the setting
sun... |
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