View Single Post
Old 04-23-2015, 01:05 PM   #10
glatt
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
Turns out I'm wrong.
Quote:
In August 2012, research scientist Dr. Wojciech Jarosz at Disney Research, Zürich, discovered, “Sometimes two rain showers combine. When the two are composed of different sized raindrops, each set of raindrops produces slightly deformed rainbows, which combine to form the elusive twinned rainbow.”
and
Quote:
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.[32] 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 [1] ), 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.[33][34]
glatt is offline   Reply With Quote