England's crazy unsettled weather continues this week, with deep snow, warm days, freezing temperatures, driving rain, dark skies and brilliant sunshine. Today was no exception, with the rain and the sun producing brilliant rainbows, (and double rainbows!) wherever you looked.
A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the sun!
I saw this one over Froggatt Edge on my drive home from work today:
Rainbows can be full circles. However, the observer normally sees only an arc formed by illuminated droplets above the ground, and centered on a line from the sun to the observer's eye.
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 when 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, with red on the inner side of the arc. This is caused by the light being reflected twice on the inside of the droplet before leaving it. Can you spot the faint double rainbow in the picture of the windmill, above? A rainbow always appears over the windmill; I'm sure there's a pot of gold somewhere!
Many countries have myths and legends surrounding rainbows; one of my favourites is Ireland. In Ireland, a common legend asserts that a "pot of gold" is to be found at the end of a rainbow, for the person lucky enough to find it. This treasure is, however, guarded by a Leprechaun!
All photos taken by me, rainbow facts by Wikipedia.
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Until the next post, Nikki the MaskedBlogger. x