Michigan is drowning right now in some of the worst rains on record. Every day for the last two weeks, from Midland to Grand Rapids to Traverse City, my feed has been full of images of people losing everything to flooding. PLEASE send rainbows.
Just so this post isn’t a totally depressing send-off for your weekend, let me call in one of my favorite websites, Atmospheric Optics. Regarding secondary rainbows or “double rainbows” they say that the secondary is nearly always fainter than the primary, with colors reversed and more widely separated:
Light can be reflected more than once inside a raindrop. Rays escaping after two reflections make a secondary bow.
The secondary has a radius of 51Âş and lies some 9Âş outside the primary bow. It is broader, 1.8X the width of the primary, and its colours are reversed so that the reds of the two bows always face one another. The secondary has 43% of the total brightness of the primary but its surface brightness is lower than that because its light is spread over its greater angular extent. The primary and secondary are are concentric, sharing the antisolar point for a center.
Tom took this near Alma back in 2014. See his latest on Flickr & check out more Michigan rainbows on Michigan in Pictures!
Michigan in Pictures 
I’m one of those people who travels all around the world, witnessing GOD and hundreds of his rainbows, if not thousands, but never once have I seen dbl. events like these pic show over my fav. state…I’m an LA boy but grew up on the U of M campus…
LikeLiked by 1 person
The double rainbow is a real treat, and speaking of treats (and U of M) I gotta photo treat coming soon for you!!
LikeLike