5/17/2020 Rainbows | Thunderstorms, Lightning and Rainbows | SKY101x Courseware | edX

Thunderstorms, Lightning and

Course  Part 3: Other Weather Systems  Rainbows  Rainbows

Audit Access Expires May 23, 2020

You lose all access to this course, including your progress, on May 23, 2020.
Upgrade by Aug 22, 2020 to get unlimited access to the course as long as it exists on the site. Upgrade now

Rainbows
Isolated thunderstorms sometimes produce rainbows. This happens when there are water droplets in the air, and the sun is
shining at the same time. When you see a rainbow, you are looking toward water droplets and the sun is at your back.

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:HarvardX+SKY101x+3T2019/courseware/a3d2ceb7736f4c8797998a9a4b5df794/d3ba1a8a361149399184a8bdfbb503c1/?child=last 1/4
5/17/2020 Rainbows | Thunderstorms, Lightning and Rainbows | SKY101x Courseware | edX

Graphic by Olivia Crosby

The sunlight refracts when it rst enters a droplet. The light then re ects o the back, and then refracts again as it exits.
Because light refracts di erently at di erent wavelengths, this creates a prism e ect that separates white light into its
component colors of red-orange-yellow-green-blue - indigo, and violet. Blue light gets refracted more than red, making the
inside or bottom of the rainbow violet and the top red, with the other colors in between.

If you see a rainbow, the most common situation is that you’re looking toward rain or mist and the sun is behind you. If you
fold in the wind direction, you can then tell if the storm is approaching or receding. If the wind is at your back, the storm is
being swept away, if the wind is in your face, the storm is approaching. There’s a weather aphorism that captures this, and it
goes like, "Rainbow to windward, foul falls the day, rainbow to leeward, rain runs away."

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:HarvardX+SKY101x+3T2019/courseware/a3d2ceb7736f4c8797998a9a4b5df794/d3ba1a8a361149399184a8bdfbb503c1/?child=last 2/4
5/17/2020 Rainbows | Thunderstorms, Lightning and Rainbows | SKY101x Courseware | edX

Photo: 'Disappearing Rainbow' by Tony Hisgett. https://www. ickr.com/photos/hisgett/8050690438/ License:(CC-BY 2.0)

Here, "windward" mean’s the wind’s in your face, and "leeward" sometimes pronounced "lewward" the wind is behind you. This
aphorism may or may not be useful as the surface winds can be drawn into an approaching storm.

Since many thunderstorms, particularly isolated thunderstorms, pass through in the afternoon, if you see a rainbow, it’s likely
that the sun is in the western sky, and the rain is in the east. In this case, the rainbow is a sign of clearing weather. No wonder
rainbows are viewed as a sign of hope – after a tempestuous storm, a rainbow signals relief.

Sometimes, a second rainbow can be observed outside the rst one. This results from two internal re ections as opposed to
one in the water droplets. In this case, the color sequence is reversed with red on the bottom and violet on the top. The second
rainbow is usually fainter than the primary, as light gets absorbed in the re ections, so two re ections produce a fainter
secondary rainbow.

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:HarvardX+SKY101x+3T2019/courseware/a3d2ceb7736f4c8797998a9a4b5df794/d3ba1a8a361149399184a8bdfbb503c1/?child=last 3/4