Rain: Beautiful Rainbow (March 25 through April 4, 2010)

After an extended period of sunny weather, we had a quarter inch of rain last night and this morning, and even some hail in the late morning today. That brings our total for the 2009/20010 season to 24.95 inches. The historical average for this day (March 25) is 27.54 inches in Santa Rosa. We are therefore about 2.5 inches inches below average but well ahead of last year, and some Santa Rosa stations have reported as much as 29.6 inches this season. Sunny and clear again now but with an occasional shower. Just missed one of the most perfect rainbows I've ever seen--a full double rainbow. Unfortunately, it was a faint single one by the time I got my camera. Still, the light was nice....

[Update: Since last posting (above) we've had another 1.1 inches of rain. The 2009-2010 total is now 26.05 inches as of the evening of April 3--but more rain is forecast for tomorrow and Monday....]

[Further update: On the evening of the 4th and the morning of the 5th, yet another inch of rain fell, bringing the total to 27.05 inches.]

Miscellaneous: Another Perfect Rainbow

Another perfect rainbow this evening. Santa Rosa is charmed. If anything, this one is better than the one of two days ago. Sadly, the charm is likely to last only a few days more.

Today the rainbow was again complete and double. I had time to take a proper photograph--with a camera, rather than my iPhone. You can easily see the secondary bow, the inverted colors in the outer bow, and the way the sky is brighter within the main rainbow than without (although the latter is less obvious in the photo than it was in actuality). Very cool. 

Miscellaneous: Rainbow

Fabulous rainbow at 4:30 in Santa Rosa today. It appeared in the east as a bank of charcoal rainclouds moved past the sun on the opposite side of the sky  and let orange shafts of late-afternoon sunlight beam through the rain. Perhaps the best rainbow I've ever seen outside of Hawaii. A full half circle, deeply colored, with a distinct secondary rainbow above it, also complete. Not long ago, a friend pointed out to me that the order of the colors is always reversed in the secondary bow. Sure enough, the green was on the inside of the main semicircle of color but on the outside of the second one. I can't remember the physics of the phenomenon. It's Google time....

Which yielded this very interesting link: Atmospheric optics

Unfortunately, my hastily snapped photo captures only the main rainbow.