You may have seen a double rainbow brightening the skies but a triple rainbow is an incredibly rare phenomenon. One reader of WeatherWatch.co.nz is among those that have been lucky enough to spot one and sent in a photo to the website late last week. "Light showers. Early morning. The primary and secondary rainbows are obvious. But notice the third rainbow that is at an angle to these two,” she wrote. “It's colours are in the same order as those of the primary rainbow. What would cause this spurious rainbow?” WeatherWatch.co.nz contacted CNN Weather to see if they could explain the phenomenon. "Wow- triple rainbows are incredibly rare" Meteorologist and Supervising Weather Producer Brandon Miller told them. "They form the same way as single or double rainbows (light being refracted, reflected, and dispersed inside raindrops), but the light must be reflected 3 times to make a triple rainbow- and each time the light is dispersed more and the resulting rainbow is fainter.”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 4th July 2016 - 1:21pm