Who, What, Why: How common are upside-down rainbows?
 

Who, What, Why: How common are upside-down rainbows?

Photo:
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cps...41_rainbow.jpg

An "upside-down rainbow" was spotted in the UK over the weekend. But
what causes these and how common are they, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35343629

A minor meteorological event occurred over the skies of England this
weekend. From Leeds in the north to Kent in the south, an "upside-down
rainbow" was spotted. On social media people shared photographs of the
spectrum of colours reaching up into the sky, rather than down to the
ground.

The first thing to clarify is that upside-down rainbows are not, in
fact, rainbows. "They look like rainbows, and in some sense they are
similar, but the crucial difference is that rainbows are produced by the
bending of light and separation of the colours through raindrops falling
out of clouds," explains Dr David Schultz, chair of synoptic meteorology
at the University of Manchester.

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