Rainbows everywhere: on the radio waves (Hawaiian Lullaby, Some where Over the Rainbow), on our state license plate, on our shave ice, and in our skies. We are the rainbow state, after all. Thanks to abundant sunshine and lots of mist and rain squeezed out of the trade winds as they are pushed up the mountains, Hawaii has the right ingredients needed to see these magnificent arcs on a regular basis. As the bright white tropical light strikes a water droplet, it is bent (refracted) as it enters, then bounced (reflected) off the back of the droplet, only to be bent once again on leaving the droplet. All this bouncing and bending causes white light to be dispersed into its component colors: ROY G BIV. Each droplet reflects all the colors, but because they leave the droplet at different angles, it's the higher droplets in the sky that bounce the red light into our eyes, the lowest bouncing the violet. Every so often, a double rainbow appears, a fainter and reversed-color bow over the primary rainbow. This happens when light is bounced twice within the droplet. Moonbows can happen as well, when the reflected light from the moon produces the rainbow, but the colors are often too faint to discern. Be it a rainbow or a moonbow, you must look in the direction opposite of the light source, that is, the sun or moon must be at your back. So the next time the skies open up, let the rainbows remind you that you can smile when it’s raining, and touch the warmth of the sun. |
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