Weird rainbow picture I took this afternoon.

I don't know if this post even belongs here so please forgive me if it is in the wrong place.

This afternoon the weather here has been pretty strange, almost tropical at times without the rain. The lower clouds were moving from east to west while the upper clouds were moving from west to east.Lots of wind and some fierce looking clouds at time but not a single drop of rain.

I was sitting on my back porch carving pumpkins with my kids and I always look up at the sky and the clouds for no reason other then one day seeing something to look at that is worth taking a picture of. Well today I found something pretty interesting in my mind. We have had several rainbows over the last couple of weeks so I have been keeping my cameras memory card clean and the battery charged.

I uploaded the image to an online service cause if I embed it here on the forums it will be a very large picture. I did not resize the image at all. I wanted it to be full size so everybody can take a look at it.

Weird Rainbow

The only reason I think it is weird is because if you look at the picture you can see portions of the rainbow in different parts of the clouds. The middle portion of the rainbow seems to be inverted. You really have to look at the photo but you will see that the "purple" portion in the middle is inverted.

Is it possible to have a regular rainbow and then an inverted one at the same time? I was trying to figure this out by looking online but everything I have found seems to be that it is either one or the other but not both. I will include the series of photos I took in the links below so maybe you can get a better idea of what is going on.

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Pretty pictures. I hope Oz weatherman sees this thread so he can explain it. Maybe you should u2u him and ask him to comment on the rainbow.

i dont really see what you mean by inverted? its werid you can only see one section of the rainbow, cool pic though

in my oppion sorry for spelling if a rainbow is a reflection of te sun off of a portion of water perhaps there is only that amount of water in the certin spot

Those are called sundogs. (google images gives many pics of these).

It is the light reflecting from the moisture in the clouds. I see them often and they are always different and always very pretty, although some more colorful than others.

I know this is an old thread, but instead of making a new one i searched and found this one and i think it fits what i am posting. My daughter and I were out playing today before the rain came and we saw an awesome rainbow. This may sound really weird but i dont remember ever seeing a rainbow this defined in my life. Here are the pics.(pics are not the best quality, i took them with my ipod)

reply to post by Rhadamanthus


Pretty.
Now I want some Lucky Charms.

reply to post by Avyuir


Lol i thought the same exact thing when i was looking at it.

reply to post by Rhadamanthus


That is a very nice photograph of iridescent clouds.

Rather than repost what I said, I'll just post a link to another thread on the subject.

reply to post by lcbjr1979


Good catch lcbjr1979

As well as the secondary bow, and Alexander's dark band, you can also make out the supernumeraries, especially in your second photograph.