These aren’t the best photos, but they’re unusual enough that I thought they were worth posting.
In 2013, I drove to the town of Inuvik, at the end of the Dempster Highway in the Northwest Territories. Inuvik is two degrees latitude north of the arctic circle, and was(at the time) as far north as you could drive in Canada.
I didn’t have the best weather there- it was cloudy and rainy for most of my time up there, with a temperature ranging from -3° to +5 Celsius. Yes, I did get snow, despite the fact it was mid-August. Still, it was worth going.
On my last evening there, the sun finally came out from the clouds. There was a rainbow to the east. I didn’t have the best view of it from town, so I drove to Jak Territorial Park, which has a lookout over the Mackenzie River delta. It appeared to be a double rainbow, quickly fading. However, there was a partial third rainbow, branching off at a different angle from the primary rainbow.
At the time, I thought it was an atmospheric phenomenon in the Arctic. However, I did some research, and think it was a reflection rainbow. Essentially, the light from the sun separates inside the rain droplet(forming a rainbow). If there is a calm, clear body of water, the rainbow might reflect off of it, forming a reflection rainbow in the sky.
Here’s an unaltered picture of the rainbow:
On the far right is the second rainbow. It is very faint in the photo. This next photo is the same picture as this last one, but has been cropped and has the saturation and contrast boosted quite a bit. The three rainbows are easier to see in it.
Here’s one more photo of the reflection rainbow, without the double rainbow in the photo.
Finalle, a photo of the rainbow in 760 nm infrared. This photo didn’t turn out well, as the rainbow is too similar to the clouds. neither the double rainbow or the reflection rainbow are visible, unless you know where you’re looking at.
Parallel Views 