The choice of the rainbow in the form of a flag harkens back to the rainbow as a symbol of biblical promise. According to the Bible, God first created the rainbow as a sign to Noah that there would never again be a worldwide flood, also known as the Rainbow covenant.

7 colors

Violet

Rainbows are formed when light shines through water, like when the sun shines through the rain. This light is bent and reflected, like a reflection in a mirror, and this causes all of the amazing colors that you see. Rainbows are made up of all seven colors that come from light.

A rainbow is caused by sunlight and atmospheric conditions. Light enters a water droplet, slowing down and bending as it goes from air to denser water. The light reflects off the inside of the droplet, separating into its component wavelengths–or colors. When light exits the droplet, it makes a rainbow.

In the Bible’s Genesis flood narrative, after creating a flood to wash away humanity’s corruption, God put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of his promise that he would never again destroy the earth with flood (Genesis 9:13–17):

I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

Double rainbows are formed when sunlight is reflected twice within a raindrop with the violet light that reaches the observers eye coming from the higher raindrops and the red light from lower raindrops.

According to the Optical Society in Washington D.C. – a scientific society with 16,000 members around the world – there have been only five scientific reports of triple rainbows in 250 years. Some scientists believed triple and quadruple rainbows did not truly exist in nature, but now scientists have their proof.

Meteorologist Brittney Bryant captured this beautiful double rainbow display via our Memphis Midtown camera. If you haven’t gotten the opportunity to catch one, keep looking up. They aren’t as rare as they may seem and how they form isn’t so unusual. Rainbows form when sun hits a raindrop and light bends or refracts.

Rainbows are actually full circles. The antisolar point is the center of the circle. Viewers in aircraft can sometimes see these circular rainbows. Viewers on the ground can only see the light reflected by raindrops above the horizon.

A moonbow (also known as a moon rainbow or white rainbow or feelybow ) is a rainbow produced by moonlight rather than direct sunlight.

While triple rainbows (known as tertiary) are possible, these photos show a slightly less are but still unique weather phenomenon beyond the double rainbow in view. As light is reflected through water droplets, a rainbow is formed and when leftover light comes back for a second reflection a double rainbow can occur.

four

They are not only rare to see — they are a puzzle to understand. The common rainbow is caused by sunlight internally reflected by the backs of falling raindrops, while also being refracted at the air/water boundary. The sunlight in this picture is coming from behind the observer, and the rainbows are in the rainstorm.

During a particularly lucky scenario, two rainbows will form at the same time. The first and brighter rainbow is called the primary rainbow. The second and more faint rainbow is called the secondary rainbow. It occurs when refracted light does not escape the raindrop after being reflected the first time.

Kauai, Hawaii Hawaii is known as the ‘Rainbow State,’ so you’re guaranteed to see stunning rainbows across the chain of islands. Kauai is a particularly rainy island and is home to Mount Waialeale, one of the wettest spots on earth.

six hours

South Africa

The moon can create rainbows if the light reflected is bright enough and there’s sufficient moisture in the right spot in our atmosphere. Fogbows can form overnight if there’s enough moonlight and moisture in the air.

white

Moonbows – pale white rainbows that appear on bright moonlight nights – may sound like science fiction, but they’re real. They’re also rare. They’ve also occasionally been seen in various places around the globe in the night sky during a rain shower around the time of the full moon.

The rainbow is curved because the set of all the raindrops that have the right angle between the observer, the drop, and the Sun, lie on a cone pointing at the sun with the observer at the tip.

In raindrops, sunlight bounces back, or reflects, most strongly at a certain angle – 42 degrees. As long as the angle is right, then the light will be reflected and you see a rainbow. So the reflection gives you the shape of the rainbow, while the refraction gives you the colours of the rainbow.

But it’s a very rare sight. Sky conditions have to be just right for this, and even if they are, the bottom part of a full-circle rainbow is usually blocked by your horizon. That’s why we see rainbows not as circles, but as arcs across our sky. When you see a rainbow, notice the height of the sun.

The traditional description of the rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Sunlight is made up of the whole range of colors that the eye can detect. The range of sunlight colors, when combined, looks white to the eye.

Fogbows – sometimes called white rainbows, cloudbows or ghost rainbows – are made much as rainbows are, from the same configuration of sunlight and moisture. Rainbows happen when the air is filled with raindrops, and you always see a rainbow in the direction opposite the sun.

The sky is blue due to a phenomenon called Raleigh scattering. This scattering refers to the scattering of electromagnetic radiation (of which light is a form) by particles of a much smaller wavelength. These shorter wavelengths correspond to blue hues, hence why when we look at the sky, we see it as blue.