July 28, 2011 Vivid Double Rainbow with Supernumeraries

Drove a whopping 4 blocks on this little "chase". Rain moving south over the flood waters north of town. Flooding due to the historic 2011 Missouri River flooding.

There'd been several reports of funnels in the area, which proves kinda interesting. The setup was really really poor for severe weather with storms basically pulse storms, they go up, rain themselves out and a new storm fires somewhere else. It wasn't cold core aloft either, but really hot aloft. It was saturated however. Anyway friend Bob was at this North View Park deal in town where I was. He points out this funnel, which I was a lot shocked to see. It wasn't hangy downs being reported evidently but actual funnel clouds, given this was a legit funnel cloud. This prompted us to at least give the storms some chase south of town, but that was a waste. So the plan then was head back to the park, which has a great view of the flooding north of town, and hope for a good rainbow as the sun came out behind these small storms.

Weren't disappointed in the rainbow chase department! One of the best displays I've seen. The thing is, the most vivid tend to come while still in rain behind a storm. The really bright ones I've seen were while chasing storms and likely trying to get back in front of the storms. So really no time to mess around shooting them and also again in rain most of those bright times. That is the case with this one, as far as it was still raining, but I was done chasing the storms and actually looking for a local rainbow. So up to this point I seriously have next to zero rainbow images for the stock section. I'll add these. But right now looking I have one late evening fragmented one in there and that is it. This is pretty sad given how much I love to catch optics. My rainbow imagery.....as lame as it gets. Least this display will help in that department.

And like I was saying, want a truly vivid display, try and be in the rain when the sun comes out. Sure you can get good ones with rain to your east, but seems best to be in rain. Rainbow will look much closer if you are in the rain. You can see it's showing in front of those apartments down there. If all the rain was further east, well it wouldn't be showing in front of that apartment. It was a bit of a bitch to shoot with the rain though. Especially when you are changing lenses too. Anyway, it's probably a top 3 display I've seen and the best I've actually taken photos off.

Oh my god, double rainbow, what does it mean! lol Google that phrase if you don't know what I'm talking about.

A few older folks were showing up now and we noticed one lady, who I'd guess was around 80, saying how she'd never seen a rainbow where you could see where the pot of gold would be. She later said it directly to us. She had never seen it like the above, where you can see it on this side of an object. I don't have a clue how you live that long and never see a rainbow appearing really close. One can do it with a garden hose if they wanted. But it would pretty much do it anytime the sun is out and it is raining decently. While chasing I've seen it appearing within a couple power poles on the highway.

Still appearing on this side of the apartments. I don't know why I didn't run down the hill and get the whole rainbow more over the water. The rainbow is almost a "sign" of improving flood conditions...or could be looked at as such. Mother nature just had to dump a bunch more water first lol. Then she says here, here is a rainbow, the flood is soon over. You can see below a picture of the same apartments from a month earlier.

The thing I kept noticing the most was how bright the inner purple band was. I don't recall ever seeing it so vivid and clear. Then not long after noting that, we could visually note the added inner bands called supernumeraries. I don't ever recall seeing those with my eyes. She was a highly vivid rainbow now.