Hawaii------The rainbow capitol of the world

Hawaii------The rainbow capitol of the world

Rainbows are the most common, resplendent and awe-inspiring of many extraordinary displays that can be seen in the sky. Everybody seems to be in love with them, from children to old men, and only some can ignore its glory and beauty and continue with our daily grind .instead of admiring a fully developed rainbow.

It has been rightly said that “Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colors appear.”

Indeed, rainbow will only be visible under three conditions.

1.   The sun must be low in the sky.

2.   The sun is at the back of the viewer.

3.   There are water droplets in the sky.

The magical phenomenon of rainbow occurs when moisture and sunshine is combined in just the right combination. Rapid weather fluctuations, mixed with sudden drops in elevation from mountains (where rainclouds form and linger) to sunny beaches make rainbows a near daily occurrence in Hawaii.

The Rainbow appears in Hawaii everywhere, arching over its valleys, cliffs and beaches like welcoming beacons so frequently that it has been called as ‘Rainbow state’. They are called aneune in the native Hawaiian language. Even the Vehicle registration plates of Hawaii have a rainbow base.

Image courtesy –Getty images

These luminous, majestic and magnificent arcs spanning the Hawaiian skies so frequently owe there formation to the Islands themselves.

Rainbow as seen from Magic Island, Honolulu

The height of the mountains, the island distance from the equator and air currents, moving across the Pacific, gather moisture like a blessing or bouquet and carry it on the trade winds to offer them to the mountains (Mauna Loa, Haleakala, Waialeale) that blocks the way, forcing the moist air up into cooler elevation and condensing in the form of clouds.
There’s even a word for it: orographic, “an effect induced by the presence of mountains.” 

Rainbow as seen from Magic Island, Honolulu

How falling water and sun creates rainbows is simple physics —but, in-spite of the science behind it often looks and feel like out of this world, almost like magic.
Sunlight contains all the colors of the rainbow; when it penetrates a raindrop, it bends. The raindrop creates a prism effect. Each color in that ray of light exists on a different wavelength, and bends to a different degree, so that when the light leaves the raindrop, the colors are all fanned out.
Sometimes light bends and bounces off the inside of the raindrop not once, but twice. The result is a double rainbow. Because the second bounce reverses the light waves, the colors in the outer, or secondary, rainbow are in opposite order of those in the inner, or primary, bow.
 Sir Isaac Newton identified the 7 colors of the visible spectrum that together make up white light. All of which are present in a rainbow in the order red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (the acronym or name ROY G BIV is a good way to remember these colors and their order).
Most rainbows we see will be a "primary rainbow" whereby the color red can be seen on the outer edge through to violet on the inner edge.
The sky within a primary rainbow is brighter than the sky outside of the arc. This is due to the fact that the millions of droplets needed to make a rainbow are spherical and overlap to create white light. At the edge however, these colored discs don't overlap so display their individual colors producing the rainbow arc.
A "double rainbow" is where a second, much fainter arc can be seen outside of the primary arc. This is caused by the light reflecting twice inside the water droplets. As a result of this double reflection the colors of the second arc are inverted with violet on the outer edge and red on the inner edge.

double rainbows

double rainbows

The dark, unlit sky between the primary arc and secondary arc is called Alexander's band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it in 200 AD.
Very rarely, light can be reflected 3 or 4 times within a water droplet which produces even fainter tertiary (third) and quaternary (fourth) rainbows in the direction of the sun.
Supernumerary Bows are one or more predominantly green, pink and purple fringes slightly inside a bright primary bow. They occur when raindrops responsible for the main rainbow are small and much uniform in size, and their numbers and spacing can change from minute to minute
A lunar rainbow or   "moonbow" is a rare lunar rainbow or night time rainbow produced by light from the moon. The Moon is equally capable of producing rainbows, since all it takes to make a rainbow is a mass of water droplets and a light source. A full Moon is bright enough to have its light refracted by raindrops, just as is the case for the Sun.
However; the lunar rainbow is usually so faint that you don't see colors, since us humans’ only see colors if the light is bright enough.

Sunset Double  Rainbows over Waikiki Sky

Sunset rainbows are special because the sun's rays are nearly 
horizontal, so the top of the rainbow will be high in the sky. In fact, a sunset or sunrise rainbow is the widest arc you'll ever see from the ground: almost half of the full-circle rainbow can become visible, and you'll need a wide angle lens to capture it all. This means the ends of the arc are nearly vertical as they intersect the horizon.
These rainbows are also ‘red rainbows’ because, when the sun is low, the blue and green of its rays are weakened by scattering during the long journey to your eyes through Earth’s atmosphere. The red light travels through more directly.
Voila, you see a red rainbow.

A panoramic view of rainbow at Ala Moana Beach Park

There’s another difference to Hawaii’s rainbows, says Tom Birchard, a senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Honolulu: salt.
Raindrops need a microscopic particle to form around. Scientists give that mote a grandiloquent name: “cloud condensation nucleus.” On the mainland, says Birchard, dust, car exhaust and other air pollutants serve as nuclei. “In Hawaii, the most isolated landmass in the world; there aren’t a lot of pollutants in the air. Our primary cloud condensation nuclei are salt particles lifted off the ocean’s surface.”
To see a rainbow, says Michael Nassir, an instructor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus, “You need a big curtain of rain in the air, and for you to be between that curtain and the sun. On the mainland, storms are huge, so it’s rare to be on the boundary. You’re usually inside the storm.” In Hawaii, where showers linger over the mountains, “you’re often at the boundary.”
Every rainbow is in fact a circle, but it just looks like a bow or half circle because the ground blocks our view of the bottom. Climb high enough, and we could see the whole, lovely ring.
In Hawaii, the rainbow can also be seen as symbolic of the various nationalities that have come to the Islands and mixed with the native Hawaiians, adding their own indelible imprint to Hawaii’s traditions.
The result is a true ethnic mosaic which has created one of the most unique and colorful cultures in the world.  This Island penchant for perfecting combinations continues to thrive alongside a resurgence of indigenous Hawaiiana.
The rainbow has become an integral part of Hawaiian culture. The University of Hawaii basketball team, for example, is called the Rainbow Warriors, and the stunning waterfall outside of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii is aptly named Rainbow Falls.
Even the Hawaiian local radio station that plays Hawaiian music on line is called as Hawaiian Rainbow.com. 
Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort has a Rainbow Tower, whose ocean facing front has a rainbow painting on it.

Rainbow Tower of Hilton Hawaiian Village

According to a Hawaiian legend, Kahalaopuna is known as the Rainbow Maiden, born of the divine wind and rain of Manoa Valley. Since ancient times the valley has been regarded as “the royal palace of rainbows,” where the beautiful Rainbow Maiden can be seen playing wherever the light of sun touches the misty rain.
Hawaiians have mixed views about rainbows. In such respected source books as Olelo Noeau and Nana I Ke Kumu, rainbows sometimes foretell misfortune, presage a death, or announce that a chief is journeying, watched over by the gods.
“It depends on when it happens,” says Naone, “and what the person is looking for. Many times the rainbow is a hoailona, or omen, that the ancestors or gods favor what you did or plan to do.”
Whatever the legends may be, Maya Angelou has said it so beautifully “God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibility of hope”.     
They remind us that even after the darkest clouds and the fiercest winds there is still beauty.    

In Ireland rainbows symbolize blessings from heaven, and this is reflected in some of the wise old words from generations past. Some of the blessing quotes are:

 “May you always have work for your hands to do.

May your pockets hold always a coin or two.

May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.

May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.

May the hand of a friend always be near you.

And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.”

Another one says--May you have all the happiness, and luck that life can hold, – And at the end of your rainbows, May you find a pot of gold.

But

“Don’t miss all the colors of the rainbow,

Looking for that pot of gold.”

References:

• http://www.mauimagazine.net/Maui-Magazine/July-August-2012/Behind-The-Rainbow
• http://www.mauimagazine.net/Maui-Magazine/Everyday-Maui/Annual-2015/Why-are-there-so-many-rainbows-in-Hawaii
• http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/weather/rainbows.htm
• http://www.photocentric.net/rainbow_angles.htm
• http://optics.kulgun.net/Rainbow/
• http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/rbowpri.html
• https://www.polarization.com/rainbow/rainbow.html
• http://www.irishamericanmom.com/2014/09/26/irish-rainbow-blessings/
• http://earthsky.org/earth/what-makes-a-red-rainbow