Site Navigation:
Searchable Databases
Articles Archive
Pacific Nautical Heritage...
- Gallery of Light and Buoy Images
- Gallery of Mariners
- Gallery of Ship Images
- Gallery of Ship Wrecks
- Gallery of Monuments and Statues
- Gallery of Nautical Images
- Gallery of Freshwater Images
- Gallery of New Books
Canadian Naval Topics…
- Nautical History Videos
- UNTD
- British Columbia Heritage
- Arctic and Northern Nautical Heritage
- Western Canada Boat and Ship Builders
- Gallery of Arctic Images
- Reflections on Nautical Heritage
- British Columbia Heritage
Site Search:
Looking for more? Search for Articles on the Nauticapedia Site.
Rainbows at Sea
by John MacFarlane 2014
Rainbow at sea. A second rainbow arc can be seen dimly to the right of the bright one. Notice the lighter sky ‘inside’ the arc. (Photo from the MacFarlane collection.)
On the east coast of central Vancouver Island it is easy to see rainbows. The showery weather, followed by sunny periods, so often associated with the Pacific coast of Canada is the cause. Late in the day when rising air lifts water vapour following rain creates the conditions necessary.
Each raindrop reflects the light and a rainbow forms in the sky focused exactly opposite the sun. It is the reflection that creates the rainbow.
A rainbow appearing over Chrome Island Lighthouse on the east side of Vancouver Island. (Photo from the MacFarlane collection.)
Under perfect viewing conditions the rainbow stretches from one side to the other touching the ground. The height depends on the altitude of the sun. If the sun is right on the horizon the rainbow is often a perfect semi–circle. When the sun is high in the sky the rainbows are more abbreviated. A second rainbow arc appears when the light bounces inside each raindrop and exits on the other side forming a second arc. The larger the raindrops the brighter the colours in the rainbow.
The colours always display with red on the outermost band ranging to violet on the innermost band. When a second arc appears the order of the colours is reversed in it and is invariably fainter than the primary arc.
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2014) Rainbows. Nauticapedia.ca 2014. http://nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Rainbows.php
Site News: April 17, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,205 vessel histories (with 15,628 images and 13,173 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.