Has anyone ever seen one?
me and my son were in a bus last week. there were a few cirrus clouds up in the sky.
I looked at one, adn there was a pretty pastel rainbow.
No rain anywhere!
It was neat.
How is that possible?
Maybe it is like my experience withrain with clear skies?
rain???
Isn’t the key ingredient airborne water vapor…which doesn’t have to be precipitation in the form of rain?
Enough water droplets to scatter light, but not enough to cause noticable precipitation could lead to a rainbow.
Was it up in the cirrus clouds? Was it NOT a “bow”, but just a patch of rainbow colors? If so, you were seeing a “sundog” which was caused by refraction within ice crystals. Usually there are two “sundogs”, one on either side of the sun.
UIUC: meteorology: light & optics: ice crystals
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/ice/sd.rxml
Yes! it was just a patch of bow only on the cloud.