Rarely Observed 'Quadruple' Rainbow Isn't What it Seems
A combination of reflections gave birth to the four rainbows captured in a picture by a woman in Long Island.
The photo of the "quadruple rainbow" that's taking the Internet by storm doesn't actually show a quadruple rainbow. The phenomenon is technically two double rainbows.
Commuter Amanda Curtis spun the Internet into a tizzy by posting a photograph of four rainbows shining in the sky above the Glen Cove (map) train station on New York's Long Island. Though some on social media expressed skepticism about the phenomenon, experts agree that getting four rainbows at once in close proximity is entirely possible.
"What you're really seeing is two offset double rainbows," says Raymond Lee, a meteorologist at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, referring to the picture from Long Island.
The two brighter ones are the
