Image by Jason Erdkamp, Lake Forest. CLICK to enlarge.
Isn’t technology wonderful?
The emergence of cell phone cameras has enabled people to snap images of phenomena that never used to be widely photographed and shared.
On Saturday, Jason Erdkamp of Lake Forest used his iPhone to take a photo of the “end” of a rainbow, which appeared to literally touch the divider line of the northbound 241 Tollroad in northeast Orange County. I published the rarely seen sight on Sunday and it caused a mini-sensation with readers, most of whom spoke about the simple beauty and wonder of the photo. Many people wanted to know if the photographer had found a “pot” at the end of the rainbow. (The answer is no.)
Linda Brooking, a reader, said, “I saw this rainbow as I travelled north on the 5 freeway on Saturday and it was THAT intense.”
The image also caused a lot of confusion and misinterpretation. Some thought that the rainbow arose from the water rising from the tail of the vehicle. The tail spray can cause a mini-rainbow. But not one that goes way up into the air like this one.
Image by Jason Erdkamp, Lake Forest. CLICK to enlarge.
Some readers also were in disbelief, saying that the photo had been PhotoShopped and that I’d been duped into publishing it. I had 7 experts examine the photo and was told that the image wasn’t manipulated. And I got in touch with Erdkamp, who sent more images from his cell. They arrived about the time I was seeing a different but similar image from another photographer near Palm Springs. Then Tuesday, I got a third “end” of rainbow image from a reader in Ladera Ranch.
The second image presented here is from Erdkamp, taken shortly before 5 p.m. on Saturday from a different perspective as the vehicle he was traveling in continued to swoosh along the tollroad. Erdkamp also sent a third image that shows the rainbow more of less “hitting” the ground. Virtually everyone has seen a rainbow. But veteran forecasters like Mark Moede of the National Weather Service told me that he’d never actually seen the end point of one. Neither had I, and I used to live in South Florida, a flat region that gets a lot of quick storms that produce rainbows.
Image by Barry Cook. CLICK to enlarge.
Moede referred me to Barry Cook, who used a digital camera to take an image of, again, the “end” of a rainbow at LaQuinta Cove, not far from Palm Springs. Barry sent me three images of basically the same sight. The other two show a fence in the foreground. I chose this one for its unobstructed beauty.
Barry sent the images to a TV weather forecaster in Palm Springs for use on the air.
Finally, we’re presenting an image taken by Trevor Wightman of Ladera Ranch, who also captured the wonder of a rainbow with the camera on his iPhone. (I have one, too. We’re groupies.)
Image by Trevor Wightman, Ladera Ranch. CLICK image to enlarge.
Trevor says he took this photo on Friday, Feb. 6 “at the intersection of Crown Valley and Oneill in Ladera Ranch.” He sent a couple of others, too. They’re similar to this.
I’m thankful that these readers generous enough to share their images, and I tip my hat to Steve Jobs for the iPhone. Who knows, maybe we’ll see more sights like this in the coming days. The National Weather Service says that a train of moisture will move through Southern California throughout the weekend, and perhaps on Monday and Tuesday. The skies will clear. The sun will shine. And, with a bit of luck, we’ll see scenes like the one here.
If you’re lucky enough to photograph one, please email me a .jpeg at grobbins@ocregister.com
COMING THURSDAY: JPL climatologist Bill Patzert talks about why our rainfall has been heavier than was predicted by some federal forecasters. His comments are candid and funny.
ANSWER below
Follow Sciencedude on Twitter at grobbins, and add him as a friend on Facebook. You also can email me with story ideas at grobbins@ocregister.com
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I sure hope they didn’t run over the pot o’ gold.
I saw the end of a rainbow like that about 15 years ago. It was hitting the grass in a field a hundred yards away.
This is great. My sister, mom and I saw this sight back in the 80’s in our yard in Oklahoma. After a rain there was a rainbow right on the ground in the dead center of our yard. We couldn’t believe it. You could see all the colors on the dead grass in the yard. Yes it did look golden at the end. We ran out and stood in it and looked up into the bands. It was the neatest thing I’d ever seen or probably ever will. The colors are so blinding and intense. We would look directly up into the rainbow and move our eyes though the colors and look at them. I have told this story many times, and would have been more convincing if I’d said a UFO was in my yard, cause no one has ever believed me until now when my wife saw this on FARK. If I’d had a working camera then, my story would have been more convincing. I was nearly laughed out of college classes when I mentioned having seen the end of a rainbow. I guess if you live long enough, you can be vindicated. Love the picture thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. John Wilkinson
No you didn’t.
that’s like the biggest lie i’ve ever heard
john, you are not a smart man.
You do not understand how rainbows work, do you John?
Yeah, you can MAKE YOUR OWN END OF THE RAINBOW. You’d never be laughed out of classes bacause of that, it’s light and water particles. That’s it. Nothing amazing.
Second note. I’m not condoning this nor do I suggest anyone do it, but the closest thing to the experiance of looking into a rainbow is having someone shine a prism into your eye and move it where the colors go across your pupil. It’s hard to look at, but is what I experianced. John
ARE WE SUPOSED TO BELIEVE YOU CAN STAND INSIDE THE BASE OF A RAINBOW?REALLY? I WAS ALWAYS TAUGHT (IN 28 YEARS OF SCIENCE AND EXPERIENCE) THAT BECAUSE OF THE PHYSICS OF RAINBOW CREATION IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO “FIND THE END OF ANY RAINBOW.”THATS WHY THE POT OF GOLD THING WAS CREATED TO UNDRSCORE THE FACT THAT YOU CAN’T “FIND THE END OF A RAINBOW” NOW EITHER ALL SCIENCE IS WRONG OR ALOT OF PEOPLE ARE EITHER LIARS OR JUST IGNORANT OF THE FACTS.wHAT GIVES?
muadib:
Yes, a lot of people are ignorant of the facts. Since the rainbow is projected in front of you by water vapor, it’s position depends on the position of one thing: you the viewer. Were you to try and walk forward and climb under the rainbow, it would move away from you, making it impossible. But if _I_ were to try to do so, I could in fact stand in the exact spot — where from your perspective, you see the rainbow end. So to summarize, it is possible to stand at the end of a rainbow - somebody else’s rainbow.
When I was much younger I did not believe you could find the end of a rainbow. However when on a hunting trip in southeast Louisiana, in the early 1970’s, I was lucky enough to actually see the end of one. It was about 50 yards away. Having spent a lot fo time outdoors in my 78 years this is the only time this has happened. I can vouch for the fact that it does happen, but very rarely.
once again I repeat, this is an example of God’s handiwork.
Ugh, shut up already.
I am sorry but a rainbow is just light reflecting and refracting, not god sorry but iits a well known fact. (please do not say that god created light and refraction, because that’s just stupid.)
Yes, it is. Just like cancer.
This is dumber than what john w said
I saw it! My back window faces the 241 and the mountains, it was HUGE, like a really thick column. I couldn’t see where the other end went, clouds were obstructing and it had to have gone WAY over our neighborhood. I’ve seen so many rainbows, but I’ve never seen one so thick at the base, WIDE. It was beautiful. The mountains were glowing in a golden-pink sunbath. Lovely.
This photo is of the rainbow from it’s side. i saw it from the front–it was so fat.
We saw it out of the back window of our house. I’ve seen lots of rainbows, and this one was incredibly vivid and the base of it was WIDE, it covered a good portion of the mountains. The angle in the photos is from the side of the rainbow. We saw it from the front, it was the thickest rainbow I’ve ever seen. Looked like a really thick column, and it was right in front of the Saddleback Church. The base of it took up the whole property.
Awesome photos and story. Loved the comments above too.
I saved this site as a favorite and i will check back again.
These are such great photo’s. For many years I have told people that once when I was about 18 I was driving down the road to camp pendleton ( I was stationed there) and a Rainbow came down on my car and through the window onto the dash. No one really believed me. Now, 24 years later, I am a science major at a University and I understand how light bends and is perceived by the human eye and I still cannot explain what I experienced in scientific terms. I am grateful for the pics to demonstrate the phenomenon though. And yes these stories are true. I have personally been in the stream of light and it was not an illusion.
Another thing to notice is the reflection on the wet road. If it were only a vision through he seers eyes, the reflection on the water would not be there. In other words, if it was truly in the eye of the beholder and not a physical light source,
It wouldn’t be reflected in the water on the road.
unless he was the only one who could see the reflection - which is, in fact, the case in this photo
On Sunday 03/22/09 there was a rainbow in the shape of a perfect circle and the sun was in the center of this rainbow which was directly over my house.Has anyone seen or experience this before and what does this mean.
Yeah, last two comments: win. Top floor, everyone off.
lynette lewis, what you saw was probably not a rainbow but a 22-degree halo.
However it’s possible you saw a sixth order rainbow, but they are extraordinarily rare and so you probably saw a halo.
Halos generally don’t have much color, so I suppose you might also have been seeing a corona instead.
Guys, I think you are mistaken. This is the beginning of the rainbow.
Hi Fred. The photo shows iridescence. We checked everything with the National Weather Service. These “mini-rainbows,” as I called them for shorthand, appeared in many places in the sky and were quite small. They didn’t have the arc-shape of a rainbow.
You guys do realize that it is impossible for a rainbow to actually touch the ground, or for you to look up into a rainbow? A rainbow is created by sunlight going through water particles in the air, so the view of a rainbow changes when you look at it from a different angle. Therefore, all of the commenters who claim to have looked up into a rainbow, are BullSh*ters.
Yesterday’s pretty colors in the sky were caused by iridescence. However, it is not impossible for a real rainbow to touch the ground. We published images of a rainbow touching the ground in north Orange County earlier this year.
Uh, no. The “rainbow” isn’t touching anything unless you’re saying that light is “touching” the ground. As has been said, the visual phenomenon is simply the light being reflected back into your eye as a prism.
Are you saying that you, a nobody complaining about a photo of a rainbow on the Internet, is smarter than an actual science person who knows something about science?
I don’t think so.
umm… light particles are real things. they have weight an touch everything. so yes, the light would be touching the ground.
@staci
Yes, light particles are real things, but the ones hitting the ground don’t hit your eyes so you can’t see them now, can you? The ones you do see do not touch the ground. As for the image itself, it is obvious that the rainbow arch continues beyond the point where it “touches” the ground. This particular rainbow is probably caused by water particles spraying from the car driving in front and would probably appear to float in midair somewhere between the observer and the vehicle in front, it’s not a full scale regular rainbow that appears to be huge and arcs across the sky.
Anyone wanting to experiment can take an outdoor shower in sunny conditions, and will probably see a full circle rainbow less than a meter across which appears to be within hand reach.
i wasn’t talking about seeing the light particals i can see, i was just pointing out the fact that light can touch the ground. that’s all. I don’t claim to have any degree in any science. I wasn’t trying too prove or disprove this pic.
You guys realize that a rainbow is NOT A STATIONARY OBJECT? This photo is not photoshopped, people can see rainbows “touching” the ground all the time, it’s nothing amazing.
Rainbows are created when light is reflected off of water at 40 to 42 degrees.
All rainbows are circular. and therefore none actually have an “end”.
Actually, rainbows do have an end. As noted in earlier post, we have photographic proof, and we checked it three ways to Sunday with meteorologists.
science writer-editor? If I drew a cube on a peice of paper, would that be photographic proof that my drawing was three dimensional?? there is no such thing as photographic proof when discussing an Optical Illusion… go back to science class man
You’re the science writer? Really? Wow. I’m good at videogames, can I be the Arts/Entertainment/Technology writer there?
“photographic proof” good lord. Ever seen an optical illusion? Oh, but I guess you assume when you see what looks like water ahead on the road on a hot day to be “photographic proof” that desert mirages must actually be physically real.
Well, they wouldn’t have an end, except that they run into the ground
“Rainbows are created when light is reflected off of water at 40 to 42 degrees.
All rainbows are circular. and therefore none actually have an “end”.
Exactly.
Can we just establish now that a rainbow is NOT a physical structure?
Seems as if people need to do their research as to how rainbows work. You seem to think that they are physical structures in space, while it’s really just a play of light refraction. There can be no actual physical end. I’m surprised that the “science writer-editor” doesn’t seem to understand this…
Are people seriously employed as science writers who don’t understand that rainbow are smiply an optical illusion created by water bending light to seperate out all the colors that are in white light?
Rainbows do not “touch” anything, they are simply an optical illusion. Do you think they “move” if you drive your car?
And all rainbows are circular, but generally a person’s perspective prevents them from seeing the full arch, if this photo were taken from a helicopter and not a car it would be a circle.
Congratulations to most of you, you fail at science.
Be sure to collect a t-shirt illustrating this fact to warn others of your ignorance.
All of this is completely true. I once saw this phenomenon myself. Believe it or not, rainbows do touch the ground. I proved this to my colleagues by riding my unicorn directly up to the base of the rainbow then galloping gallantly skyward on top of the beautiful iridescent bridge of happiness. once I reached the other side where the rainbow touched the ground I danced in the beautiful light while skittles rained upon me. The most amazing thing about it all was, when I looked directly into the light of the rainbow, I saw Jesus and Frank Sinatra playing shuffleboard.
You have just won the internet.
hahahahhahaha
I passed 9th grade science, can I be a science editor please?
this is hilarious. I love when people let their experiences translate directly into scientific fact, assuming that their experiences have provided them with all the necessary information needed to form a discursive understanding of the object of their experience.
the science dude himself even appears quite brazenly naive:
“actually, rainbows do have an end. As noted in earlier post, we have photographic proof, and we checked it three ways to Sunday with meteorologists.”
the people talking about light refraction and the angles required to see rainbows are in the knowledge, their words just aren’t making any sense to the laymen.
all rainbows are complete circles, they appear to end in the grass because we can’t see the circle continuing through the matter of the grass(or road, and whatnot). in the first picture this is shown as the rainbow continues its arc through the reflection of the water on the asphalt of the highway. also, the person who took this picture was quoted in another article that the rainbow was indeed ‘traveling at about 50mph in front of them’, which is why you can never look ‘up into a rainbow head on, from the standpoint of its end’. you can also only see rainbows when the sun, or whatever the source of light is, is behind you.
think of it this way:
say we can all fly and run just like superman. ok, now say you are walking on a grassy field after a rainstorm and you see a rainbow ‘ending’ on the grass about 100 feet away. if you were to run as fast as superman towards the ‘end’, when you got there a split second later the ‘end’ would be another 100 feet away. now, if you were to fly directly up, with the rainbow in front of you, you would be able to watch the lower half of the rainbow’s full circle emerge from the grass/ground, and when you were high enough you would have a full circle rainbow with your levitating shadow right in the middle(just ask cessna pilots).
Hey guys, I’ve been reading all of your posts and I must say that I agree that it is possible to see the end of a rainbow.
In fact, I crashed my car into one this morning. Similar to the above picture, there was a rainbow ending (or beginning! LOL) in the middle of the highway. Naturally I thought it would move at the same speed I did, boy was I wrong. It kept getting bigger and bigger, the colors more and more intense. I realized too late to swerve that this thing wasn’t moving.
The front end of my SUV was completely demolished by the base of the rainbow sticking up from the road. The weird part is ten minutes later the rainbow drifted away so I was left with a crashed car in the middle of the road and nothing to have crashed into.
That’s the last time I’ll go driving without rainbow insurance.
Three times I have been in the end of a rainbow. In South Carolina, from a street about 3 miles from home, I saw a rainbow and told the kids it looked like the end was in our yard. As we drove home, the perspective changed but the top of each hill seem to still put the rainbow in our home area. As we drove down our street I could see the end of the rainbow in our yard. I raced to park and get the kids out of the van and we danced in the awesome light. The air was sparkling gold and so bright it hurt to keep our eyes open. You could step out of the light, then back in. It was sprinkling Altogether that rainbow probably lasted about 15 minutes. I cannot remember the details of the second encounter, but the third was very early one summer morning at our home in Missouri. Again it was sprinkling. I step outside and was in that unbelievable light. It took a few seconds to place where I had seen this before , but when I realized it had been the rainbows, I looked and found that I was at the bottom of the arc. Sometimes that gold is worth all the golden metal in the world to my memories. No one believes these stories. I guess I was lucky but more than likely many people have been at the end of a rainbow but did not know it because they had not seen it from a distance and approached.
I had Acid once ….. I was the RAINBOW!
You can’t be in a rainbow from your own point of view; you can appear to be in a rainbow from another’s perspective, but you will never look up into it’s colors from the rainbow’s base.
False, anecdotal evidence doesn’t disprove naturally occurring phenomena.
I have also been in the base of a rainbow.
It was while I was on a care mission with Share Bear, Cheer Bear, Funshine Bear, Grumpy Bear, and Oopsy Bear. My belly badge was nearing the rain clouds and I was feeling rather glum.
But i stood at the base of a rainbow that was nearby and my belly badge was filled up to full caring level.
Lots of love,
Chan Bear
How do you idiots manage to dress yourselves in the morning?
I don’t. My cat dresses me, and he usually gets it wrong.
I also have shared John Wilkinsons experience. He must also be magic. I would meet him but his picture discourages me.
Don’t accuse Gary Robbins of being wrong either. His name clearly says “science writer-editor” so, like me, he is obviously much more qualified to make that kind of call than you are.
Every rainbow would be a complete circle, given the opportunity, and every rainbow is unique to the viewer. Sometimes the source of the refraction coincidentally ends right where another object begins (the ground, a building, etc) and the rainbow does indeed seem to end there.
Here’s a question: What is at the CENTER of every rainbow?
Same thing that is at the centre of a Tootsie Pop.
Lies, lies I tell you! If you don’t get the leprechaun, then its clearly not the end of the rainbow! Mine gave me a bowl of Lucky Charms and two free tickets for movies!
Did YOUR leprechaun give you free food and tickets?
I didn’t think so!
once i saw the end of a rainbow in my backyard. then a squirrel ran out and was fried by the immense strength of the godly laser beams.
but seriously… its physics, critical angles, indices of refraction (different for varying wavelengths) and depends on the location of the viewer and the angle of the light source (sun in this case). If these are correct yes you could see the end of a rainbow… but wait… can’t i do that in my backyard with a hose? (i didn’t read all the comments so sorry if someone showed these facts already) but ya. google how rainbows are made and I’m sure you will get some good drawings of how light travels through raindrops to make a rainbow.
@christopher:
Q: “What is at the center of every rainbow?”
Good question.
A: “The shadow of my head”.
Rainbows clearly *are* physical structures that can be touched and physically manipulated.
If they weren’t, explain how “Rainbow Road” works on almost all of the Mario Kart games.
@ Finch The tires could be responsible, yet if you look at the left of it, the water spray does not seem to be wide enough to affect it. Also (on a proportional basis) the rainbow caused by the spray would appear smaller than that of the other rainbow
Did anyone notice that there is a fainter mirror image of the rainbow above and to the right of the original rainbow in the Ladera photo? This would help explain how some people saw it as very wide from a different angle.
I dunno, Efodix. Just because someone adds Nobel before their name, does that make them a laureate?
@Staci…..Efodix’s condescending messsage is incorrect. The rainbow wasn’t coming off the back tire of the vehicle. Efodix also didn’t read the many previous posts on the subject, which all read, ‘Rare “end” of rainbow seen in O.C.” Note that there are quote marks around the word end. We were emphasizing the word to underscore that it wasn’t a real ending, and the story explained the illusion. Finally, the iridescence story didn’t say there were rainbows in the sky. It said that the iridescence in some of the clouds resembled little rainbows in coloration.
That’s not entirely correct. The vehicle is clearly spraying moisture into the air. The “lower” part of the rainbow is caused by water droplets between the camera’s line of sight and the road. Whether the dominant moisture is from the vehicle spray or residual moisture from the storm can’t truly be known.
The vehicle is throwing up spray. And there can be a small rainbow from such spray. But if you examine the image closely you’ll see that the tires are not responsible for creating an arc that goes high into the ski.
The answer is simple: UCI, like all of the UC campuses, produce graduates to work in a global economy, not an America-only economy. And Mexico is one of this country’s larger trading partners.
I’m not sure anyone was trying to say the tires were responsible for the entire rainbow (at least I wasn’t). But it’s certainly possible that they’re contributing to the lower portion that’s seen. You can’t separate it out, and there’s no reason you can’t have two different sources contributing to the same effect.