Rainbow and lightning: a rare couple to be immortalized together. The real estate agent Greg McCown, on August 9 Tucson, Arizona (USA), managed to take a photo that went around the web and which represents the two atmospheric phenomena at the same time. But why is such a feat so rare?
Rainbow and lightning: a rare couple to be immortalized together. The real estate agent Greg McCown, on 9 August Tucson, Arizona (USA), managed to take a photo that went around the web and which represents the two atmospheric phenomena at the same time. But why is such an undertaking so rare?
Although 100 lightning strikes the Earth every second, the probability that they occur near a rainbow is very low, even if in a desert area as Tucson is however less rare, as Randall Cerveny, a professor of meteorology at Arizona State University in Tucson, explains. "Normally the two phenomena do not occur simultaneously". But because?
Both lightning and rainbows require rain drops, but they use them in different ways. Lightning strikes are electrical discharges that occur due to the difference in charge between clouds and the earth (in scientific terms'potential difference', due to the fact that the clouds are negatively charged while the earth positively). Nature tends towards equilibrium and "does not accept" this situation, so does the download.
The desert is the ideal cradle for this, and Arizona one of the best examples, as the clouds are very high. And therainbow? This fascinating natural phenomenon also uses rain, but it needs to be in the form of droplets so that these disperse the light in its component colors, giving life to that multicolored trail that for centuries has kept generations of people glued to the sky passionate and romantic.
This evening just before sunset, I finally got the shot I’ve been trying to get for years. pic.twitter.com/JFJG4vlAb3
— Greg McCown (@Gregtucson) 9 August 2015
McCown's photo is particularly rare because the lucky real estate agent was accidentally there, between the sun and the storm, at the exact moment when the sun's rays hit the raindrops forming a rainbow, and at the same time the positive electrical charges on the earth and the negative electric charges on the earth met, producing lightning.
And you know, rare things are always very precious.
Roberta de carolis
Photo: Twitter
Credits: Greg Mc Cown
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