In one of the most beautiful misnomers on the planet, "fire rainbows" are actually neither fire nor rainbows. Spotted in south Florida, these iridescent clouds contain water droplets of relatively uniform proportions, creating a rare event of colorful light diffraction.
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Your average rainbow refracts light, bending it as the light passes at different speeds through different mediums, such as water, reports Our Amazing Planet. But fire rainbows diffract light, which causes the light waves to spread like rings.
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A quickly developing thunderstorm in the area thrusted air to a higher altitude, through a layer of moisture. The effect created these prismatic clouds.
Now, we're just waiting for the YouTube video: "Oh my god, a double fire rainbow!"
Image courtesy of Marnie Levy Williams / WPTV
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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