News2 mins ago
Snowbows
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we've just had a snow shower, and it was snowing fairly heavy for a while,and we were wondering...can u get snowbows...like u get rainbows?
It might be a silly question but are they possible?
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Unlikely. Rainbows form when sunlight is refracted (bent) through the raindrop, and the white light is split into it's constituent parts. (Red-Violet). Snowflakes are made up of millions of tiny ice crystals, so the light is refracted at all different angles, leading to the light being scattered in all different directions. If the snow fall is thick then the sunlight is more likely to be blocked out. There is a phenomenon, however, in which ice crystals high in the atmosphere can create a type of rainbow. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050309.html The page here gives a short, nice explaination of this rainbow, called a 'Sun Halo'
I live in a country where we have loads of snow each winter, right now we have over 6 feet of snow outside..I have never seen or heard of any snowbows, a lovely thought though, would've been nice if it had been : )
It can snow heavily and 5 minutes later the sky is blue and the sun shining, and vice versa, but when it's snowing the air is really thick with snow or cloudy and the sun is all blocked out!!
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