6 minute read
My Personal Christmas Rainbow: James Dawson
My Christmas Rainbow
by James Dawson
I called it my Christmas rainbow ~ not to be selfish, but because it was uniquely mine. Meteorologists tell us that due to the angles of refraction that cause the rainbow, you would not have seen the exact rainbow that I saw even if you had been standing right next to me. Instead, you would have seen your own very special Christmas rainbow that was virtually identical to mine, but all yours.
This wonderful Christmas rainbow was visible in other parts of the county, a special gift to everyone lucky enough to have seen it.
It was a stunning rainbow, stretching in an unbroken arc from horizon to horizon. And if that wasn’t amazing enough, the fact that it made its appearance at sunset on December 25, 2021 was an unexpected bonus.
Christmas Day 2021 was pleasant, with mild temperatures. After the Christmas festivities, I was lazing around the house late in the afternoon when I thought I’d take my dog, Miley, for a walk. I live in the country, so we were walking around the yard making our usual big 15-minute loop. On the last lap, as the sun was setting in the west, I noticed something unusual to the east ~ the short stub of one end of a rainbow sticking up across the field behind some trees.
I love weather events of all sorts, and this was unusual enough that I wanted to get a photo. Of course, I didn’t have my camera with me, so I hurried back to get it out of my car,
Christmas Rainbow was a delicious evening, as Thoreau might have said. Meanwhile, the which was a few hundred feet away. setting sun hid behind some clouds,
To my sorrow, the closer I got to doubtless signaling that the show my car and camera, the fainter and was over. shorter the rainbow stub became. But what was that? As the clouds When I finally had my camera in parted slightly to reveal the sun, I hand, there was virtually nothing could hardly believe my eyes! Was left of it. Oh, well. You can’t get ’em the rainbow stub coming back? all! Better luck next year—but there I hardly dared to believe it, but was little chance of that happening, soon there was no doubt that it was as this was probably the only Christ- returning! mas rainbow that I would ever see! And it didn’t stop there. Soon,
I snapped a shot as it faded away, the stub was growing and arcing its but that was a sorry reminder of way up into the sky as another stub what I’d missed. For some reason, formed simultaneously and reached though, I stayed outside even after up into the sky, too, forming the we’d finished our walk. It was an other half of the rainbow. unseasonably nice evening: tem- Now this was interesting! And perature in the low 60s, no wind then, almost before I knew it, the and pleasant enough to be outside, two ends met in the air to become rainbow or no rainbow. In fact, it the prettiest rainbow I’d ever seen
in my life or certainly will ever see! I was transfixed, as I had a perfect unobstructed view of it across a flat soybean field.
Of course, I took photos, fearing it might be gone in a flash, but as it turned out, the show was not over yet.
Now, on the left side of the bow, there was a partial secondary bow growing just outside the main bow. Secondary rainbows are not often seen, and one of the interesting things about them is that their colors are reversed from the order they appear in the main rainbow. In the main rainbow, the colors would be red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet (the mnemonic for the acronym of the first letters of the colors in the sequence, which looks like someone’s name, is Roy G. Biv). The colors in the secondary bow would be reversed: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red, or VIBGYOR, which is Roy G. Biv backwards.
The partial secondary bow soon faded away into nothingness. Seeing a complete secondary bow would have been incredible, but something that I’ve never seen, so I was definitely pushing my luck as it was. There is even such a thing as a third or tertiary bow, in which the colors are reversed back to the Roy G. Biv sequence of the primary, bow, and that would definitely have been supremely improbable!
Also interesting was that except for a brief sprinkle where I was, it was dry, which definitely aided viewing and photography.
As the sun was dipping below the horizon and restless geese were stirring and starting to take flight, I got my last wish. Several small flocks of geese flew across the base of the fading rainbow stub. I missed the first shot because not only were the geese too small to see in the viewfinder, but there is that annoying split-second pause with digital cameras after you press the shutter.
But the Universe was patient with me, and I managed to get a few shots as several more small flocks flew by. The Christmas sun sank below the horizon and the scattered clouds drew together like a curtain, putting an end to the third and final act of the rainbow show at 4:49 p.m. on Saturday, December 25, 2021. This was all a stunning event, the likes of which I never expect to see again. I would have to add that Miley was not at all interested.
I was pleased with my photos.
The rainbow was so large that it was too big to get in one shot, so I had to join two photos of the two halves and digitally paste them together. I did use Photoshop to blend the seam where the photos joined, but otherwise I did not alter the actual images of the rainbow.
What a wonderful day, and what an amazing and unexpected Christmas gift!
I sent a shot to my friend Terry in Easton, who said he had seen and photographed the Christmas rainbow, too. For some reason, his Christmas rainbow was smaller, so he was able to get it all in one shot, even though it stretched from horizon to horizon like mine did. This was probably the result of the different angles from which we viewed it. Terry had his very own Christmas rainbow as well.
I hope you saw it, too, but if not, I am happy to share mine with you.
19 Goldsborough St. · 443.746.3095 www.curlicuethestore.com
James Dawson is the owner of Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe.
