Until Monday, I had never heard of a 'red rainbow', but now I've seen several photos of one over the state capital.

According to the Atmospheric Optics web site, red rainbows are very rare, and tend to occur at sunset or sunrise when the sun's ray "are scattered by air molecules and dust. Short wavelength blues and greens are scattered most strongly leaving the remaining transmitted light proportionately richer in reds and yellows. The result, glorious sunsets and red rainbows."

The very phenomenon happened at sunset last Thursday in Lansing, resulting in a couple of stunning photographs posted to the Michigan subreddit at reddit.com.

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Here's How the Rainbows From That Same Night Looked in West Michigan

 

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