Chicago Spray Bow
January 17, 2007
Provided and copyright by: Thomas French
Summary authors & editors: Jim Foster, Thomas French
On a brisk, early autumn day in the "Windy City" (Chicago, Illinois), I was strolling through the city taking pictures and happened upon this rainbow in the mist of Buckingham Fountain at Grant Park. Wind gusts had displaced water droplets from the fountain's plume, and with the Sun directly behind me, a rainbow formed as I walked by. Fountains and garden hoses routinely produce rainbows as long as the droplets are sufficiently large and the geometry between the Sun, viewer, and water source is correct. The flattened arch of this bow indicates it was taken in the early afternoon, when the Sun was relatively high in the sky.
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