The day of 4 rainbows

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In my previous rainbow outfit post, I talked about 2 childhood memories connected to rainbows.  Aren't they beautiful?  I love the biblical symbol of a rainbow being a promise. A promise of God never sending another cataclysmic flood like that.   I took this photo of a rainbow in Basildon a year ago or so and have finally managed to get it off my phone via bluetooth, CBC's smartphone, to my e-mail and then my flickr!

Anyway, have you ever seen one of those days where you get two rainbows?  One fairly bright one and then a secondary, paler. According to Wiki

In a double rainbow, a second arc is seen outside the primary arc, and has the order of its colours reversed, red facing toward the other one, in both rainbows. This second rainbow is caused by light reflecting twice inside water droplets.

 Those days are few and far between- I've only ever seen that a few times (once fairly recently, when I was in Basildon) but it's extra special.  Well, there was one extraordinary day when I was in primary school where I saw something extra special.  It had been a rainy day and I was coming out the main office entrance from school, not the usual gate entrance, when I looked up into the sky, where now there was sunshine.  And there was not one, but FOUR rainbows.  Literally 4 arcs across the sky.

I remember being wildly excited.  I had no idea this could occur (and as I've discovered, it's very rare!).  The first one (the primary one) was of the most intense hues I had ever seen, it was almost solid in its colour.  The secondary one was fairly strong compared to normal but much paler and then the third one was much lighter and the fourth one very very vague, barely visible but still perceivable.   I was transfixed.  In retrospect, that must have been a very auspicious day.  Alas, but for a camera image, it just has to stay as a closely-treasured memory in the keepsake box of my mind.

Never again have I seen more than 2.  As I thought about rainbows on Tuesday,  I looked at WIki again to find out about it

Tertiary and quaternary rainbows:

In addition to the primary and secondary rainbows which can be seen in a direction opposite to the sun, it is also possible (but very rare) to see two faint rainbows in the direction of the sun. These are the tertiary and quaternary rainbows, formed by light that has reflected three or four times within the rain drops, at about 40° from the sun (for tertiary rainbows) and 45° (quaternary). It is difficult to see these types of rainbows with the naked eye because of the sun's glare, but they have been photographed; definitive observations of these phenomena were not published until 2011.

So I saw something really rare and special.  I treasure it.
Have you ever seen a multiple rainbow?  How do you feel about them?


References; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Multiple_rainbows
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/bowims.htm  An amazing gallery of rainbows
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/rainbows/ord34.htm Accounts of 3rd and 4th order rainbows