Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 102, 2; 10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0101.1
A study called The Secrets of the Best Rainbows on Earth by Steven Businger, professor in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, advocates Hawaii is the rainbow capital of the world.
Businger even developed an app, called RainbowChase that alerts you to the optimum conditions for a rainbow to appear in O‘ahu in the Hawaiian Islands.
Culture
From buildings to vehicle license plates rainbows adorn Hawaii everywhere, including the sky. Chants and legends have been written about rainbows. Hawaiian rainbows are so famous they wrote a song about them.
Maori and Hawaiians are both Polynesian and although the Haka is native to New Zealand it is also a part of Hawaiian culture, known as the Ha'a. The Ha'a is performed at the University of Hawaii football games.
Jason Momoa born in Nānākuli, Honolulu, Hawaii performs a native New Zealand Haka at the premiere of Aquaman.
Hula Warriors were the original dancers, before women dancing the hula became more popular. There is a school for male hula warrior dancers. The strength training they do is on the beach or in the ocean with rocks as heavy as they can carry. They don't use dumbells.
Hula is the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people. The women dance at The Merrie Monarch Festival, a non-profit organization that honours the legacy of King David Kalākaua. He inspired the perpetuation of Hawaiian traditions, native language and arts.
The Science of Rainbows
Four elements come into perfect alignment for a rainbow to make an appearance in Hawaii. Temperature, clear skies, rain showers, and trade winds.
Hawaii's mountains take the trade winds and push them up where they transform into clouds. Without these wind-made clouds, the island would not have the amount of rainfall crucial for the abundance of radiant rainbows.
To achieve a rainbow before breakfast, the ocean heat rises and leaves the tops of clouds cool. This natural occurrence creates deeper rain showers which result in the most amazing rainbows before your first sip of coffee.
In addition to ocean heat through the night, urban daytime heat is also a factor. Lighter winds create showers over the mountain ridge crests over Oahu and Kauai in the afternoon, resulting in prolific rainbows as the sun sets.
You won't catch a rainbow at midday.
When the sun rises higher than about 40 degrees above the horizon, the top of the rainbow moves below the horizon and is no longer visible.
Another factor is the location of the Island of Hawaii. Far away from pollution means the air is super-clean, has no continental dust or pollen. The lack of aerosols in pollution-free air means less scattering of the colours and brighter, full-spectrum rainbows.
A drone captured whole rainbows, part rainbows, half rainbows in its flight around Kauai, Hawaii.
“May there always be Tradewinds behind you, Rainbows above you, and Aloha all around you.” – Kauai Blessing
Aloha. Welcome. Love. Kindness.
So many more nouns are mentioned when people try to explain the meaning of aloha.
Skyline says:
Aloha is the true meaning and symbol of the Hawaiian culture and lifestyle: respect and love one another, and live in harmony with everything around you. Aloha is not something that is spoken, it is something that must be experienced.
Hawiian Planner says:
The Old Kahunas believed that positive thoughts and deeds, no matter how small, never vanished. These small acts of kindness, from holding a door for a stranger to a friendly conversation, live on in eternity to multiply and spread.
Aloha. Goodbye.
This one word that means so much to many and so many meanings is as magical as a rainbow. I understand why rainbows are prolific in Hawaii and considered by scientists to be the place that has the most of these magical arches on the planet.
May you have rainbows at sunset and before breakfast and plenty in between. At midday, it's best to be indoors.
Image by Candace Thoth from Pixabay