There were two completely separate rainbows in the sky before the rain came ...?

Question

What causes this phenomena and how rare is it?

Answer 1

That is when you see a rainbow, when the sun reflects off the rain falling, so what you seen was two different rain clouds dropping rain and creating the rainbows. I just got back from Niagara and you see rainbows in the mist coming off the falls, it's really cool.

Answer 2

I found a site your gonna love and it is all about rainbows and shows some amazing pictures and explains why they happen. I don't want to take credit for this information because i do not know much about them so i will just post the URL if you like some answers.

take care

Answer 3

It is merely light refraction through the moisture in the air. It is not rare at all.  With enough light, you can have a rainbow in  your own shower if the showerhead "mists"

Answer 4

Light can be reflected more than once inside a raindrop. Rays escaping after two reflections make a secondary bow.

A part of the ray is reflected again and travels along inside the drop to emerge from the drop. The rainbow you normally see is called the primary rainbow and is produced by one internal reflection; the secondary rainbow arises from two internal reflections and the rays exit the drop at an angle of 50 degrees° rather than the 42°degrees for the red primary bow. Blue light emerges at an even larger angle of 53 degrees°. this effect produces a secondary rainbow that has its colors reversed compared to the primary.It is possible for light to be reflected more than twice within a raindrop, and one can calculate where the higher order rainbows might be seen; but these are never seen in normal circumstances

Answer 5

This is actually a reflection of the same rainbow.