Guinness World Records has officially recognized a nearly nine-hour rainbow observed from Chinese Culture University in Taipei last year as the world’s longest-lasting rainbow.
Official Guinness World Records adjudicator John Garland presented a certificate to the university yesterday for meticulously documenting the rainbow.
According to the university’s data, the rainbow, which appeared on Nov. 30, lasted from 6:57am to 3:55pm — just shy of nine hours.
Photo provided by the Chinese Culture University
It beat the 1994 record of a six-hour rainbow held by Wetherby, England, by nearly three hours.
Chou Kun-hsuan (周昆炫), a professor from the university’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, whose team documented the event, said a total of 3,520 photographs with time codes were collected to complete a “rainbow clock,” which recorded every 9.2 seconds of the rainbow’s movements.
Rainbows last so long near the university because of moderate seasonal winds and hilly terrain, which help accumulate just the right amount of moisture near Yangmingshan (陽明山), Chou said.
Tsai Ching-yen (蔡清彥), chairman of the Meteorological Application and Development Foundation, credited faculty, staff and students with getting the rainbow recognized, saying that they took advantage of what the environment gave them and created value out of a natural phenomenon.
The rainbow now holds the title of “longest-lasting rainbow” and academics believe it will be a difficult record to beat.
Weather conditions, including everything from radiation to wind and moisture, has to be incredibly stable for a rainbow to last such a long time, and given that there is on average only 11 hours between sunrise and sunset, nine hours is probably the maximum amount of time a rainbow in Taiwan or anywhere else could last, Chou said.
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