Looking for your pot of gold?
Find out where in the US you're most likely to see a rainbow
Leading to a Pot of Gold
Where are you most likely to spot a rainbow in the US?
Have you ever wondered where the best place to see rainbows could be? There are a number of different factors that create the ideal conditions for rainbows, and in the US, some cities have much better conditions than others.
Beyond where you’re likely to find them, another consideration is why you’d want to in the first place. Some say that rainbows bring luck and that you can even find a pot of gold at the end. Unfortunately, finding a pot of gold is just a myth, so you may have to settle for some Rainbow Jackpots from PlayStar instead.
The history of how this myth came into existence and became synonymous with luck is quite fascinating, though. The folklore can be traced back to Irish mythology, where Leprechauns were believed to be responsible for hiding their pots of gold at the end of a rainbow. Because rainbows don’t actually have a physical endpoint that you can reach, locating the pots of gold became associated with achieving something exceptionally hard, and that’s why we equate finding them with immense luck today.
The Top 30 Cities to Find an Arc of Light
We set out to identify which cities in the US people are most likely to find rainbows, and after compiling and analysing the data, two cities stand out above the rest. Florida’s Tampa and Tennessee’s Memphis were the two clear winners from our findings, each boasting an overall score of 100 out of 100.
Virginia Beach was not far behind, with a score of 98, while Florida was the best-performing state. In fact, three cities in Florida scored very high, with Jacksonville (97) and Miami (90) joining Tampa in the top five overall.
At the other end of the list, we find Chicago as the worst-ranked US city to see a rainbow, with a disappointing score of just one. To put that into perspective, no other city in our top 30 had a score lower than nine. Chicago was the lowest-ranked city for sunshine and had the second-highest number of skyscrapers of any city, both factors contributing to its low overall score.
The Key Weather to Form a Rainbow
To identify the best weather conditions for forming a rainbow, we looked at both sunshine and rainfall rates. After all, a rainbow typically forms when sunlight refracts or bends in droplets of moisture, which usually occurs after a rain shower.
Starting with rainfall, our analysis revealed New Orleans as the number one city for average annual rainfall, with 66.1 inches per year. However, it was ranked 22nd out of 30 for average sunshine, which brought down its overall rainbow score.
The city with the same problem in reverse was Washington, D.C. While it was ranked first for average sunshine percentage at 96%, it was right down the bottom of average rainfall, ranked 29th out of 30. This brought down the city’s overall rainbow score to 55, good enough for 17th out of 30 overall.
On the other hand, both of our overall winners featured prominently in both sunshine and rainfall, making it clear that plentiful sunshine and frequent rains are needed for optimal rainbow-spotting conditions. Both Memphis and Tampa are in the top four for rainfall and the top nine for sunshine, highlighting some of the main reasons why these cities performed better overall than any others.
Blinded by the Light
Another factor that’s important to consider for rainbow-spotters is light pollution. This is the artificial light that’s produced by the development of our cities, and it affects our ability to see rainbows, as well as the stars in the sky.
In what may not come as a surprise, Honolulu takes centre stage here. With a radiance value of just 74.2, Honolulu’s favourable island conditions have it ranked as the city with the lowest light pollution in our top 30. When combined with its high rates of sunshine, this was one factor that had the city placed just outside the top five overall.
While light pollution is an important factor in seeing rainbows, our data would indicate that it’s not the most important. You only need to look again at our two overall winners in Tampa and Memphis, who ranked 15th and 20th respectively when it comes to light pollution. Even cities known for their bright cityscapes, like New York City (8th) and Boston (11th), didn't make it high on our overall rankings despite their lower-than-average light pollution levels.
Of the 30 cities, 15 had a radiance value above 200, including Philadelphia (238.9) and Indianapolis (311.4). Atlantic City in New Jersey had a score of 281, which is to be expected due to the bright lights of its gaming district which is filled with casino slot games. However, it’s also important to note that many factors contribute to a city’s light pollution, so high radiance values alone do not reflect the quality of a given city.
Unobstructed Horizons
You’ve probably walked around a city before and noticed its skyscrapers, but you might not have connected skyscrapers with rainbows. This is the final area that our data looked at, as skyscrapers can block the horizon, create shadow effects, and even potentially affect where rain falls.
Interestingly, our data found that nine out of the 30 cities featured in our study have zero skyscrapers (buildings over 150 metres tall), while two other cities only had one skyscraper each. Of those 11 cities, only two states were represented twice, with Virginia Beach and Richmond in Virginia, and Charlotte and Raleigh in North Carolina.
Looking at our overall winners, Memphis was one of the nine cities that featured zero skyscrapers, while Tampa was equal 19th on skyscraper rankings, with four in total. This suggests that the prevalence of skyscrapers is a factor when it comes to finding rainbows, but not important enough to override the importance of ideal rainfall and sunshine conditions.
Unsurprisingly, the bottom of the skyscraper rankings featured cities like Chicago and New York City, the latter of which is home to an incredible 317 skyscrapers. 11 of the 30 cities had only 2-4 skyscrapers, including equal 12th-placed Atlantic City in New Jersey (2), and Tulsa in Oklahoma (4).
