Taipei, March 16 (CNA) A rainbow that lasted for about nine hours and was observed from Chinese Culture University in Taipei last year will be officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest rainbow ever recorded, the university said Friday.
The rainbow, which lasted from 6:57 a.m. to 3:55 p.m. on Nov. 30, 2017, generated considerable public interest at the time and was reported by local and foreign media. Chou Kun-hsuan (周昆炫), a professor from the university's Department of Atmospheric Science, whose team documented the event, launched a campaign to have the rainbow recognized by the Guinness World Records.
Most rainbows last for less than an hour, and the existing Guinness record for the longest-lasting rainbow of six hours was set in 1994 in Wetherby, Yorkshire in the United Kingdom. To earn global recognition, Chou urged people who saw and took pictures of the rainbow to submit them to the department so it could create a "rainbow clock" using an effect similar to time-lapse photography that shows second-to-second changes in the rainbow over the nine hour period.
Chou told CNA he wanted to collect 36,000 photos to complete the clock but ended up with only 10,000 -- mostly from students at the university, and about 300 photos from Taipei citizens. Of those, 3,520 were valid because they have both a clear image of the rainbow and a timecode, Chou said.
"They will make a rainbow clock that shows its movement an average of every 9.2 seconds," he said. The key for long-lasting rainbows is moderate seasonal winds and hilly terrain that help accumulate just the right amount of moisture, which the university enjoys because of its location in the Yangmingshan area of suburban Taipei, Chou explains.
