Rainbow forecast for Cairns
Cairns, Queensland, Australia: live rainbow odds for today, the best hour to look up, and the week ahead.
Rainbow weather in Cairns
Cairns runs on convective rhythm: heat builds cumulus through the day, showers collapse out of them, and the sun returns fast. That quick alternation of downpour and sunshine, especially in the wet season, produces frequent late-afternoon bows once the sun drops below 42 degrees.
Wherever you are, the rules are the same: a rainbow forms opposite the sun, only while the sun is less than 42 degrees above the horizon, and most often in the minutes after a shower moves through. The gauge above runs those rules against live ensemble forecasts for the 12 km around Cairns.
Rainbow questions, answered
- When do rainbows appear in Cairns?
- Rainbows need sunlit rain with the sun lower than 42 degrees, so in Cairns the best windows are the hours after sunrise and before sunset on showery days. Around nine in ten rainbows appear in the hour right after rain stops.
- Where should I look for a rainbow in Cairns?
- Always directly opposite the sun: put the sun at your back and look toward the retreating rain. In the evening that means looking east; in the morning, west.
- What is the rainbow chance in Cairns today?
- Bowcast computes it live from ensemble weather models: about 40 forecast runs are checked for sunlit-rain conditions around Cairns, hour by hour, for the next 7 days. The live figure is on this page and on the map.
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