Rainbow forecast for Vancouver
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: live rainbow odds for today, the best hour to look up, and the week ahead.
Rainbow weather in Vancouver
Vancouver gets its rainbows from Pacific storm-light: frontal systems that break into showers as they cross the coast, with sharp clearings behind them. The hour after a front passes, when the western sky opens while rain still hangs to the east, is the classic setup here.
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 Vancouver.
Rainbow questions, answered
- When do rainbows appear in Vancouver?
- Rainbows need sunlit rain with the sun lower than 42 degrees, so in Vancouver 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 Vancouver?
- 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 Vancouver today?
- Bowcast computes it live from ensemble weather models: about 40 forecast runs are checked for sunlit-rain conditions around Vancouver, hour by hour, for the next 7 days. The live figure is on this page and on the map.
More rainbow forecasts
The best places on Earth to see rainbows →