First Landing State Park is one of the most popular places in Virginia, USA. With an area of about 11.7 million square meters, the park has many activities for visitors to participate in. You can swim, hike, boat and fish. Located along the Virginia beach, where there are marshes, maple forests, this park also surprises with its mysterious and magical beauty.
Brent Rossen, a Reddit user, posted a photo of this phenomenon on social media and received a lot of interactions in just 24 hours. While walking with his girlfriend at First Landing, he accidentally took a photo of the lake suddenly appearing with colorful streaks, the sunlight shining on the water surface creating a rainbow.
Rainbow Swamp appears at First Landing Park.
This rare phenomenon occurs in the fall.
The rainbow swamp scene is as beautiful as a fairy tale.
The winding trails give way to the diverse landscape of the marshes. There is a special and interesting phenomenon that appears on the water here, the “rainbow marsh”. This phenomenon has attracted a lot of attention. The sight of rainbows appearing on the marshes is not always a sight. They are like rainbows appearing in the sky, rare and absolutely spectacular.
Speaking to the BBC, Jeff Ripple, a tour guide, explained that this event only occurs in the fall. The leaves falling into the water create a magical scene. The chemicals from the fallen leaves will reflect different colors and create a rainbow on the water's surface. The whole forest is like a fairy tale with seven brilliant rainbow colors reflected under the water's surface.
"For such rainbow patches to appear, the fallen leaves must remain in one place for several hours. As long as the water surface fluctuates, the rainbow will not appear. That is why rainbow swamps are very rare," said Jeff Ripple.
When the angle of sunlight falls at the right angle on the water surface, this phenomenon will appear.
Chemicals produced when leaves decompose.
When the bald cypress trees shed their leaves in the fall, they decompose in the swamp. If the sunlight hits them at the right angle, this beautiful spectacle is created. The longer the water remains still, the more intense this beautiful spectral effect becomes. The swamp is at its best when most of the leaves in the forest have fallen.
The phenomenon is a living prism through which the swamp can be seen. It is Mother Nature working her magic. In perfect conditions, a pattern of pink, purple, blue and yellow covers the water under the shade of the dry trees. The entire forest glows like a fairyland.
The water is dark before the sunlight hits.
The sun shines through the trees.
The phenomenon of swamp rainbows also depends on the time of day when the sun hits the swamp. Rainbows can be seen on sunny afternoons when the surface is mostly unaffected by wind or rain. In addition, this phenomenon is most visible in small, narrow areas of standing water. Michael Hussey, a retired engineer, shared this photo of the swamp in front of his home in Tallahassee, Florida. He said he has witnessed this phenomenon only 10 times in 40 years.
"This is an extremely rare natural phenomenon, if it doesn't rain, the rainbow swamp will appear longer," said Michael Hussey.
To fully appreciate the beauty of a swamp rainbow, the forest must have enough decaying vegetation in the water. Therefore, the best time to see this brilliant phenomenon is in late autumn when the leaves have mostly fallen. Visitors are most likely to encounter this swamp rainbow in November and December.
