Upstate New York Woman Snaps Viral, ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Storm Photo

Not a Fake!

A woman in Upstate NY shared a stunning storm photo that many thought was fake. But it's not, and weather experts agree she snapped a once-in-a-lifetime picture.

It's as if someone married two images together; one side of the photo is ominously grey, while the other is surprisingly sunny, and two massive lightning strikes make this photo electrify the image. Oh, and a stunning rainbow splits the image in half.

You could wait ten lifetimes for a weather event to produce an image like this, but capturing it on film in a split second is nearly impossible.

Scroll Further Down to See It

Yes, lightning through a rainbow, or rainbow lightning, is a rare weather event that only occurs under specific atmospheric conditions. It's unusual to see both a rainbow and lightning simultaneously, and some say that capturing a photo of them together is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event.

"Wowza, I Couldn't Believe My Eyes!!!!"

Rainbow lightning is a rare weather event in which lightning and a rainbow co-occur. It results from water droplets in the air dispersing sunlight, similar to how a rainbow forms. Rainbow lightning requires specific atmospheric conditions, such as the sun's position relative to the observer and a significant amount of water droplets in the air.

A photographer named Yvette DesGroseilliers from Baldwinsville, New York (about 150 miles northwest of Albany, just north of Syracuse), took the photo on Tuesday as treacherous weather, including tornadoes, cascaded through parts of central and upstate New York. 

There's a reason it went viral: Those sightings are incredibly scarce. Although 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth every second, the chances of them flashing near a rainbow are slim, according to Randall Cerveny, a professor of meteorology at Arizona State University in Tempe.

Not a Fake!

DesGroseillier's incredible image has been shared thousands of times on Facebook while garnering hundreds of comments from utterly amazed people.

Some argued that it was a fake, something this credible photographer took very personally; she even expressed it on her Facebook page, writing, "For everyone saying this was AI or photo shop or altered or whatever! I did not alter this image in any way!!!! I do not do that! So please STOP saying it!

While adding, "I can't explain what this is, but it is real!"