The rainbow over Sydney's CBD this afternoon. Photo: Peter Braig

There's nothing like a double rainbow to get Sydneysiders to pull out their camera phones and wax lyrical (or resort to multiple exclamation marks!) 

Wednesday night's double, or twinned rainbow over the Sydney skyline captivated the city.

But what does it mean?

Is it a good omen for the Blues ahead of Wednesday night's State of Origin clash?

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Is it two gods smiling? 

Has treasurer Joe Hockey's budget delivered two pots of surplus gold at the end of our national economic rainbows?

 

 

Is it a time to remember those less fortunate?

Or is it the complex physics of light, whereby sunlight is reflected and refracted through tiny water droplets, which separates its colour components.

When the droplets falling are different sizes the light is refracted at different angles, or refracted twice through the same droplet in a more complex pattern.

The second rainbow is often dimmer and the colours are inverted.

But who could say?

So far everyone has managed to keep their cool. For future reference, this is what a double rainbow existential freak out looks like:

If you're after more than "wow, wow, wow", here's meteorologist Aaron Pickering explaining the beautiful phenomenon.