Australian sky turns an apocalyptic blood red ahead of Tropical Cyclone Narelle

Videos and images of a fiery red sky over western Australia looked like something from an apocalyptic or science fiction movie.

At the Shark Bay Caravan Park in the town of Denham, the sky glowed bright red on March 27, drawing curious residents to gaze at the dazzling display, according to a video shared by the park.

“Incredibly eerie outside and everything is covered in dust,” the park said on Facebook.

The colour change took place “as dust filled the air ahead of Tropical Cyclone Narelle”, said AccuWeather, the American company that provides global commercial weather forecasting services. It added: “No, that’s not a filter!”

The soil in Australia, which has a hot and dry environment, is iron-rich and undergoes a weathering process of oxidation, according to the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, a division of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“In this type of environment, these rocks actually begin to rust,” the service said. “As the rust expands, it weakens the rock and helps break it apart.”

That process gives the dirt its reddish Mars-like hue, the service said.

The coloured dust was then most likely scattered by the storm’s winds.

The cyclone was downgraded to a tropical low-pressure area after it brought rain and winds to western Australia on March 28, according to the country’s Bureau of Meteorology.

The skies there occasionally turn red because of cyclones, dust storms and wildfires.

There was a similar scene in 2019 when a fire raged along the east coast of Australia and the daytime sky turned black and then blood red.

Also in 2019, the sky turned red in the central Sumatran province of Jambi in Indonesia after a series of wildfires.

The phenomenon, also known as “mie scattering”, took place after the sun shone on a large number of microscopic smoke particles, which matched the wavelength for the colour red. NYTIMES