“A hell in bright red.” The apocalypse has come to Australia

Australia, whose connection with the horrors of nature is almost cartoonish, experienced a common meteorological phenomenon, but with very unusual and deeply disturbing side effects, which made it seem as if the world was coming to an end.

The tropical cyclone Narelle made history last week by becoming the first storm in more than 20 years to make landfall in three Australian states and territories, lashing more than 5,400 kilometers of the continent’s northern coast with gusty-force winds and heavy rain.

Narelle announced himself right from the start in an extremely sinister way. Just before making landfall on Friday, dyed the sky a bright red apocalyptic — even darker and darker than the intense orange we’ve seen elsewhere on the planet due to large-scale forest fires.

Videos circulating on social media show the phenomenon in all its force, with residents watching the spectacle almost in a state of disbelief.

“The sky became more and more orange throughout the afternoon and then, around 3:30 pm, we went out and it was that color,” he says. Kerrie Shepherd to the Australian station. “Everything was red, everywhere we looked”.

“No, this is not a filter!“, AccuWeather in a post on X, pre-empting any allegations that the images had been manipulated. “The sky has gained a sinister red tone in Western Australia as the air filled with dust ahead of the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Narelle.”

NO, that’s not a filter! ☁️🔴 The sky turned an eerie shade of red in Western Australia as dust filled the air ahead of Tropical Cyclone Narelle.

— AccuWeather (@accuweather)

What might have been in the origin of this natural phenomenon? As explained by NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, Iron-rich northwestern Australian rocks oxidize — or rust — in the dry heat, acquiring their characteristic reddish hue.

“As the rust expands, it weakens the rock and helps to fragment it,” the agency writes. “It’s a very red area of ​​the country, with that rusty tone, so you end up seeing this color being lifted by strong winds… both locally and from northwest Australia as a whole”, he explained Angus Hinessenior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology, for ABC News.

“It is a very dry area of ​​the country, so whenever there are strong winds this dust is projected into the atmosphere“, Hines added. “But direct sunlight would normally more effectively pass through whatever is in the atmosphere and would make it not look so dark red”.

But the cyclone’s dense cloud cover this time amplified the effectmitigating direct sunlight and evenly spreading the chilling red hue across the landscape as far as the eye could see.

According to Hines, “it seemed that the light was illuminating the floor evenlylike a lighting panel, rather than a single, very intense focus.”