Have You Seen This Before? Air and Sky Turn Green Over Plains in Bizarre Meteorological Event
Weather adages abound. We’ve all heard a version of “red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” But the sky pulled a new one on the Great Plains on Tuesday, turning green as a…
Weather adages abound. We’ve all heard a version of “red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”
But the sky pulled a new one on the Great Plains on Tuesday, turning green as a powerful windstorm swept through South Dakota and other states.
“I think it caught a lot of people’s attention because the sky did have that very unique green color to it,” Peter Rogers, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Sioux Falls, told The New York Times.
“Because of the unique color that it did exhibit, I’m guessing that it will probably be a topic of discussion for quite a long time,” he said.
Twitter was awash with images from the event.
The green sky was associated with a powerful wind storm known in weatherspeak as a derecho. The storm spanned about 240 miles of South Dakota and the adjoining plains and had winds of up to 99 mph.
It also packed a lot of moisture, according to Fox Weather, which meant the light refracted off it in a very unusual way.