The residents of Sioux Falls, South Dakota became unwilling witnesses to a rare natural phenomenon on Tuesday, July 5, just a few hours before severe weather had swept through the city; a green sky.
Onlookers and those who managed to catch the rare occurrence on their DSLRs and other devices will have quite the story to tell about the phenomenon.
On Tuesday, Parts of South Dakota and Iowa, as well as Nebraska, Minnesota and Illinois, faced a derecho; turning the skies an eerie green in some areas.
Derechos are rare storms that can be just as powerful and destructive like hurricanes or tornadoes producing walls of strong wind that streak across the landscape, leaving hundreds of miles of damage in their wake.
The severe weather conditions left thousands of South Dakota citizens without power for hours following the aftermath of the "tornado-like" winds.
The sky turns green in South Dakota recently, looks like a scene from a sci-fi film. pic.twitter.com/jZPb253pBw
— Seekers Of The Cosmos (@SeekersCosmos) July 7, 2022
In addition to heavy rain, the storm brought with it a number of colors to the skies including black, blue, gray and murky green around South Dakota.
Many who were able to capture images of the skies took to Twitter and other social media platforms to share pictures of the "ominous sky."
According to AccuWeather, green skies are often attached to severe weather although this is no indication that a tornado is the likely follow-up to the storm.
While it is not fully understood why the skies turn green as precursor to bad weather, the celestial phenomenon occurs when clouds carry a lot of water and allow primarily blue light to pass through the storm cloud. The blue light mixes with the sun's red light, and the sky turns green which may generate the "perfect storm for a green sky.
Regardless of the nature of the "green skies", the captured images of this rare occurrence were in fact stunning.
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