This is terrifying! It looks like the apocalypse is coming!
A violent and widespread dust storm engulfed the provinces of Médéa and Tissemsilt, Algeria on September 15, 2021.
Some areas have been forced to turn on street lights in the middle of the day as the dust partially blocked out the sun, turning the sky ORANGE-RED as seen in the video below from Tissemsilt:
مباشر:🇩🇿🇩🇿
— Said Touati (@AgenciaEpsilon) September 15, 2021
15 سبتمبر:
مدينة تيسمسيلت عشية اليوم:
النهار يتحول إلى ليل.
La ville de Tissemsilt ce soir:
Le jour se transforme en nuit. pic.twitter.com/5ZA0FT6rP1
During the evening hours, the red color intensified even more, turning the sky BLOOD RED in Ksar Boukhari, Médéa:
مباشر:🇩🇿🇩🇿
— Said Touati (@AgenciaEpsilon) September 15, 2021
15 سبتمبر:
مدينة قصر البخاري ولاية المدية:
عشية اليوم.
La ville de Ksar El Boukhari Wilaya de Medea:
Ce soir. pic.twitter.com/LSvSDIsHYG
As seen in the video below, the sand storm was accompanied by very strong winds which almost brought the visibility to zero.
مباشر:🇩🇿🇩🇿
— Said Touati (@AgenciaEpsilon) September 15, 2021
15 سبتمبر:
تيسمسيلت:
عاصفة رملية قوية اجتاحت المدينة هذا المساء. pic.twitter.com/awGoWJK7nb
Here some other pictures compiled in a video:
So why does the sky turn red during a sandstorm?
Sunlight is a mixture of colours from blue to red, but it is the blue that is predominately scattered across the sky.
When astronauts look down at the earth and they see a blue earth and when we look up and see a blue sky it’s because there’s blue light being scattered around all over the place by the air molecules.
Now when the atmosphere is suddenly swamped with a whole bunch of particles, which are other than just air, like lots of dust and aerosols, then they scatter light differently.
The dust particles are rich in iron, which gives them an orange to red color and is reflected across the sky when bombarded with light. In other words, dust preferentially scatter the light and that’s the colour that we predominantly see in the sky while they’re in it. Red in our case…
Here a video explaining the phenomenon, using as trigger particles from the catastrophic California fires in 2020:
This sandstorm in Algeria really looks like the end of the world. In this kind of weather I really, really don’t want to be outside! [Twitter]
