The sky might not be falling—but it looked like it was pretty close in Australia.
As Tropical Cyclone Narelle headed toward the Western region of the country earlier this month, its skies turned a terrifying shade of red due to dust clouds blocking sunlight and the region’s iron-rich soil.
“Incredibly eerie outside and everything is covered in dust,” Shark Bay Caravan Park wrote in a March 27 Facebook post. “Not a lot of wind yet. Let’s hope we get enough rain to wash it all off.”
The park service joked, “It’s an inside day for us that’s for sure.”
In an attached video, the camera operator panned around a suburban street as the sky appeared to be an unnatural blood red in an otherwise still atmosphere.
Naturally, Australian residents sounded off about the eerie sight in the comments.
“Looks like a sci-fi movie!” One commenter wrote. “Stay safe folks!”
Another quipped, “Are you in Shark Bay or Mars? That's crazy!!”
Narelle touched down in the area—which is known for rust-red soils that contributed to the unnerving sky color—on March 27 and became the first storm in 20 years to touch down in three separate Australian jurisdictions. At its peak, it became a category four storm, marking its wind speeds at up to 156 mph.
While the Shark Bay’s latest red skies were caused by storm clouds and wind, unusual sky colors have mostly been attributed to wildfires in Australia and beyond in the last few years. In 2023, New York City was hit with smoke from Canadian wildfires that turned the sky a soft orange and caused a haze that led to a record-breaking air-pollution event.
Similarly to Australia’s latest weather event, residents were unsettled by the fog and sky color.
As a resident told The New York Times at the time, “To me, it looks like the world is ending.”