Green Sky

A common question that meteorologists get when the severe weather season really gets going is why the sky turns shades of green when a storm is approaching. This is a not uncommon phenomenon that seems to happen when storms start to get wound up in the area, however, it’s not linked to just one reason.

Scientists have been looking into the idea of a storm “going green” and have come up with a few theories. One of the reasons could be that thunderstorms are usually “full” of rain, water vapor, and hail and sunlight scatters off of these particles and creates a greenish type color to the clouds. Another possible reason is that many storms tend to happen around the time the sun is setting and when you combine the reddish yellow color of sunset and the bluish color of storm clouds, you can get a green tint to the storm.

Now the next logical question about green storms does this mean that when a storm turns green it’s most likely severe or do all severe storms turn green? That’s a little trickier to say and there still is no concrete answer to it but you can be sure that green storms do happen and sometimes do mean severe weather.

The meteorological scientists will continue to look for answers but in the meantime, just because a storm isn’t green doesn’t mean it can’t do some damage!