{"id":503706,"date":"2026-03-30T16:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503706\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T16:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:12:08","slug":"how-tropical-cyclone-narelle-turned-the-sky-red-in-western-australia-australia-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503706\/","title":{"rendered":"How Tropical Cyclone Narelle turned the sky red in Western Australia | Australia weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

The skies of Shark Bay in Western Australia<\/a> turned an eerie blood red before Tropical Cyclone Narelle made landfall, a phenomenon an expert said was caused by an iron-infused dust storm.<\/p>\n

Narelle crossed into WA on Friday, hitting the state roughly 900km north of Perth in the food bowl region.<\/p>\n

Video filmed at Shark Bay Caravan Park in Denham on Friday and shared via social media showed a dust storm had engulfed the town, colouring the sky a deep red.<\/p>\n

\"SkySky turns blood-red in Western Australia\u2019s Shark Bay before arrival of Cyclone Narelle \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Jessica Lingard from the Bureau of Meteorology said high winds and the area\u2019s rust-red, iron-rich soils created the spectacle. Pilbara, the centre of Australia\u2019s iron-ore industry, is less than 400km to Denham\u2019s north east.<\/p>\n

\u201cNarelle just whipped, picking up the dust from the landscape and pushing it through places like Shark Bay ahead of the cyclone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Lingard explained the footage benefited from the perfect combination of factors: \u201cStrong winds, dry ground and photographers in the right place to experience it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Onslow in the north-west corner of Western Australia experienced a similar phenomenon in January when inland thunderstorms generated strong winds that pushed red dust all the way to the coastline, she said.<\/p>\n

Narelle made history<\/a> by becoming the first storm system in over 20 years to make landfall in three of Australia\u2019s states and territories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The skies of Shark Bay in Western Australia turned an eerie blood red before Tropical Cyclone Narelle made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-503706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}