Bonne Van Der Veen

Ever wondered why the sky often turns GREEN before a tornado? NO FILTER with these photos! @MatthewCappucci captured this scene on April 29, 2025 near Guthrie, Texas before and after a giant hailstorm that dropped chunks of ice the size of DVDs. It also spawned an EF2 tornado near Seymour, Texas and delivered straight-line winds measured up to 106 mph as well. The green sky phenomenon is a real thing, but it has nothing to do with a tornado/rotation. Instead, the strongest storms often exhibit a greenish/turquoise hue because of their depth and the amount of precipitation they carry. Believe it or not, the green sky phenomenon is not highly studied. It's believed to be the result of overlapping yellow and blue light. Sunlight is naturally skewed yellow/red early and late in the day, when the sun is low to the horizon. Most severe thunderstorms happen in the late afternoon near peak heating, which comes two or three hour before sunset. At that time of day, the sun – lower in the sky – has to shine through our atmosphere at an angle, meaning the light passes through more of it. Much of the blue light (shorter wavelengths) is scattered away; the longer wavelengths, like yellow and red, are better at penetrating deeper into the atmosphere and reaching the ground. Tall thunderstorms, however, scatter blue and bluish-green light. That's especially true if the clouds are carrying lots of hail. So add together yellow and blue. The result? Green.