People mind-blown as dystopian bright pink sky takes over major city

Some truly weird and wonderful natural phenomena can be viewed around the world, and while we're sure you've all heard of the Northern Lights, others like Antarctica’s 'blood falls', volcanic lightning (known as 'dirty thunderstorms'), and bioluminescent waves of glowing marine life are just as beautiful but reported on much less.

We'd quite like it if massive earthquakes stopped threatening to trigger a deadly volcanic Ring of Fire, and as extreme weather becomes more common every year, we're told to strap in and expect the unexpected.

After reporting on UFO-like punch hole clouds last year, there are more theories that alien life is coming to Earth. This time, an unexpected side effect of the swirling Storm Goretti has turned the sky above a major city in the United Kingdom into a beautifully bright pink.

Sadly, we've not discovered a new phenomenon here, although Storm Goretti's blanket of snow did help contribute to Birmingham's glowing pink sky. Fearing that this was some sort of biblical end of days, social media was full of questions about why the sky above Birmingham had turned pink. Even stranger, nowhere else in the UK reported this happening, suggesting that the city with a population of 1.2 million could be the hub of some sort of alien invasion.

The mystery has been solved, with the bizarre light show being put down to LED growing lights being shone on the pitch at Birmingham City's football ground. During the winter, it's not uncommon for football clubs to use specialized LED or High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) systems to provide the essential light needed for photosynthesis.

Those in the UK can corroborate that there's not exactly a lot of sun this time of year.

Met Office spokesperson Grahame Madge explained: “The blue wavelengths of light are more easily scattered by snow or water droplets allowing the longer wavelengths – such as red and orange – to get through.

"This can have the effect of turning colours more pink or orange.”

Even if you haven't heard of this happening before, it was the second incident in as many weeks. Also posting on social media, Staffordshire's Hednesford Town Football Club shared similar scenes that were caused by its own LED pitch lights. Hednesford Town explained the lights were "helping the grass grow and recover, keeping us ready to chase three points, not the aurora."

BBC weather presenter Simon King also added: "Atmospheric conditions with low cloud and even during snow, can make the sky a little more reflective and show a glow of street lighting, buildings and even purple lights from football stadiums."

While we might be used to street lights giving the sky a whitish glow during a snowstorm, we've got to admit that the pink glow is a little more festive in a month as miserable as January.

If we could encourage more football grounds to try different colors of LED lighting during bad weather, we could even light up the sky with a whole rainbow. Yaas weather kween, slay!