Ominous videos show wildfires changing routine weather events into apocalyptic scenes

Wildfires raging across the West Coast have destroyed homes, taken lives and forced thousands to evacuate to safer grounds.

The flames and their smoke also make for bizarre transformations of even the simplest of weather events into animated clouds of red that slither across the sky or puff into the air like jellyfish.

What’s left are ominous, apocalyptic scenes that wow some residents but terrify others.

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, shared footage on Twitter that shows what he guesses to be a “smoke cyclone.”

He called it “a meteorological feature I don’t think I’ve seen before.”

The cyclone — a general term to describe winds that rotate inwardly to a low pressure area — appears to be surrounded by dense smoke from the California fires, Swain noted. When asked if the swirling mass can affect weather on the ground, Swain said it’s not likely and that “it’s really more of a meteorological curiosity.”

A time-lapse video posted by the National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay Area station shows what looks like a wall of smoke crawling past terrain between 2,000 and 4,000 feet above ground, displaying a mesmerizing transition from yellow to blood red skies.

Scientists call the common belt of air a “marine layer” — a stable area of air that does not rise, according to ABC7 News Meteorologist Mike Nicco. Such an event is customary over the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, for example, and happens when cool, moist air meets warm air.

These weather events can explain why the skies have taken an orange glow. The more ash is pumped into the marine layer, the more blue light is reflected, letting yellow, orange and red light in, Nicco explained.

In a different angle, satellite imagery shows a “very thick multilevel smoke deck over much of California,” the NWS San Francisco Bay Area tweeted. “This smoke is filtering the incoming energy from the sun, causing much cooler temperatures and dark dreary red-shifted skies across many areas.”

One Twitter user posted footage of her drive from Portland to Salem, Oregon, on Tuesday as the Santiam wildfire swept through the region. The sky is seen transforming from its usual blue hues into more pink, orange then dark red and gray colors as the driver travels closer to the flames.

Another video of firefighters battling the El Dorado Fire in Yucaipa, California, shows a “fast spinning” dust devil of smoke dancing just feet away from them.

Dust devils usually form on hot days when the sun heats one part of the ground faster than the other, causing a pocket of warm air to rise and pressure to lower, according to The Weather Channel. A swirling motion begins, picking up dust, or in this case smoke, with it. They can grow up to 100 feet wide and approach 80 mph winds.

More “apocalyptic-looking” time lapses and videos made their rounds on social media this week.