Powerful storms that rolled through Minnesota on Tuesday evening left people trying to photograph and film the fiery orange sky left behind.
Twin Cities National Weather Service Meteorologist, Nick Carletta, said ono Wednesday morning that the Derecho-like storm was what triggered the sky to turn orange.
"It was a very large storm that gave a lot of high clouds that spread across the area," Carletta said. "As the sun set, light came through and refracted through those clouds and messed with the specific colors that could get through those clouds."
Carletta said those clouds filtered out shorter, blue wavelengths.
"A lot more of the yellow, organge, and red wavelengths were able to make it through to where we were on the ground. That's why we saw that bizarre, orangish sky," added Carletta.
Tuesday night's storms in southwestern Minnesota brought flash flooding in several places, including Albert Lea where two to four inches fell in areas in a short amount of time.
Carletta added that he anticipates the Storm Prediction Center will rule Tuesday night's storm that hit South Dakota, Iowa, and parts of Minnesota as a Derecho.
"This storm tracked across the entire state of South Dakota going from the far northwest corner to the southeast corner," Carletta said. "When we're talking Derecho, we're looking for a long track of very high wind speeds, typically 60 miles per hour or higher or wind speeds above 70 miles per hour encompassing areas of 400 miles or greater. South Dakota is roughly 400 miles from that northwest to southeast corner."