Skies turned red and thousands lost electricity on Sunday as Tropical Cyclone Narelle swept through Western Australia. The storm has also disrupted production at the two biggest liquefied natural gas plants of the country — run by Chevron and Woodside — exacerbating a global supply crunch.
Narelle made landfall as a Category 4 severe tropical cyclone in Queensland on March 20. It crossed the Northern Territory before hitting Western Australia over the weekend — downgraded from a tropical cyclone on Saturday.
Visuals shared online showed bright red skies as the storm stirred up massive dust clouds in Shark Bay. Reports indicate that the startling hue was caused by a combination of dust (the area has red soil rich with iron oxide) and light scattering.
Footage shared online has since prompted editing accusations — with some claiming that such a scene was impossible. Many social media posts sharing videos from the area added “no filter” clarifications while others insisted that the shade of red had been ‘intensified’ in many clips.
“This looks less like weather and more like the sky issuing a final warning,” one X user wrote.
Cyclone Narelle hits LNG production
Cyclone Narelle triggered outages at the Wheatstone Platform operated by Chevron Corp as well as one of the units within its Gorgon plant — prompting a suspension of LNG and domestic gas production. The two liquefied natural gas plants account for about 5% of global production capacity, and the situation is likely to exacerbate the ongoing shortage. Woodside also said that production at its Karratha gas plant had been disrupted by the cyclone.
“Severe weather associated with the passing of Tropical Cyclone Narelle likely caused the interruptions to both Gorgon and Wheatstone operations…We will resume full production at both facilities once it is safe to do so,” reports quoted the Chevron Australia spokesperson as saying.