Mysterious pink sky appears over Birmingham during Storm Goretti – what was it?

People in Birmingham were treated to an odd sight overhead last night when heavy snowfall brought by Storm Goretti set in.

A dazzling pink sky could be seen over an area spanning miles, and social media was flooded with questions over why.

‘Was riding my unicorn with full beams on mate, sorry about that’, one user jested in response.

The real reason is that snow and cloud particles were scattering light emitted from massive grow lamps at Birmingham City Football Club in the city’s Small Heath area.

The stadium uses the LED lamps to help the grass on the pitch recover faster, particularly when wet weather makes it more vulnerable to damage.

Aerial pictures showed the lamps glowing from the stadium at the same time as people started uploading pictures of the phenomenon.

Pictures taken in locations closer to the stadium all show a brighter pink in the sky, and its brightest points are all in the direction of the stadium.

Particles in snow and thick cloud are much more reflective and refractive than those in the air during normal weather.

This means light particles fired from a source on the ground are more likely to bounce back to other points on the ground rather than fly off into space.

Hednesford Town Football Club in Staffordshire posted on social media that its own pitch lights caused the same effect earlier this week, saying the lamps were ‘keeping us ready to chase three points, not the aurora’.

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