A storm front, christened “Erminio”, this week caused intense weather phenomena on Crete, replete with flash flooding, gale-force winds and striking, other worldly images over the large island’s sky. The latter was due to the presence of dense dust in the atmosphere being blown in from North Africa’s Sahara Desert.
The presence of the suffocating dust turned the sky orange.
🇬🇷 | Una mujer captó desde la ventanilla de un avión imágenes de un cielo rojizo y anaranjado, con un aspecto apocalíptico, sobre la isla de Creta, en Grecia.
El fenómeno se debió a una intensa tormenta de polvo procedente del desierto del Sahara, en el norte de África, que tiñó… pic.twitter.com/eTnhOB37ix
— Alerta Mundial (@AlertaMundoNews) April 2, 2026
On Wednesday dust concentrations surged to extremely high levels, creating an eerie spectacle. A few hours later, a video of a woman traveling by airplane to Crete went viral, as she recorded the orange sky.
The woman, who appears to be traveling with her son, films the weather phenomenon and expresses her concern as the aircraft passes through the dense cloud of dust. The unusual color of the sky has also drawn attention on social media.
Extremely high dust concentrations
According to data from Meteo.gr and the National Observatory of Athens, the levels of suspended particles reached close to or even exceeded 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
