By Emma Nolan
Senior Reporter
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California is currently experiencing a strange weather phenomenon resulting in orange skies—with onlookers likening the sight to the vista from the movie Blade Runner 2049.
There is something decidedly science fiction about the sight of the hazy burnt orange skies above the Bay Area, with legions of residents sharing photos of the bizarre weather event.
Blade Runner 2049 came out in 2017 and the long-awaited follow-up up to the 1982 sci-fi classic is noted for its visually stunning cinematography, in particular, distinctively orange and hazy scenes set in a desolate future Las Vegas.
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Ominous and looming, there are even reports of ash falling from the sky.
In reality, the orange haze was caused by the smoke from countless wildfires mixed with clouds and fog but it made the cities affected look more like they were situated on Mars than the sunny west coast.
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Many on social media described the weather event as biblical, apocalyptic and even a harbinger of climate catastrophe to come.
One Twitter user made a video of the haunting Blade Runner score set over footage of the Bay Area today.
They tweeted: "Someone put Blade Runner 2049 music to drone footage of San Francisco on 9/09/20 credit to Terry Tsai (YouTube) #BayArea #BayAreaFires."
While another added: "It is LITERALLY Blade Runner 2049 in California right now."
Another person wrote: "Just walking the dog in San Leandro Ca. this morning. Everything normal. #orangesky #BayAreaFires #apocalypse2020."
Another joked: "Another shot from the Bay Area.. oh wait... that's Bladerunner 2049."
While someone else added: "I still remember when people complained that the Vegas desert scene in Blade Runner 2049 was 'unrealistically filtered to shit' and 'trying too hard to be artsy and surreal'. That was three years ago."
The National Weather Service, per the Los Angeles Times, explained the conditions.
"As the winds weaken aloft, gravity will take over as the primary vertical transport of the smoke," a spokesperson said. "Suspended smoke will descend closer to the surface and could lead to darker skies and worsening air quality today."
UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain took to Twitter to explain the weather, tweeting: "Extremely dense & tall smoke plumes from numerous large wildfires, some of which have been generating nocturnal pyrocumulunimbus clouds ("fire thunderstorms"), are almost completely blocking out the sun across some portions of Northern California this morning. #CAwx #CAfire."
He added: "Extremely intense fire updrafts have injected vast amounts of smoke & ash into upper atmosphere as high as 50,000 feet--20,000 above cruising altitude of jet airliners. Dense smoke throughout entire atmospheric column is blocking nearly all sunlight at surface. #CAwx #CAfire."
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