It was hard to ignore how the sky turned an unusual colour on Monday afternoon.

It looked as if the world was being viewed through an Instagram filter.

The reason? A plume of dust raised from the Sahara Desert passed over the country, resulting in a sepia sky, reddish sun and reduced light levels.

Met Office forecaster Grahame Madge said the former Hurricane Ophelia pulled air and dust up from southern Europe and Africa.

He said: "It's all connected with Ophelia, on the eastern side of the low pressure system air is coming up in the southern direction.

"Air is being pulled from southern Europe and Africa and that air contains a lot of dust.

"So it's most likely the appearance of sunset at midday is caused by the particles scattering the light and giving the appearance of a red sun.

"It's certainly spectacular at the moment and quite a talking point, we've had a lot of calls about it."

The effect wasn't as pronounced around here as in other parts of the country, but was still pretty dramatic and surreal for a while as you can see from all the photos above.

Add your pictures below if you photographed the strange Ophelia-related phenomenon.