Wow, what a difference a day makes! The glorious weather finally made its way eastward yesterday, as the latest cold front (this one being quite dry) pushed to the coast in the early morning hours on Sunday. Northwest winds built in behind it throughout the day, but were no match for the intensity of the sun as far as warmth was concerned. The tail end of that front has pushed back up across NJ today, an effect of the high pressure cells positioned offshore, bringing back a little southerly flow to the region. While the surface winds were indeed light and southerly last night, the upper-level winds were still out of the WNW. As you can see from the radar, last nights flight was less than impressive. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:00am this morning.

Frames are every 1/2 hour. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.

The national composite image was having issues last night (many of the radars dropped in and out throughout the period) so I have left that one off, but after viewing it myself, I can say it was pretty light migration across most of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The NYC radar shows very little movement last night (almost none, actually) and both the Fort Dix and Dover stations show a light push over the area. Overall I wouldn’t expect much change on the ground today. Garret Mountain and Sandy Hook would hold the best chances of actually detecting any changes, but the result will likely be subtle at best. Oh well, it’s a great day for going to work (gotta bank those vacation days for the weeks ahead!). If you’re in the area, though, CMBO is leading a walk at the Cape May Meadows at 7:30am. Yesterday we had some good birds there (7 Glossy Ibis, 4 Piping Plovers, 5 American Oystercatchers, 2 Wilson’s Snipe, Great Egret, Blue-winged Teal, etc. etc.), so it’ll be interesting to see any changes in the composition this morning.

Good Birding

David