With the exception of a few early morning arrivals, the conditions over the mid-Atlantic continued to thwart any significant migration over the mid-Atlantic. Here’s the radar from 7:30pm last night through 5:30am this morning.

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

Southwest flow and heavy precipitation dominated the coastal Mid-Atlantic last night, while further inland (Washington DC, Pittsburgh, PA, etc.) the conditions were much more conducive to migration. The result was moderate to heavy flow out of the Ohio Valley and along the Appalachians, while the east coast got skunked once more. Looking at the KDIX and KDOX radars you can see a small pulse of activity early this morning when the front veers east and the west winds build in behind it. This appears to have brought a small number of birds to western NJ and the Delmarva Peninsula, but I wouldn’t expect it to cause any major diversity or density shifts on the ground this morning. If you’re in those areas, though, you might want to hit your local fall migrant trap anyway.

The forecast is calling for this nuisance front to back up over the region tonight and tomorrow, bringing more crappy weather and (more importantly) shunting any migration off to our west. Southeast winds will dominate through Monday and whether we see any migration over the next two nights will depend on how light the winds remain and how patchy (or absent, hopefully) the precipitation layer becomes. As of right now it looks like the weekend will be light on birds and heavy on precipitation.

Good Birding

David