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Migration continues, although fragmented by high pressure and precipitation
When the map gets complicated with weather systems, it pays to check out the Hurtado Radar loop to understand what’s going on. Migration was evident across the country last night, although high pressure over New England and the Mid Atlantic kept birds down along the east coast, and heavy precipitation over Florida and along parts of the Central and Mississippi Flyways reduced migration locally. Some interesting weather over the Upper Midwest, as the once stationary front backed up as a warm front overnight, means more birds for southeastern Wisconsin today. See below for details.
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Central Flyway shutdown for the night, while MAYgration marches on all around us
A cold front stretched from the Yucatan to Canada brought heavy precipitation and opposing winds to the Central Flyway last night, effectively shutting down any major migration over the middle of the US, although some local movement was evident on the radar (see below). With the exception of some heavy precipitation over Florida and some high pressure cells over New England and the Great Plains regions, birds were on the move across the country. Check out the Hurtado Radar from 3pm yesterday through this morning to see for yourself.
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More MAYgration into the Great Lakes region
High pressure over New England and some gnarly precipitation in parts of the Southeast, Great Plains and Upper Midwest, thwarted nocturnal migration for some locales last night, but otherwise birds were on the move throughout most of the country. The heaviest returns continue to come from the Texas Gulf Coast indicating heavy Trans- and Circum-Gulf migration. Heavy migration was also apparent throughout the Midwest east of the stationary front, and along the Pacific flyway from the Desert Southwest all the way up into the Pacific Northwest. It’s clearly May, and for nocturnal migrants that means “all systems GO!”
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A plea for feedback
We’ve got a great community here. According to my site stats upwards of 600 unique visitors come here for their daily dose of radar and migration; that’s fantastic! Unfortunately my part is only half of the equation, and without your feedback the site remains a one-way street with little usefulness in terms of ground-truthing (and hence, little use as an archive of migration over the Upper Midwest). So I’m asking you today to please consider providing some comments following a day of birding so we can all learn more about the relationship between what we see on the radar and what we find on the ground! A comment can be as simple as a one-liner, a copy-pasted post you might make to your local listserve, or even copy-pasting your eBird list. It shouldn’t be daunting- anything is better than an empty comment section! 🙂
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BOOM! It’s MAY!!!
Migration was hot and heavy along the Central and Mississippi Flyways last night, while high pressure over the Mid Atlantic and Northeast kept birds down for that part of the world. A stalled front stretching from the Great Plains to the Upper Midwest marked the boundary (and fallout line) for the Central US, and migration continued across the Gulf Coast, Desert Southwest and up the Pacific Coast as well.