As the latest cold front marches across the U.S., birds took to the sky once more last night. My computer is on its last legs and is taking forever to download and process the data, so I’m very short on time this morning. Here’s the radar for your interpretation!

The national synoptic map is full of weak frontal systems creating a hodgepodge of lackluster weather events. This translates to migration conditions across the country ranging from mediocre to optimal. It’s worth checking out the loop from yesterday afternoon through current time on Paul Hurtado’s NEXRAD archive here. Migration was heaviest in the center of the country, sandwiched by two stationary fronts. Also heavy was the migration over the Upper Midwest, northwest of the stationary front, where winds were more northwesterly and favorable. Migration was evident from coast to coast with some of the heaviest migration of the season so far for the Western U.S. The Northeastern U.S. and New England experienced the least migration with suboptimal conditions in terms of winds and atmospheric disturbance prevailing.

Birds were on the move again across much of the Southeast, Upper Midwest and Western U.S. last night. The heaviest flights continued to be over the Upper Midwest and Eastern Plains following the passage of the most recent cold front across the middle of the country.

Except for the Great Plains region, where winds were stronger and out of the south, much of the U.S. experienced either very light wind or northerly winds which are more conducive to southbound migration. Due to these widespread favorable conditions, we saw another night of migration from coast to coast with the heaviest movements east of the Mississippi and south of the Great Lakes.

It might still feel like summer across most of the U.S., but it’s late August and the lack of strong winds at all altitudes appears to have triggered widespread migration from coast to coast. The heaviest movement continued to be out of the Upper Midwest where birds could be seen streaming in from Southern Canada down through southwest Iowa. See below for a more detailed look at this region.