Wow! The birds were really on the move last night. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through sunrise this morning.
Frames are every 1/2 hour for reflectivity and velocity, and every hour for the regional composite. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
You can see the low pressure system spinning over Maine in the first few frames of the regional composite. That system, combined with high pressure to the west, set up a strong WNW–>ESW wind profile which gave migrants the ‘green light’ to take off last night. Initially birds can be seen moving at a strong W–>E trajectory, but as winds subsided over night, you can see the trajectory change to more N–>S. Still, this morning the winds had a good amount of west in them, which will result in many birds being pushed toward the coast. There are also plenty of birds out over the Atlantic this morning, and so I would expect a good increase in density along the coast well after sunrise (and possibly into the afternoon). You can see my updated migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org.
Frames are every 1/2 hour for reflectivity and velocity, and every hour for the regional composite. Click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized animation.
You can see the low pressure system spinning over Maine in the first few frames of the regional composite. That system, combined with high pressure to the west, set up a strong WNW–>ESW wind profile which gave migrants the ‘green light’ to take off last night. Initially birds can be seen moving at a strong W–>E trajectory, but as winds subsided over night, you can see the trajectory change to more N–>S. Still, this morning the winds had a good amount of west in them, which will result in many birds being pushed toward the coast. There are also plenty of birds out over the Atlantic this morning, and so I would expect a good increase in density along the coast well after sunrise (and possibly into the afternoon). You can see my updated migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org.
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Good Birding
David
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