Birds Birds Birds. That’s the story. Here’s the radar from sunset last night through 5:30am 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.
The floodgates clearly opened wide last night, as southerly flow was evident all up and down the east coast, from northern Florida to central New Jersey. A weak stationary front marked the boundary between heavy migration (to the south of the front) and less heavy migration (to the north of it), although the later radar images indicate that birds clearly pushed through this layer and migrated into a northwesterly headwind. The velocity image clearly shows birds overshooting the coast of New Jersey this morning, despite the easterly winds at the surface. An explanation for this is probably the winds at migration altitude (~3000 feet) which remain strong and northwesterly at the time of this post. Coastal areas (while they may show a decrease in birds later today) will see birds reorienting to the coast early this morning, and therefore should be good at first light.
It appeared that the densest migration in southern Jersey was along the Delaware Bay shore, with less (although still heavy) movement extending to Cape May. Central Jersey showed very heavy influx and for that I would expect Garret Mountain to pick up a good number of migrants throughout the morning. I still think Sandy Hook will be interesting first thing this morning given the apparent overshoots on the radar… hopefully we can get a report from the migration counter sometime later today.
Really, the entire state received new birds today, especially from central Jersey southward, and therefore all spring migrant traps in these areas should be birded before the weather gets too bad (heavy rain and t-storms in the forecast). The cacophony of birdsong out my window is becoming deafening… nothing new yet, but many robins stealing the early show… now to go ground-truth!
Good Birding
David
P.S. Come check out my migration forecast for the Mid-Atlantic on Birdcapemay.org
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Posted by: David La Puma
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