CALIFORNIA LADYBUG SWARM WAS SO BIG IT SHOWED UP ON RADAR AS 80-MILE-LONG 'BLOOM'

[Demovictory9]

Link to tweet

swarm of ladybugs in California was so big it showed up on a weather service radar map as an 80-mile-wide mass, according to officials.

The San Diego branch of the National Weather Service tweeted that a large "echo" which appeared on the SoCal radar wasn't rain, but in fact "a cloud of lady bugs."

This phenomena is known as a "bloom," according to the National Weather Service San Diego.


National Weather Service meteorologist Miguel Miller meanwhile told local radio station KNX the bloom appeared on screens as 80 miles long and wide. It was traveling from the San Gabriel Mountains to San Diego.


The blob was pictured moving from the city of Barstow in San Bernadino County 80 miles south to Riverside, a city near Los Angeles. It covered an area of more than 1,000 square miles in total, according to the Palm Springs Desert Sun.

Mark Moede, a meteorologist for the weather service, told the Palm Springs Desert Sun a weather spotter in Wrightwood in the San Bernardino mountains reported a higher than usual population of ladybugs. The weather service then linked the mass to this sighting.

Moede said: "He said there were ladybugs everywhere."

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However, one expert was skeptical that a loveliness (the collective noun for the insects) of ladybugs could show up so strongly on a radar map.

James Cornett, senior scientist at James W. Cornett Ecological Consultants, told the Palm Springs Desert Sun that the number of bugs needed to create such movement on equipment would have turned skies dark.

https://www.newsweek.com/california-ladybug-swarm-1442497

[Dennis Donovan]

1. "A loveliness of ladybugs"

The collective noun for them. I'm sure those in CA would beg to differ.

[GoCubsGo]

2. Migrating birds get tracked this way, as well.

http://birdcast.info/

[Opel_Justwax]

3. Off topic for this forum.n/t

[Dennis Donovan]

6. It's not...

This could be yet another climate change-induced oddity. And climate change is allowed in GD.

[Opel_Justwax]

7. Radar Back Scatter caused by bugs has nothing to do with climate change.

[Dennis Donovan]

8. It wouldn't be in the news if it wasn't unusual...

[Hekate]

9. General Discussion is pretty capacious. Your objection is odd, and your concern is noted

[CatWoman]

4. you're excited

correct?

[Demovictory9]

11. I love ladybugs

[rsdsharp]

5. The aphids must be trembling on their rose bushes.

[Hekate]

10. This is very cool! Everybody loves these little beetles. This Spring I had the pleasure...

...of standing right in the migration path of Painted Lady butterflies as they flew right through my property. Zip! Zoom! A quick dip into the flowering hedges, and away they went, with more coming right at me.

[Demovictory9]

12. Cool.