Posted on 06/08/2021 11:58:37 AM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
The 17-year “Brood X” cicadas are hatching in such high numbers that they’re being picked up by weather radar in Virginia.
“THIS is not rain, not ground clutter,” NBC meteorologist Lauryn Ricketts tweeted on Monday. “So likely CICADAS being picked up by the radar beam.”
Pallozzi said the NWS has a weather radar located in Sterling, Virginia, in the same region as the radar map that Ricketts posted, and explained that the beams the radar devices send out rise the further they travel from the machine.
So the beams are picking up the newly emerged cicadas on the ground near the Sterling radar, but fewer and fewer cicadas are identified as the beam’s height increases away from the ground, which is why the blip on the map is so close to the radar itself, Pallozzi said.
The NWS’ Baltimore-Washington account tweeted on Saturday that local radar was reporting “a lot of fuzziness” that it attributed to cicadas.
While the cicadas are populous enough for weather radar to notice them, Pallozzi said it’s easy for any meteorologist to discern the difference between weather events and cicadas due to the “Hydrometeor Classification Algorithm.”
Pallozzi said the NWS can use the algorithm to determine the likelihood that a radar beam is picking up hail, rain, snow, something biological, or more.
And cicadas can be really noisy too:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1401920157413482500
After 17 years underground, billions of red-eyed cicadas are beginning to crawl their way to the surface in portions of the United States. The periodical insects, known as Brood X or Brood 10, have begun emerging from the earth in 15 eastern states and Washington, D.C., from Georgia to New York and west to Indiana and Illinois.
“There will be birth. There will be death. There will be romance in the treetops. There will be wicked sex. There will be predators. It’s going to be better than an episode of Game of Thrones…”
When I was a kid, I’d bring some inside to hang on the windowscreen, and watch them metamorphose while I ate dinner.
What does the Tribune say....better news there.
There’s some sort of cicada killer bee in some states I understand.
Harmless bug
Insects mature in stages called instars. It’s normal for them to mature at pretty close to the same time. That said, there are cicadas every year, but you’d expect a huge hatch to cycle after huge emergences.
Great. Now I'm imagining the Game of Thrones intro but with buzzing cicadas doing the music and cicadas popping up from the ground instead of various cities and castles.
BzzBzzzz BbbBzzz BbbBzzzz Bzzz Bzzz Bzzzzz
It was amazing, and even more so because that was the day I was burying my beloved 14 year old Ibizan Hound, Djinni.
As we finished, the swarm arrived and I like to think it was a very fitting tribute to her, an aerial mob of mourners, all graceful, elegant, and glittering, just like her.
And they croak when you pick them up.
My lab loves them and won’t stop eating until she gets sick if I don’t stop her.
We have plenty of deer, if necessary.
FReepers are safe until help arrives.
;D
It is, to me, one of God’s miracles and I am suitably impressed and grateful for it.
I have no idea how they do it, but I’ve read theories that they judge the seasons by the changes in the sap of the tree roots they dine upon, while underground.
How they “count” those seasons, is beyond my ken.
Plenty of deer, short term. I think they get pretty scarce in a SHTF scenario.
I just fished one out of my frog pond.
It seems to have fallen off the maple tree beside the little pond before its wings fully formed.
I put it in a sunny place to dry out and maybe make it, anyway.
Another crash landed in the grass and I put it back up on a tree branch.
It was tangled up in the grass and couldn’t get airborne again.
Same here.
This is my third Brood X.
Loving it.
LOL
Few things live up to the hype. This actually does.
Then I’ll just have to figure which people are “outside of my circle”, won’t I?
/if it’s called “tourist season”, why can’t I get a license?
;D
I have been looking forward to this like a kid having 10 Christmas mornings, all at once.
I guess anyone killed in self defense would qualify.
My son wants to try them. Got a bunch in the freezer when he comes home this summer.
I’m thinking some kind of fried patties seasoned with Old Bay.
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