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…”
As I read that, a little part of me died inside.
o_O
Have you tried feeding cicadas to the ‘possum posse?
Ack!!!
No!!!!
Too bad the snakes won’t eat them. You could freeze a years worth of turtle or lizard food. I wonder what an air fryer would do to them. Or a dehydrator. Make a seasoned protein powder. Shake-n-bake cicada mix.
Tucker’s cicada was baked into a brownie. I’m sure it didn’t taste like shrimp.
I’m sorry. LOL.
My oldest kidlet has been a bug eater since he was about 6. He found chocolate covered ant at the Philly kid’s museum. Turns out pretty much all kid’s museum have bug based candy. And he would find it.
A gift store near Asheville, where my parent’s lived, had a bug snack section! Yearly stocking stuffer every Christmas.
But I am truly very sorry for the loss of your pup, Djinni.
Chunk of your heart.
All dogs go to heaven becuz if they didn’t, it wouldn’t be heaven.
Life ain’t worth living without a pup.
Take care
Apparently they’re not hearing them in Perryville either. I can’t believe it. So wooded.
Birds are having a field day with these. American Kestrels, Purple Martins, Cuckoos, Bluejays and even Bluebirds will chow these down.
I ate snails once. They’re okay. I wouldn’t try them without the garlic and red wine.
A cicada is a bridge too far.
I was wondering about that. I swear I haven't seen a bird in a week.
I haven’t seen them in my town, but they’re nuts in the Baltimore area. I was getting my windshield splattered driving down I-70.
They’re called cicada-killer wasps. They look like hamster-sized hornets. They kidnap the cicadas, stuff them into holes,lay eggs on them, and bury them alive.
And I’m rooting for the hornets.
The mental images are the stuff of nightmares. Today my deck was covered with the little severed abdomens full of fungus. The heads and thoraxes are still flying around making noise. And some people want to eat these things? They can have mine.
It could be the swarm of dim locusts leaving there now depleted and destroyed fields for new fields in red states.
They don’t eat anything! They’ve been sucking tree sap underground for 17 years, now all they do is mate and die.
My spoiled Old World snakes won’t but they’re a feast for the native sneks and turtles.
:)
Can I get ‘em on a pizza?
A treat that you can make for the whole family every 17 years.
I live 50 miles north of Hburg and there must be millions of them here. Constant drone in all directions. They hit you in the head when you go outside and land on you and your clothes.
We just put up with it. The scientists said it wasn’t gonna be as bad as last time, but I think it’s worse. They don’t really bug me.
WOW!
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