North winds continue, south blocking gone

This is getting repetitive but the story is pretty much the same as yesterday, north winds over the northeast kept migration to a minimum. However, there were no storms to the south that had previously been blocking almost all movement. North winds were light for the second half of the night across much of the region so it surprises me that more birds were not detected on radar. View the full night radar animation.

The wind map and radar paint a nice picture of birds moving en masse when the winds are from the south. The Central Flyway was running strong again last night while the east was quiet behind north winds. There was good activity as far east as Indiana and possibly western Ohio. Kentucky also showed some light activity on the radar so Ohio folks should expect to pick up some new migrants. Some birds are still moving north despite the conditions, albeit in low densities, as evidenced by the increase in Chimney Swift reports and continuing reports of Chipping Sparrows and Pine Warblers. Look for this to continue, birds are eager to head north and some will be on the move regardless. Swallows, Blue-headed Vireos, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets should become more widespread, and early warblers such as Palm and Yellow-throated should continue to show up in new areas.

Looking at the radar image from central Pennsylvania, there was some clutter that seemed to line up well with the ridges. I hadn’t noticed this before and I am not sure what this indicates, if you have any theories let me know.

 

Check out Alex’s post for an idea of birds to be expecting in the next 2 weeks.

For migration updates or other regions check-
Woodcreeper – David focuses on Wisconsin and New Jersey
Tom Auer – Tom’s blog covers New England
Birds Over Portland – Greg blogs about the Pacific Northwest
Badbirdz Reloaded – Angel & Mariel cover Florida and the southeast

I need your help! These reports will only be as good as the feedback I get on these updates. Please leave comments on interesting patterns of migration you are seeing in the field so I can incorporate some ground truthing to my forecasts and predictions. Thanks!