Weather radar detected a large swarm of ladybugs flying over southern California on Tuesday.
“The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of ladybugs termed a ‘bloom,'” the National Weather Service office in San Diego said in a tweet.
A short radar clip shared by the NWS San Diego office shows a green blob flying south in the evening over southwestern San Bernardino county.
The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of lady bugs termed a “bloom” #CAwx pic.twitter.com/1C0rt0in6z
— NWS San Diego (@NWSSanDiego) June 5, 2019
NWS meteorologist Joe Dandrea told the Los Angeles Times he called a local spotter to describe what the swarm looked like after seeing the “bloom” on the radar that stretched about 80 miles by 80 miles.
“I don’t think they’re dense like a cloud,” Dandrea said of the bugs flying between 5,000 and 9,000 feet in the air. “The observer there said you could see little specks flying by.”
It is not unusual for weather radars to pick up bugs, particularly with the very detailed Next-Generation Radar employed by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of NWS. In the video below, a swarm of grasshoppers and beetles can be seen on radar from Frederick, Okla.
