What Did Radar Pick Up on the Minnesota

Remember the beginning of the 1996 film, The Arrival, when an astronomer is sitting at a bank of computers in the middle of the night when an alarm goes off indicating a signal has been received from outer space? It was probably a little like that at the National Weather Service office in Rochester, Minnesota, last week. The radar didn't signal an alien race trying to communicate with us but there was something on the radar that made them take note.

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It wasn't rain and it wasn't snow. There were no severe storms in the area so what what it?

They determined that it was a massive number of birds in a large migratory pattern!

Confirmation came from the LaCrosse, Wisconsin National Weather Service:

"Our radar is detecting migratory swans, geese, pelicans, and ducks moving south along the Mississippi River early this morning. They are the higher returns (greens and yellows). When the yellow returns were near the office, we could hear trumpeter swans calling in the distance."

Hats off to our friends at the National Weather Service for keeping an eye on the skies!

Credit to KROC, Rochester, Minnesota

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