A lot more than precipitation shows up on the radar screens of the National Weather Service -- bats, mayflies, Santa Claus, and most recently, monarch butterflies. As fall weather moves from north to south, giant masses of monarchs are flying south to Mexico for the winter.
Earlier this week, NWS picked up a giant blob of light blue on their radar screens in St. Louis. It turned out to be a hefty mass of butterflies, likely several hundred thousand (maybe several million). The blob actually resembled a giant butterfly on the radar screen, its wingspan stretching some 250 miles over southern Illinois and central Missouri.
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Post by US National Weather Service Saint Louis Missouri.
Over the last couple of decades, the monarch butterfly population has dwindled -- reduced by some 90 percent. Scientists have blamed the decline on habitat loss and herbicide use by industrial agriculture.
After an extremely small migration last year, some scientists worried the 3,000-mile monarch migration (though not the species itself) might be coming to an end. But this year's numbers have allayed such fears.
"Although the numbers were low this spring, we've had a good summer and generally the feeling is their numbers are increasing right now so that's a good thing," Dan Dufour, Point Pelee National Park naturalist, recently told The Windsor Star.