The insects, believed to be ladybirds, were thought to be travelling in such a dense mass meteorologists thought it was an approaching thunderstorm. The San Diego office for the National Weather Service tweeted a map of the huge insect cloud, which has since been retweeted thousands of times.
“But on our radar, we were seeing something that indicated there was something out there.”
Meteorologist Casey Oswant said: “It was very strange because it was a relatively clear day and we were not really expecting any rain or thunderstorms.
“But on our radar, we were seeing something that indicated there was something out there.”
It was very strange because it was a relatively clear day and we were not really expecting any rain or thunderstorms
Meteorologist Casey Oswant
Local weather reporters were subsequently asked to check what was happening outside but there was no rain, despite the radar detecting tiny rain-sized droplets.
But the reporter then spotted lots of ladybirds and concluded the “mysterious blob” was actually a swarm of insects flying overhead.
Scientists believe the polka-dot bugs were flying at an altitude of one to two miles and the actual main mass of the supposed swarm was 10 miles not 80.
The US west coast is home to 200 different species of ladybird so scientists are not sure which kind they were, although they believe they could have been the common Hippodamia convergens variety.
Ladybirds are known for migrating but do not usually do so at this time of year in such large numbers.
Researchers think that an unusually wet and rainy winter could have resulted in more ladybirds surviving.
This would have resulted them waking from hibernation at the same time and searching for food en mass.
However, some scientists think that the ladybird swarm theory is too odd to believe and the National Weather Service still need to prove that it is true.
However the strange floating blob has now completely disappeared from the weather radar so will forever remain a mystery.
Technicians reportedly had to call observers on the ground to find out the nature of the huge radar return moving across the south of the state.
“The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of lady bugs termed a ‘bloom’,” the National Weather Service’s (NWS) San Diego station tweeted on Wednesday.
Joe Dandrea, a meteorologist in that office, saw the echo and called a spotter in the San Bernadino mountains for more information.
Technicians reportedly had to call observers on the ground to find out the nature of the huge radar return moving across the south of the state.
“The large echo showing up on SoCal radar this evening is not precipitation, but actually a cloud of lady bugs termed a ‘bloom’,” the National Weather Service’s (NWS) San Diego station tweeted on Wednesday.
Joe Dandrea, a meteorologist in that office, saw the echo and called a spotter in the San Bernadino mountains for more information.
He said: “The observer there said you could see little specks flying by. I don’t think they’re dense like a cloud.”
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