CNN)You can add giant swarms of flying ants to your 2020 scary-sounding insects Bingo card alongside murder hornets and hordes of noisy cicadas.

The UK’s Met Office shared radar imagery that showed the ants flying over the southeast part of the country.

“It’s not raining in London, Kent or Sussex, but our radar says otherwise,” it said in a tweet on Friday.

It looked like rain on the radar, but a meteorologist with the country’s weather agency said it was “dry, hot and sunny” at the time. The swarm was visible on radar for about two hours on Friday morning.

The forecasters’ satellites didn’t show enough clouds to produce rain in the area, she said.

They suspected insects because the particles didn’t look like raindrops and were longer than they are wide — like a bug.

Their hunch was confirmed when people in the area started posting about the swarm with the hashtags #flyingants and #flyingantday.

There were also reports along the eastern part of the country that did not show up on radar, she said.

The ants’ have become a summer tradition in Britain and many people call their annual appearance Flying Ant Day.

When the Blue Tiger Butterflies were on earlier this year, and the White Caper Butterflies were on a few years back, they showed up on radar here.

dv said:

CNN)You can add giant swarms of flying ants to your 2020 scary-sounding insects Bingo card alongside murder hornets and hordes of noisy cicadas.

The UK’s Met Office shared radar imagery that showed the ants flying over the southeast part of the country.

“It’s not raining in London, Kent or Sussex, but our radar says otherwise,” it said in a tweet on Friday.

It looked like rain on the radar, but a meteorologist with the country’s weather agency said it was “dry, hot and sunny” at the time. The swarm was visible on radar for about two hours on Friday morning.

The forecasters’ satellites didn’t show enough clouds to produce rain in the area, she said.

They suspected insects because the particles didn’t look like raindrops and were longer than they are wide — like a bug.

Their hunch was confirmed when people in the area started posting about the swarm with the hashtags #flyingants and #flyingantday.

There were also reports along the eastern part of the country that did not show up on radar, she said.

The ants’ have become a summer tradition in Britain and many people call their annual appearance Flying Ant Day.

Must have caused quite a stir in 1940.

Peak Warming Man said:

dv said:

CNN)You can add giant swarms of flying ants to your 2020 scary-sounding insects Bingo card alongside murder hornets and hordes of noisy cicadas.

The UK’s Met Office shared radar imagery that showed the ants flying over the southeast part of the country.

“It’s not raining in London, Kent or Sussex, but our radar says otherwise,” it said in a tweet on Friday.

It looked like rain on the radar, but a meteorologist with the country’s weather agency said it was “dry, hot and sunny” at the time. The swarm was visible on radar for about two hours on Friday morning.

The forecasters’ satellites didn’t show enough clouds to produce rain in the area, she said.

They suspected insects because the particles didn’t look like raindrops and were longer than they are wide — like a bug.

Their hunch was confirmed when people in the area started posting about the swarm with the hashtags #flyingants and #flyingantday.

There were also reports along the eastern part of the country that did not show up on radar, she said.

The ants’ have become a summer tradition in Britain and many people call their annual appearance Flying Ant Day.

Must have caused quite a stir in 1940.

probably not as the wavelength of the radar signals in that time would have been too long to pick them up. not until later when centimetre radar was developed, the BOM uses 5.6GHz, ~6cm.

I wonder how many critters there are in such a swarm.

Even if there is a good amount of space between them, like only 10 to the cubic metre, then you’re still easily looking at 10 trillion.

oh how things have changed in 10 years

next there’ll be a plague of gloworms

mor on ants

Ogmog said:

mor on ants

repaired the 404.

dv said:

I wonder how many critters there are in such a swarm.

Even if there is a good amount of space between them, like only 10 to the cubic metre, then you’re still easily looking at 10 trillion.

That’s a good question. I’ll think about it. The density of moths detected by radar over the USA in a David Attenborough was a lot less than 1 per cubic metre, perhaps more like 1 moth per 100 cubic metres.

You may want to look up the Radar Entomology Website. http://radarentomology.com.au/observation-campaigns/

Dozens of different insect species have been tracked by radar. Moths, beetles, locusts, bees, mosquitos, aphids, crickets, planthopper, etc. But ants seems to be new.

There are multiple insect-detecting radars currently in operation in Australia. Insects have been tracked by radar in Australia since 1971.

mollwollfumble said:

dv said:

I wonder how many critters there are in such a swarm.

Even if there is a good amount of space between them, like only 10 to the cubic metre, then you’re still easily looking at 10 trillion.

That’s a good question. I’ll think about it. The density of moths detected by radar over the USA in a David Attenborough was a lot less than 1 per cubic metre, perhaps more like 1 moth per 100 cubic metres.

You may want to look up the Radar Entomology Website. http://radarentomology.com.au/observation-campaigns/

Dozens of different insect species have been tracked by radar. Moths, beetles, locusts, bees, mosquitos, aphids, crickets, planthopper, etc. But ants seems to be new.

There are multiple insect-detecting radars currently in operation in Australia. Insects have been tracked by radar in Australia since 1971.

Estimates of swarm sizes … don’t know. The following have shown up on radar.

“Tens of millions” of ladybugs.
“Millions” of flying ants. “Billions” of flying ants.
“Millions” of dragonflies.
“Millions” of mayflies. “Up to 88 billion” mayflies can swarm.
“Billions” of fishflies.

Would have to read a technical article to get a reliable number for any of these.