Will tomorrow still be a great morning to get out as predicted?

[Ira Sanders]

This is a question for all the scientific types out there. Since the forecast no longer is for lousy weather and rain in the morning, do you still predicted it to be one of those great mornings?
Ira Sanders
Golden, CO

[Bryan Guarente]

Great question!  So the first question to answer is, does it matter if it is raining or not?  If you are Ted Floyd out there in the middle of the night listening, maybe (it makes it harder to hear if it is raining).  But overall, I believe that it doesn't matter whether it is raining or not.  The winds are what matters and the clouds play an integral part in the night flight equation.  Now, as for the migration pattern, it still remains nearly the same with a minor deceleration of the entire system (depending on which computer model you believe).  This redistributes some of the bird movement, but not too much.  Here is the 6am Thursday map:

Clouds should increase throughout the night, and we still might see drizzle or rain in the morning, but it is less likely now.  The winds are making nice patterns now for more specific migration locations in the morning.  The two red arrows are giving us a clue to where the migration should be maximized.  The northern arrow is pointing to a corridor from Brighton through Fort Collins.  The southern arrow is pointing toward a corridor from Pueblo to La Junta.  Both of these are approximate.  I would say the more likely one to have more birds is the northern circulation because there is less need for the birds to turn toward the mountains and go back to the north.  However, one could still see birds locally converge on these spots, so it could still mean increased bird activity in those general areas.  There is also a convergence zone connecting the two circulations that will also play nicely for birds.  Here is a zoomed in map:

You can already see reflections of these circulations in the current surface observations:

http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/surface/displaySfc.php?region=den&endDate=20140911&endTime=-1&duration=0

That is an auto-updating map that should take you to the "current" observations.  At the time of me writing this, there are circulations forming around Longmont/Loveland and Pueblo.  I would personally pinpoint the areas where these circulations are in the morning.  Keep your eyes on the surface observations (specifically the winds) and try to figure out where they are pointing, and that is where you should point as well.  "Put the wind at your back and start walking."  or "Go where the winds take you."

Let the list know how your ventures go tomorrow and how that relates to today or yesterday.

Let me know if there are any questions and thank you to those of you who have back-channel thanked me.  I appreciate the kudos and also like doing this for the community to see how it plays out.  We are all learning more about the interconnections.  

Good luck.

Bryan Guarente

Instructional Designer/Meteorologist

UCAR/The COMET Program

Boulder, CO

[Bryan Guarente]

Just got back in (11:15) from an early night flight listening.  Had 53 night flight calls in 38 minutes.  That is WAY up from the normal, especially for a clear night (so far).  One data point for the data set.  Radar is lighting up a little as well if you want to use that.  Had 5 species (guesstimate) including Chipping Sparrow and Wilson's Warbler.

Good luck out there.  

Bryan

Bryan Guarente

Instructional Designer/Meteorologist

UCAR/The COMET Program

Boulder, CO

[Bryan Guarente]

Another run at Night Flight Calls and I produced 19 calls in two minutes (all spizella type calls - upsweeping "tseeps").  And the clouds haven't even started to cover up the skies.

Bryan

Bryan Guarente

Instructional Designer/Meteorologist

UCAR/The COMET Program

Boulder, CO

[David Wade]

I found this site: http://hint.fm/wind/   interesting because it visually represents the winds terminating precisely in the area Brian described, at least, I think so. I am assuming where the lines converge and get more concentrated are the areas most likely to have the highest  number of birds. That's my plan for tomorrow anyway.

David Wade

Fort Collins, CO

[Ted Floyd]

Hello, Birders.

Here's a real-time report from Lafayette, eastern Boulder County, ca. 4:20 a.m., Thurs. morning, Sept. 11. Low cloud ceiling, 51 degrees Fahrenheit, winds out of the north. We're not quite yet down to the dew point, but with all the humidity, it should be a mess if the temp drops another degree or two.

Haven't heard a peep--I mean a tsweep--in the 20 minutes I've been out here.

Regarding upsweeping tsweeps, I agree that they can be Spizella sparrows. Also Vesper Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, and Orange-crowned Warblers.

All the Spizellas (well, n=2) on a quick check yesterday afternoon (Wednesday, Sept. 10) of Greenlee Preserve, Boulder County, were Clay-colors, for what it's worth. And a decent pulse of Orange-crowned Warblers (but Wilson's still dominating). A Gray Flycatcher was a nice empid (Dusky seen and heard, too).

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado

[Karl Stecher Jr.]

Thanks, Ted.

Centennial (Orchard and Colorado Blvd):

Really damp out,,,East Coast bone chilling high humidity. Mild NE breeze,
under 3 mph, or stillness. One seep in 5 minutes...Around midnight I heard
about one bird every 2 min. Back to bed, see what's around in a couple of
hours.

Karl Stecher
Centennial

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[Nick Komar]

In answer to Bryan’s request for reports from the field, visits to several locations in Fort Collins/Wellington area of north-central Colorado (eastern Larimer County) both yesterday and today suggest that there was very little turnover in birds present. Most of the birding both mornings was at Cobb Lake SWA in Wellington. Very birdy, but essentially the same birds both mornings.

Bryan, did the expected weather pattern change? Or does your prediction model need tweaking?

Nick Komar

Fort Collins CO

On Sep 10, 2014, at 9:09 PM, Bryan Guarente ...[snip]...

Let the list know how your ventures go tomorrow and how that relates to today or yesterday.

Bryan Guarente

Instructional Designer/Meteorologist

UCAR/The COMET Program

Boulder, CO

--

[Ted Floyd]

Hello, Birders.

My experiences in Lafayette, eastern Boulder County, today, Thursday, Sept. 11, were more or less aligned with those reported by others. Basically, the birds around my local patch, Greenlee Preserve, seemed about the same as in recent days, with Orange-crowned and especially Wilson's warblers dominating. I heard a Northern Waterthrush at the preserve; it was in exactly the same location as where I found one on Saturday, Sept. 6, so I think it may have been the same individual.

Ironically, in light of the heavy night calling reported earlier on the night of Sept. 10-11, I heard *nothing* from 4am onward. It's the first time this year since before July 18 that I heard no night flight calls at all. The conditions sure seemed perfect, what with the light north wind and low cloud ceiling--not to mention what Bryan Guarente was hearing just ~10 miles north of me a few hours earlier. The equations of Einstein's theory of general relativity are easy compared to predicting migration!

I applaud Bryan for encouraging us to get out there and try to figure out what's going on with weather and migration.

Oh, and I'll be out there again in a few hours... :-)

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County, Colorado

[Bryan Guarente]

COBirders,

Multiple people went birding today on my word.  Multiple people didn't see a change in fortune from previous days.  But others did.  What happened?  

You may remember what the computer model output looked like showing two distinct areas of convergence and circulation.  

Did those pan out this morning at 6am like predicted?  Here is what the surface winds looked like at that same time.  The previous map is derived from a forecast model (commonly used by the National Weather Service).  The following map is what was actually going on at 6am this morning.

The X and the blue line are my annotation.  The "X" is the center of the circulation.  The blue line is the axis of maximum convergence (i.e., where the bird convergence would be maximized).  Did anyone bird along or near the blue line?  I would love to hear if people birded north of the line and if people birded south of that line.  Both data points would be really useful.

So the forecast model was incorrect in localized placement of circulation centers and convergence.  This isn't uncommon.  And I was incorrect in believing the locations of these circulations.  Let us know what you may have seen around that blue line and that will help us solve some of the problems involved.  Let's keep brainstorming ways to pinpoint bird migration with weather patterns and test our hypotheses to find out what works best.  Without testing it and watching it "fail" at times, we won't be able to figure out the solutions.  I see some highlights of the migration reports being from near the blue line, but we need a larger sample size to help answer the questions.

Thanks for participating in this online forum and I hope to hear more reports.

Bryan Guarente

Instructional Designer/Meteorologist

UCAR/The COMET Program

Boulder, CO