April 19th, 2015

Tonight's radar, showing more
rain than birds.

Good evening,

Well folks, in comparison to last night's very apparent migration, things have definitely quieted down tonight. A collection of low pressure centers, cold fronts, and dry lines (see left) have done a number of the conditions that we had last night. While winds are southwesterly in most places, the full story is quite a bit more complicated. View it here on the wind map. What do these conditions mean? Powerful winds, dynamic pressure, and precipitation are basically keeping birds earthbound tonight. While some birds are moving now in southeastern Illinois, precipitation moving eastward will soon put an end to that. In short, few arrivals or influxes expected for tomorrow.

Tonight's winds

With that in mind, what does the forecast present us with? Good question, fellow forecaster! Tomorrow night is forecast to be dominated by westerly winds, which may allow light concentrations of migration. Tuesday night, as predicted last night is still the next time for southerly winds. But, as often happens, the forecast has changed. As it's depicted now, winds are forecast to be favorable southerly in only the southern half of the state. The northern half will be steeped in less favorable west/northwesterly winds. As is our M.O., we'll keep an eye on the radar and see what happens.

Now that we've covered that, all that's left is to link our handy eBird page.

Thanks for reading, everybody! Good luck to all those birding tomorrow!

Winds forecast for Tuesday night