HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Three strange circles showed up on a weather radar in Huntsville, Alabama on Sunday morning — and before people begin assuming it’s aliens, a meteorologist in Alabama has an explanation.
“I noticed a curious feature on the radar this morning. Within the span of 60 minutes, a few “donut rings” developed over Rainsville, Winchester, Huntsville and west Decatur,” Meteorologist Christina Edwards wrote on the WHNT Weather Blog.
Edwards said there was no reported rain across the area this morning, despite what was shown on the radar.
So what caused the rings?
Edwards writes:
“Purple Martins — which are migratory birds — have been reported in the Rainsville area recently, and given the proximity of one of the “rings” in Rainsville, the radar imagery is indicating the location and movement of Purple Martin roosts departing their nests this morning.”
According to research published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin, weather radar can detect about 80 percent of the roost departures that occur in its surveillance region, and purple martins in particular tend to depart about 40 minutes prior to sunrise (in this case, 5:10 a.m. as indicated by the radar imagery. Sunday’s sunrise was 5:57 a.m.).
Their departure resembles an annulus, or ring, that can spread as far as 50 to 100 kilometers, or 30 to 60 miles, from the original roosting site.
Using radar data, the researchers also determined that the purple martins can reach flight speeds as high as 13.4 meters per second, or roughly 30 mph.
In addition to birds, weather radars can also detect bats, bugs, buildings, trees, and even trucks as they head down the highway. This is why you can see “green” on a radar, even when no rain is available to produce a signal.
Radar energy will “bounce” off of any object present in the atmosphere, rain or shine.
