NOAA Interactive Weather Map

19 years ago

I think this is an interesting weather map. You can click on the table on the left side and advance by half days at a time, and then rest the mouse pointer on different things like temperature, or snow cover, wind, or whatever. The map will display a color-coded output. You can look at the entire country, or you can zoom in on your particular part of the country by clicking on your city.

The obvious thing to look at now is the amazing cold temperatures gripping the midwest, mid-atlantic and New England. This big freeze is even reaching down into northern Texas. Weather systems like this cannot be good for those early arrivals that were very recently seen as far north as Chicago and Cleveland. I hope they've found themselves a reliable food source. Even so, with night time temps dipping into the low 20's, it's going to be tough on them. It's sad to think that some won't make it.

I just put out three 50ml, half full feeders, just in case someone shows up. I don't think any will, but I'd hate to think they would perish from cold and lack of food.

Here is a link that might be useful: NOAA weather map

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Comments (3)

sidk
19 years ago
I though you were talking about the radar maps where you can watch birds migrating.

Here is a link that might be useful: Birds on the Move
penny1947
19 years ago
I have one feeder out but am having a hard time keeping it thawed since our daytime temps are in the mid 20's. I just made another batch of nectar last night and I am putting out a window feeder today in the front that will be flanked on each side of the window feeder by an arborvitae (SP?) and a Rhododendron giving it more protection so that one may stay fluid. No temps above 32 here for at least another 2-3 days.

Penny
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kristin_williams
Original Author
19 years ago
Penny, I'm not sure exactly where you are, but just looked up temperatures for Buffalo, NY, and they're running 3-6 degrees colder than ours! We're getting just above freezing each day, late in the afternoon, but it looks like you are staying just below.

Did you see my earlier post, "Freezing point of 4:1 sugar solution?" I linked to an article about the freezing point of standard 4:1, plus methods to keep feeders from freezing. I'm not sure I really understood how to do what he was saying, but he offered two suggestions of either a lamp or some sort of plumber's heating wire. Anyway, if you didn't see it, and want to keep your feeders from freezing, you might want to take a look at it and see if you can make any sense of it. By the way, he said the freezing point of 4:1 is about 26-27 degrees Fahrenheit, since the dissolved sugar lowers the natural freezing point of water. I imagine if you used a stronger solution like 3:1 (and I think you do anyway) it might freeze at an even lower temperature. Still, it looks like you're getting down to 20 degrees or so, so I guess you would need those extra measures.

By this morning, our temperatures had dropped to 23 degrees, and right now have risen to about 28 degrees. I brought my feeders inside last night, fell asleep on the couch, and awoke at some god-awful hour like 3am, and decided to put them out again. Fortunately they survived the night half full, and the glass bottles didn't break. They're now liquid, thank heavens.

Sidk, thanks for the radar article. Interesting. I've read about those Nexrad radar pictures and have looked at NOAA's base reflectivity pictures, but even though I've read some articles, as an amateur it's hard to understand them. I wish there was a site that would interpret current images periodically. Of course, that would be logistically impossible to do for the whole country. Still, I've tried to figure out how to interpret them myself, but have had a hard time. It's fun for migrating birds in general, but I don't think it is all that useful for hummingbirds, since it is thought that they don't migrate in big flocks as do other birds.