In addition to the surreal feeling that 2020 has consisted of a series of Exodus-style pests, a huge swarm of flying ants swept across the UK on Saturday, and the swarm was so huge and so dense that it was mistakenly identified by the weather radar as rain .
The British were understandably confused when the UK Meteorological Office (known as the Meteorological Office) showed a weather map on Sunday showing it was raining in various places where absolutely no precipitation fell.
The Meteorological Office Twitter account quickly tried to clear things up and shyly admitted that a giant cloud of flying ants was to blame for the accident.
It is not raining in London, Kent or Sussex, but our radar says otherwise … radar The radar is actually picking up a sw … https://t.co/6OMtZMy9Or
– Met Office (@Met Office) 1594982457.0
Some initial reports wrongly claimed that the ant cloud was so large that it was visible from space, but the Meteorological Office quickly cleared up any confusion about it.
Twitter
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The radar error was due to a phenomenon known as Flying Ant Day, which occurs once a year in the UK. Flying ants across the country leave their nests in a frantic search for mates. As a result, billions of ants fly through the skies at virtually the same time. It should be noted that there is at least some amount of scientific disagreement as to whether Flying Ant Day is a misconception and that some scientists have suggested that the existence of a single Flying Ant Day is really a myth fueled by the people phenomenon. commenting on this repeatedly on social media.
Either way, this particular cloud of flying ants was clearly unusual. BBC meteorologist Bryan King said this was the largest insect cloud he had ever seen in the UK: “For it to really show up on radar images, that’s an amazing thing, and I feel sorry for all the people who have experience those flying ants. ”
Perhaps equally pestilential were the huge flocks of seagulls that reportedly flocked to the cloud to feast on flying ants.
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