NORMAN, Okla., July 23 (UPI) — A swarm of grasshoppers and beetles is headed from Texas to Oklahoma, having last been spotted by weather radar near the Red River border on Wednesday.
The swarm of bugs was picked up by the radar systems of the National Weather Service of Norman, Oklahoma.
“We don’t know if they will reach us, but they are making impressive time,” Norman’s KFOR News Channel 4 reported on Wednesday night.
Check it out! Rangers at Copper Breaks State Park confirmed the radar is picking up grasshoppers & beetles! #texomawx pic.twitter.com/lBWjvai7Zw— NWS Norman (@NWSNorman) July 22, 2015
Weather scientists in the Sooner State weren’t able to immediately determine the nature of the yellow and green swirl, but most knew from experience that a gathering of insects was likely responsible.
“It’s fairly common during the warm season,” Forrest Mitchell, Observations Program Leader at Norman’s NWS office, told Popular Science. “It’s a testament of the sensitivity of the radars we use.”
Rangers at Copper Breaks State Park in Quanah, Texas — a town on the Red River, which divides Texas and Oklahoma — confirmed the swarm was made up of grasshoppers and beetles.
The swirling collection of insects measured 50 miles across. Some of the bugs were flying as high as 2,500 feet.
As Mitchell alluded, this isn’t the first time a massive collection of flying creatures took on the appearance of a weather system. Last summer, radar picked up monarch butterflies near St. Louis and a grasshopper swarm near Albuquerque.