It’s a bird. It’s a plane. False alarm: It’s a swarm of mayflies and midges. ☁️ As the air grows cooler and damper during Northeast Ohio summers, these two critters leave their homes in the bottom of Lake Erie to live outside the water for a few days. When enough of the insects swarm, they appear on weather radars in Northeast Ohio, says National Weather Service Cleveland meteorologist Rick Garuckas. “A radar sends out a pulse of energy that looks for any particles or objects in the atmosphere, whether that be raindrops, hailstones, snowflakes — or could be other objects, such as insects or any sort of debris in the air,” he says. “Insects are small; the radar is not gonna be able to detect individual insects. But if there's a big cloud of them, like a swarm of mayflies or midges, that's dense enough where the radar is going to reflect it back, and we'll see a light green or blue return.” 🔗 Read more about these insects at the link in bio — and stay tuned for more animal stories du...