Abetted by strong tailwinds over the central Gulf, a big flight of migrants made the trip from the Yucatan last night in under twelve hours–a blistering pace.  They first appeared on the Slidell and Mobile radars just after dawn, and with temperatures still cool and winds still generous, most of them cruised right past the coast and are lighting up the Jackson radar at altitudes up to at least 5,000 feet.  There’s little to slow them down this morning apart from sheer exhaustion, and with ground speeds upwards of 50 knots, they may cover a good bit more ground.  Here’s the animation from this morning so far:

Thanks to a big exodus last night, the cold front due to come through this evening–a carbon-copy of Friday’s tornado-spawning monster–may not ground many inland migrants.  On the other hand, this front is predicted to slow to a creep over MS in the face of those strong Gulf southerlies, so we may be in for a couple of days of disturbed–and interesting–weather.

Look for another strong, fast trans-Gulf flight tonight, this one deflected more eastward toward AL and FL, as the 850 mb wind forecast (below) suggests.  These birds will likely overshoot coastal areas as well, and the storms won’t be arriving in time to generate a fallout.  Tomorrow night could be different.