Natural History Wanderings

The San Francisco Chronicle reports

Forecasters working the Tuesday evening shift at the National Weather Service’s San Diego office were confused.

A large echo indicating rainfall showed up on weather radar over the San Gabriel Mountains near the town of Wrightwood, Calif. but there were no clouds in the sky.

It turns out a massive cloud of ladybugs, called a bloom, measuring 10 miles wide and 15 miles long was flying around above 5,000 feet elevation.

Read story and see images at 15-mile-long cloud of ladybugs over California appears on weather radar – SFGate