Birds 'Heard' the Storm that Spawned 84 Tornadoes and Fled a Day Ahead

It's difficult to predict exactly where a tornado will strike. While weather forecasts can detail the likelihood that a storm might spawn one of these wind storms, it's still hard to say whether or not the prediction is 100 percent correct. Now, though, scientists have found that birds may be better at predicting storms than we are. It turns out that golden-winged warblers apparently knew in advance that a storm that would spawn 84 confirmed tornadoes was coming.

The discovery actually came accidentally. At the time, the researchers were testing whether the warblers could carry geolocators on their backs. As the birds were being tested, they took off from their breeding ground in the Cumberland Mountains of eastern Tennessee, where they had only just arrived. Then they proceeded to travel 1,500 kilometers in five days; why? Apparently it was to avoid the massive storm that produced a historic amount of tornadoes.

"The most curious finding is that the birds left long before the storm arrived," said Henry Streby, one of the researchers, in a news release. "At the same time that meteorologists on The Weather Channel were telling us this storm was headed in our direction, the birds were apparently already packing their bags and evacuating the area."

The birds jumped ship about 24 hours before the arrival of the storm. Although scientists aren't sure exactly what tipped them off, they think that the birds predicted the storm by listening to infrasound associated with the severe weather, at a level well below the range of human hearing.

"Our observation suggests [that] birds aren't just going to sit there and take it with regards to climate change, and maybe they will fare better than some have predicted," said Streby. "On the other hand, this behavior presumably costs the birds some serious energy and time they should be spending on reproducing."

Next year, the scientists plan to deploy hundreds of geolocators on the warblers and related species in order to find out where they spend the winter and how they get there and back. And if another storm hits, they'll get to see how the birds react, as well.

The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).