US

Weather Radar Reportedly Picks Up Giant Cicada Cloud Over Maryland

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Melanie Wilcox Contributor
Font Size:

Radar images taken at 11:41 a.m. on Monday reportedly showed a cloud of cicadas swarming the Baltimore-Washington D.C. metropolitan area.

NBC4 Washington’s Lauryn Rickets tweeted the weather radar images reportedly showing the cloud of cicadas. “THIS is not rain, not ground clutter (the radar beam picking up objects close the radar site –which is in Loudoun County)…. the Hydrometeor Classification algorithm identifies this as biological in nature..so likely CICADAS being picked up by the radar beam,” she wrote on Twitter.

NWS Baltimore-Washington also tweeted, “You may have noticed a lot of fuzziness (low reflectivity values) on our radar recently. The Hydrometeor Classification algorithm shows much of it to be Biological in nature. Our guess? It’s probably the #cicadas.”

Billions of Brood X cicadas have emerged across the East Coast after spending 17 years underground, CBS News reported. People in northern Georgia have reportedly called 9-1-1 after hearing what they perceived to be loud-sounding alarms, however, it was only the cacophony of cicadas, which can make noise up to 105 decibels, according to Associated Press. (RELATED: ‘F*cking Cicada’: CNN Reporter Absolutely Loses It As Huge Bug Crawls Up His Neck On Camera)