We’ve all heard the expression “a bird’s eye view.” Imagine how cool it would be to fly high toward an incoming storm. You’d be able to see cloud layers lowering as the system approached and you’d get an early sampling of the inbound winds too.
Oh, to be a seagull! I guess you could say seagulls are our eyes ahead of an offshore storm. You might not know this, but seagulls are not especially fond of standing or walking. They’re naturally at home in flight and, where they can, they’ll even sleep on water rather than have to stand on land.
However, seagulls, like people, find gusty, turbulent wind difficult to contend with. Such conditions, typical ahead of a low-pressure system, also make the water quite choppy. So, when the winds start to gust, and the water begins to churn, these seagulls head for land.
- WEATHER UNIVERSITY: When they fly low, prepare for a blow
- GRANDMA SAYS: When the swallows fly high, the weather will be dry
After decades of careful observation, this little gem was born: “when seagulls gather over land, a change of weather is close at hand.” Can you blame them?
To be fair though, seagulls huddled on the ground are really not a predictor of bad weather as much as they are a sign that the weather is already bad, at least offshore.
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Cindy Day is the chief meteorologist for SaltWire Network.
