A freak of luck has let researchers document warblers fleeing their territories before temperatures, air pressure or other obvious weather signs foretold the arrival of a tornado-spawning storm.
Henry Streby of the University of California, Berkeley and colleagues had fitted lightweight but frustratingly simple data-collecting devices on tiny golden-winged warblers (Vermivora chrysoptera) in 2013 to see where the birds wintered. The devices were too simple to transmit data, so the team had to catch the same warblers in 2014 to recover any information.
Just as the team was assembling for data catching, a storm triggering 84 tornadoes slashed through the southeastern United States in April, killing at least 35 people and causing extensive property damage. The warblers apparently sensed it coming.
