An Austin Weather Radar Picks Up Strange Image On A Clear Night

(Mix 93-1)  Texans are familiar with the phrase 'Keep Austin Weird', and, well, we pretty much let them keep to themselves to be weird!

When some weird things happen around the state capital, though, we Texans will take notice and wonder what's going on in the state's fifth-largest city.

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Something weird popped up on Austin's weather radar

While there were no storms in the area around Austin Monday evening, looking at the weather radar, you'd think there would be a pretty good rain event happening in Round Rock along I-35.

There was something in the air Monday night, and radar picked it up. According to a social media posting on Round Rock, Texas - City Government's page, they say this about the phenomenon:

Rain? No. BATS? YES!!! Nearly half a million bats emerge from the intersection of IH-35 and McNeil each night. Talk about a seriously batty phenomenon, y'all!

As you watch the video from the social media post, it's like all the bats emerge within a few minutes as they make their way around town and help themselves to a buffet of insects.

While there may be half a million bats in the Round Rock area each night, Austin itself has a huge population of bats that migrate to the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge every spring.

More than 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats roost under this bridge

This colony of bats draws thousands of tourists each spring just to watch them emerge at night. According to Google, the majority of these bats are female, and they migrate from Mexico to raise their pups under this Texas bridge.

What do the bats eat?

Once they leave their roost, they'll fly around using their sonar and collectively consume around 30,000 pounds of insects each night. Their diet will consist of:

• moths
• beetles
• dragonflies
• wasps
• gnats
• mosquitoes

So these little guys, who some people fear, actually aid in pest control around the state's capital.

They will begin to emerge 30 to 60 minutes before sunset and stay out feasting for about 45 minutes to an hour, weather dependent, of course.

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Austin offers several 'bat tours' that you can go on if you're interested. It is a bucket list item for many Texans.

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The bats will usually hang out here in Texas until October, when they begin to migrate back to Mexico.