Spider Webs in the Sky? The Most Bizarre PIREPs You Will Ever See

Prepare for Takeoff... Into a Spiderweb?! Pilots in Northern California have reported a truly bizarre phenomenon: spiderwebs floating in the sky! Imagine cruising along, enjoying the view, when suddenly... you're flying through a bunch of spiderwebs. It sounds like the start of a B-movie, but this actually happened!

Pilots flying between Modesto (KMOD) and Sacramento (KSMF) received repeated warnings from ATC about "spider webs on your route of flight." One pilot even found what looked like silly string (the really strong kind) stuck to their plane after landing. We're not talking about your friendly neighborhood spiderwebs here. Pilots encountered webs as high as 5,000 feet, with some stretching up to 6 feet long! One pilot even flew through over 50 nautical miles of these aerial obstacles.

The prevalence of these arachnid obstructions led pilots to file PIREPs (Pilot Reports), and these reports are a goldmine of bizarre aviation encounters:

SCK UA /OV OAKEY/TM 1519/FL050/TP C172/RM SPIDERWEBS FROM OAKEY 20M EAST AT 050

SCK UA /OV CCR070018-CCR070038/TM 1519/FL050/TP C172/RM SPIDER WEBS

SCK UA /OV SCK256012/TM 1540/FL035/TP C172/RM SPIDER WEBS

It's hard to imagine the sheer scale of this. Here's a picture of what one of these webs might look like.

Now, picture that, but denser, stretching for 50 nautical miles... It's enough to make your skin crawl (pun intended)! I got the above image from this YouTube video.

How Do Spiders Fly? It's Electric! ⚡🕸️

But how do these eight-legged aviators get so high? It turns out, some spider species use strands of web as a kind of "balloon" to travel vast distances. But there's more to the story: they also harness the power of the atmosphere's electric fields.

Spiders can take off and fly through the air, even with minimal wind, by ejecting a single strand of web. This strand interacts with the naturally occurring electric fields, propelling them upwards like a tiny, silken rocket.

This "ballooning" technique explains how these webs end up at such high altitudes and over such large areas. As AskNature.org explains, spiders "surf" on these electric fields!

So, if you're planning a flight over Northern California, keep your eyes peeled for these surprising, sky-high obstacles. It's a jungle (or rather, a web) out there!

Aviation is full of surprises, and sometimes, the PIREPs are just as entertaining as they are informative. So, the next time you're flying over NorCal, keep an eye out for spiderwebs and take a moment to marvel at the incredible, gravity-defying artistry of these airborne arachnids. And if you happen to see a spider in your cockpit? Relax. Odds are, it's just hitching a ride, and not planning to redecorate your instrument panel with webbing.

Thanks to the wonderful folks of Reddit for bringing this to my attention. Got a weird METAR/PIREP/NOTAM/aviation tidbit? I want to hear about it!

And did I say that I now have a subreddit for PaperMETAR? Come join the community!