Cloudy with a chance of moths: bogong swarms are bamboozling weather radars across NSW

Bogong moth storm … weather radars across NSW have been picking up swarms of the insect as rain. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

It was during Sydney’s Olympic Games in 2000, people say, that a swarm of bogong moths attracted by stadium lights was so huge that meteorologists mistook it for rain.

Fast forward 26 years and the bogongs are back in big numbers. And, this time, they are firmly on the radar.