DuckCast

DuckCast reads the weather that moves ducks, then checks it against the radar.

Ninety hunting regions across ten states, each scored 0 to 10 for mallards, pintails, gadwall, wigeon, green-winged teal, and snow geese. Nine each in North Dakota, Arkansas, Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas, from the Souris basin down to the Texas coast. Every score shows its work.

RADAR CHECK
The forecast predicts. Radar measures the birds.

DuckCast decodes raw NEXRAD Level II radar volumes and reads what was actually in the air over your region after sunset last night. It measures how much bird mass lifted off, which way it tracked, and how fast it flew under its own power once the wind aloft is removed. Bugs drift with the wind. Birds fly through it. That difference is how the app tells them apart.

Thirty-five radar sites cover them, from Minot down to Corpus Christi.

One limit, stated plainly: radar sees every bird in the air, not just ducks. Read it as proof that a migration happened, not as a duck count.

THE SCORE, AND WHY
Eight factors, each visible and arguing for or against:
Cold front and temperature trend
Wind direction and speed
Freeze north of you
Snow advance upstream
Local open water and holding
Season timing
Crop harvest and field feed
What other hunters are reporting

You can disagree with the number because you can see how it was built. Every region opens to a full breakdown and a 14 day outlook.

UPSTREAM WATCH
Ducks arrive from somewhere. DuckCast watches the ground they are leaving. Southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba above North Dakota. The mid-Mississippi valley above Arkansas. Iowa and Illinois above Missouri. Arkansas and west Tennessee above Mississippi. For South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, the state directly north, which DuckCast already scores. Fifty-six upstream stations in all. When shallow water starts locking up north of you, you see it before the birds show up.

TOMORROW'S HUNT
Legal light, sunrise, sunset, moon phase, hour by hour wind and temperature, and a decoy score that tells you whether the sky will work your spread or blow it out.

LIVE MIGRATION MAP
Every state drawn from real county boundaries, colored by score, with an animated tracer running the real forecast wind field. Tap any region to open. An All States map puts the whole network on one screen, freeze line included.

TRI