Birds are able to sense the approach of severe weather such as a tornado approaching and leave the nesting area before such storms hit, according to a latest research.

In what U.S. scientists are calling 'evacuation migration' golden-winged warblers were found to unexpectedly flee their nesting grounds 2 days before 84 tornadoes struck the area.

The event took place in April 2014. A tornado outbreak spread across southern and central United States, producing multiple long-track tornadoes that killed 35 people.

Geolocators showed the birds, left the Appalachians and flew 700km south to the Gulf of Mexico. The Current Biology report indicates birds might sense and escape extreme events in this way.

Working with colleagues from the Universities of Minnesota and Tennessee, Dr. Henry Streby, from the University of California, Berkeley, tagged 20 golden-winged warblers in May 2013, in the Cumberland Mountains of north-eastern Tennessee.

The birds are often seen around the Appalachian Mountains and Great Lakes, where they breed and nest every summer.

After disappearing to Colombia for the winter, 10 of the tagged warblers returned in April 2014. The team was in the field observing them when they received advance warning of the tornadoes.

After the storm had blown over, the team recaptured 5 of the warblers and removed the geolocators. These are small devices weighing about half a gram, which measure light levels.

Based on the length and timing of the days they record, geolocators allow scientists to calculate and track the approximate location of migratory birds. In this case, all 5 indicated that the birds had taken unprecedented evasive action, beginning one to two days ahead of the storm's arrival.

The birds escaped south of the tornadoes' path - and then went straight home again. By 2nd May, all 5 were back in their nesting area.

The warblers' evacuation started while the closest tornado was still hundreds of miles away. Weather conditions in the nesting area were still nothing out of the ordinary.

The likely tip-off was the deep rumble that tornadoes produce, well below what humans can hear. Noise in this "infrasound" range travels thousands of kilometers, and might serve as something of an early warning system for animals that can pick it up.